The ethics of colonizing and/or invasion of worlds

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Matthew
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Postby Matthew » Mon Feb 23, 2009 9:59 am

I can't say much on the food issue, I'd hope any aliens that lived in space would have some self-renewing form of sustenance rather than feeding on whatever they find while they're out there (because there usually ain't much out there). If they were attracted to earth because earth happened to have something that they needed that other planets didn't, well, mankind is doomed.

Also, as for the scenario of two races fighting over the MOO2 equivalent of a "huge UR Gaia world", two species from entirely different planets are unlikely to have the same ideas of what an "ideal planet" would be. One race might be happy in -200 C while the other is happy in 2000 C. One likes to eat fish and the other likes to eat rocks. One lives on land and breathes air, the other lives underground like worms and enjoys toxic gas. Chances are slim there'd be mutual appeal.

The only thing they might have in common is a desire for building materials, but in space, they'd be all over. Unless the aliens have a particular need for wood.
I doubt if the majority of alien life will be drastically different from life on earth. If you study evolution you'll find that there tend to be evolutionary trends in a given environment. For example, there are species in the Antarctica that are like those found in the Arctic, separated by a warm water barrier. Either they found some way to cross the barrier or they both evolved separately then became like each other because of their environment.

When it comes to intelligent life, if their home world is anything like ours, there's no reason they couldn't have similar needs as we do or even look like us. I have read accounts of people claiming to have encountered human looking aliens.

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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Thu Feb 26, 2009 8:57 am

But then, realistically speaking, there is NO reason whatsoever for two civilizations to be fighting each other in space.

Sure there is, FOOD! No race would want to starve, and if it came down to a fight to survive moment, I'm sure any being that just traveled several light years (In our case several generations) to find, perhaps, the only planet cabable of supporting life nearby, that they might just take it with force..
I think we don't need to go so far with this issue, we have such problems much closer. Groups of people on Earth (African continent, Asia and etc) are dying without food, water or other resources. If they had sufficient weapons according to this logic they could attack other people to take their food, resouces, enslave them or even kill. Since they have no weapons they can't do it, but if they had they might as well do so. They wouldn't have any internal restrictions to commit these actions...Is this what you assert?

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Time
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Postby Time » Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:08 pm

Sure they do.
Just look back to when U.N. Food was sent to Africa (Mogadishu, Somalia 1992-1995), and wasn't distributed to the ones who needed it, but, captured by armed warlord clans.
There, the ones with guns eat. Many fled to neighboring countries.

As quoted from the wikipedia:
"The civil war disrupted agriculture and food distribution in southern Somalia. The basis of most of the conflicts was clan allegiances and competition for resources between the warring clans. James Bishop, the United States last ambassador to Somalia, explained that there is "competition for water, pasturage, and... cattle. It is a competition that used to be fought out with arrows and sabers... Now it is fought out with AK-47s."[25] The resulting famine caused the United Nations Security Council in 1992 to authorize the limited peacekeeping operation United Nations Operation in Somalia I (UNOSOM I). UNOSOM's use of force was limited to self-defence and it was soon disregarded by the warring factions. In reaction to the continued violence and the humanitarian disaster, the United States organised a military coalition with the purpose of creating a secure environment in southern Somalia for the conduct of humanitarian operations. This coalition, (Unified Task Force or UNITAF) entered Somalia in December 1992 on Operation Restore Hope and was successful in restoring order and alleviating the famine. In May 1993, most of the United States troops withdrew and UNITAF was replaced by the United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II). However, Aidid saw UNOSOM II as a threat to his power and in June 1993 his militia attacked Pakistan Army troops, attached to UNOSOM II, (see Somalia (March 1992 to February 1996)) in Mogadishu inflicting over 80 casualties. Fighting escalated until 18 American troops and more than 1,000 Somalis were killed in a raid in Mogadishu during October 1993. The UN withdrew Operation United Shield in 3 March 1995, having suffered significant casualties, and with the rule of government still not restored. In June 1996, Mohamed Farrah Aidid was killed in Mogadishu."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia
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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:22 pm

Very good example, thank you. It proves that certain people that inhabit Earth are still on the barbarian stage of development. What about cultured people? Would they act the same way?
I want to bring a hypothetical example.
What if someone came and captured 9/10 of our food supplies, leaving 1/10 to the rest of people. Or some catastrophe of planetary scale happened with the same consequences. Most of people would be condemned to extinction. Do you think people will start war for food?
Thus life and development of our species will agree with the evolutionary theory in biology: the strongest survives...is that so?

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Aeonic
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Postby Aeonic » Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:46 pm

Thus life and development of our species will agree with the evolutionary theory in biology: the strongest survives...is that so?
If that's the case, space would be utterly dominated by whichever aliens started exploring the stars first. Its like the Kohr-Ah from Star Control II. We're all doomed! Or maybe we can look forward to humanity being enslaved as farmers for the rest of eternity.

Unless of course, the ultra-advanced aliens somehow vanished off the face of the universe, probably because they destroyed themselves with their advanced technology. In which case, we're doomed to follow suit anyway. Heck, we might get there before we ever reach space.
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight up.

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Time
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Postby Time » Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:36 pm

Very good example, thank you. It proves that certain people that inhabit Earth are still on the barbarian stage of development. What about cultured people? Would they act the same way?
I want to bring a hypothetical example.
What if someone came and captured 9/10 of our food supplies, leaving 1/10 to the rest of people. Or some catastrophe of planetary scale happened with the same consequences. Most of people would be condemned to extinction. Do you think people will start war for food?
Thus life and development of our species will agree with the evolutionary theory in biology: the strongest survives...is that so?
Yes, another example, The Goths were denied food they were promised, when the Romans seized their lands, and they went on to sack Rome.
If that's the case, space would be utterly dominated by whichever aliens started exploring the stars first. Its like the Kohr-Ah from Star Control II. We're all doomed! Or maybe we can look forward to humanity being enslaved as farmers for the rest of eternity.
Us the 3 million Blue farmers? Gosh