Hacker News Reader

Comment by wait_a_minute | Hacker News Reader

That's one of the biggest problems I have with Star Trek. If we were literally gods by comparison to some fledgling species, the only ethical approach would be to elevate them and cure their diseases and advance their knowledge as quickly as humanly possible.

View on HN

The ideals behind the Prime Directive were from Vulcan influence. The theory behind it is they tried to do exactly that and it led to disaster in every case.

A lot of scifi shows have been influenced by this. In Stargate SG-1 (spoilers):

The Tollan civilization were humans taken from earth millennia ago that developed science faster than us and ended up being one of the most advanced races in the galaxy. They gave a source of limitless energy to more primitive aliens on a nearby planet in their solar system (think Mars versus Earth) and those aliens weaponized it and blew up part of their own planet. It messed up the Tollan's own planer's orbit, so they had to find a new planet and now don't share any technology.

Just watched that one a few days ago!

I'm just really skeptical that an advanced species like that couldn't figure out the appropriate way to save another species from destruction/stagnation without collapsing everything. Just feels like an immensely negative perspective when we could easily just choose a more positive one.

Imagine a race of ultra-advanced aliens were to give us technology that keeps us not only alive indefinitely, but robust and healthy, without disease. Just that one piece of technology. Not even weird weapons like antimatter bombs, etc.

Do you think humanity would suddenly come together in understanding and peace to explore the stars and advance ourselves... or do you think people who already have enormous wealth and power would keep themselves positioned such that their influence and control grows?

Yeah...

We're not fucking worthy of that kind of technology. Neither are any other species.

Its the struggle to acquire knowledge and power that gives you the wisdom to use it for beneficial purposes. This is the whole core of Ian Malcolm's speech to John Hammond in Jurassic Park (the book), but also to a lesser extent, the movie.

We've never experienced this or had the chance to do it, so all we have to go off of are parallels to how we interact with each other. If we did this for others, we'd need to mentor and guide them into the future. If others did this for us, they'd need to do the same rather than just boost our tech and then abandon us.

I'm optimistic that if it happened to us, even in the limited hypothetical you presented, we'd rapidly transform as a species for the better. Now, if that would've happened 50 years ago or longer...not so optimistic.

Well no, but people would be robust and healthy, without disease. And IMO, that's a positive even if all our other failings are still there.

And it would certainly be an improved platform for us to build upon and advance even more.

For the individual, yes, but for society? Death is nature's term limit. Without it we'd be under a Pharaoh with bronze-age ethics.

Unless we figure out how to drastically extend our lifespans or do away with death altogether, although who even knows if it's possible...

>Imagine a race of ultra-advanced aliens were to give us technology that keeps us not only alive indefinitely, but robust and healthy, without disease. Just that one piece of technology. Not even weird weapons like antimatter bombs, etc.

I think that exactly what happened 2000 years ago. Unfortunately we just failed to understand most of the info and it got lost "in translation" due to communication barrier. The good thing is they did promise to return and try again when hopefully our development and ability to understand would get a bit more advanced.

It’s reasonable to try it, but that could also fail quite spectacularly which was the actual justification. Further, their where many examples of such failures. Honestly, I found the idea quite refreshing as it suggests Star Fleet incompetence was the root issue rather than pure ethics. And really understanding the culture, biology, politics, etc of an alien species well enough to be a net positive across generations is an extremely difficult task.

I do appreciate this nuance. If it was primarily because Star Fleet was afraid to mess up, that's understandable. But if I were to see a fledgling species being struck down by some disease or natural calamity, I think in reality it'd make more sense to at least try to save them and elevate them than to just life extinguish that way.

Check out Iain M. Banks's "Culture" novels for a sci fi society that takes that approach to other civilizations. The Culture tries to raise up every lesser species of aliens to their own level of hedonist, post-scarcity wealth and technology. "The Player of Games" is both a good introduction to the series and an example of their cultural outreach at work.

Thanks a ton, will definitely check those out as I've not yet seen any writing that explores this idea.

>The Culture tries to raise up every lesser species of aliens to their own level of hedonist, post-scarcity wealth and technology.

That's not strictly true throughout the series (I'll avoid any spoilers here), in many situations, civilizations are denied certain technologies by the Culture in the novels.

I just finished reading the entire series and there's always quite a bit of skepticism from both members of the "Culture" and members of other civilizations as to the value and positive impact of The Culture's intervention/meddling.

I'd say that Banks is pretty even handed with that, although he usually seems to fall on the side of "Special Circumstances."

All that said, it's definitely worth the read.

If I recall correctly, even the posthumans in the culture were gatekept by their servant/master AI.

but were we, humanity, gods?

There is always a chance that the Higher Civilization missed something - culturally, scientifically or artistically speaking. Letting such civilization emerge, and help them ascend when they reach certain level seems to be saner and safer approach.

The Higher Civilization might've been stuck in local maxima, adding such random element might let the Higher Civilisation absorb the best parts and move towards another, better local maxima.

You raise good points, but what you're missing in my opinion is that life is precious and finite. And if we can elevate ourselves and other species to a higher state of life and consciousness and even longer life spans, I believe we have a moral obligation to do it. It'd certainly be wise to do it, even if only to have allies against the vast darkness and whatever lurks in it that might hate us or our friends.

“Higher” indicates an ordering. How do you rank civilizations? If we replace “higher” with “more advanced“ it’s still not an obvious thing.

Humans can't manage that on earth.

Not even for other humans, and not just because we can't or won't foot the bill for more education and medication, but also because encouraging relatively primitive tribes to abandon their traditions and join the modern world is widely seen as unethical.

I see no issues with telling tribes or ancient cultures or fledgling species if their beliefs about reality are incorrect. Otherwise those faulty beliefs could lead the species to extinction.

There's education and then there's coercion. The Amish know that technology and modern society exist, and they even participate some for work, but they don't bring it back home, and they haven't altered their way of life.

Coercion is like the Indian boarding school programs in the Pacific Northwest. Taking Indian children away from their parents and beating them if they spoke their native languages, with the goal of wiping out the culture and forcing assimilation.

I'm cool with the Amish method but not the boarding schools.

I'm okay with not coercing someone into something. As long as it's a choice, I see no harm in that. Although ultimately we need to make sure that people are actually educated enough to make an informed choice, and aren't instead so steeped in their incorrect views of reality that they can't make any progress...

What I'm saying can definitely be abused or misinterpreted if someone wants to justify atrocities, but that's their negative interpretation and their choice. The positive interpretation here would be that I'd prefer a choice for anyone who wants to be Amish, as long as being Amish doesn't mean that you're completely trapped in that society if you're born into it. Some ideologies trap the mind.

Thats precisely backwards. Extinction threats on Earth come from the "modern" cultures not the ancient ones.

I would argue that it's not backwards and that your summary is reductive and way too simplistic to be true, but I didn't expand on my view much either to be fair. In general, ancient cultures on earth would have almost always wanted to wipe out opposing cultures, but one side tended to have better weapons. In this case, if the increased moral character of our species over time is any indication then it's possible to become a space-fairing species that just helps others.

Not yet, but we can and I believe we will. That's been the trend of history since we've existed.

There are TNG episodes that specifically deal with that, and the problems it causes. I think ENT had a few as well, instances which led them to the creation of the Prime Directive.

I will have to check those out since I've not seen them. I'm open-minded to it, but also pretty confident that the weight of the logic will eventually fall on the side of being good and helpful to others if we ever make it to the stars.

see also David Brin's Uplift novels, which deal with this by having more advanced species engage with undeveloped species and be responsible for their upbringing, as it were.

Huge thank you for the recommendation, I love the concept and will check out those novels for sure.

Already done for indians. Impossibility of FTL travel just saved all life in universe from you.

What wiped out most of the Indians was plague and genocide while seizing territory and resources.

I don't think plague would be an issue - viruses require proteins to be similar to attach and reproduce, and bacteria require nutrients to be the same. And as for resources? Asteroid mining will get you more water, minerals and metals.

But territory - terraforming might be really difficult or take too long. If aliens need an oxygen/CO2/nitrogen atmosphere and liquid water, Earth could be tempting, even if the plant/animal life is useless to them.

If territory isn't an issue, maybe we'd just be friends or anthropological curios.

I actually think a planet with life already on it may be the worst candidate for territory. Sure, there's unlikely to be a plague that can affect them, but there are millions of proteins and organic compounds on our planet that alien life has never been exposed to before. The odds are high that some substance that is commonplace on our planet has a toxic interaction with the aliens. Even if the aliens have a similar biology to our own (carbon based life with DNA, same cell structure and organelles, etc.) if they use a different chirality of an amino acid you could have tons of potential for toxic interactions. If that is the case, the only way to make the planet habitable is to wipe out all life on the planet, AND break down all of the toxic proteins, at which you're basically doing terraforming anyway.

But yeah I agree that there's very little our planet has that an alien civilization would want. The only reasons I could see for war would be some sort of pre-emptive response ("some day they will be able to attack us, let's wipe them out before they can") or an ideological conflict. Maybe they have a religion/ideology/culture that sees us as needing to be destroyed. Maybe if they see us as a lesser race to be exterminated, like the Nazis. Or maybe we are evil in their morality. There's the sci-fi staple of seeing mankind as inherently violent and warlike, or polluting, but also more exotic things. Maybe they are immortal and don't reproduce, and see us and our potential for expansion as a sort of cosmic cancer. Maybe they are photosyntheic beings, and see anything that lives by consuming other life as a threat. But I think those are unlikely.

At the very least I think that they wouldn't wipe us out on sight. If they did have strong opinions on religion or forms of government, it would likely take years of contact and dialogue to even figure out we were in disagreement. Even then diplomacy and diplomatic pressure would probably be used long before military force.

The trend of our species has been to become more moral and nice to one another. Read up on how humans viewed one another 1,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago and see the trend. There's no reason to believe or to ONLY believe that we'd be a violent and evil species if we became space-fairing and had FTL travel. In such a far future, I'd like to choose to work towards and to think about having a society that is even more moral than what it is now.

That's ok, in 10000 years when we will think better, we can fly to the stars.

Or even in 10 years.

> as humanly possible

There’s some post-colonial baggage to unpack there.

Only if you choose to read that into my comment or to be negative about the future.

What about the Neanderthal race?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com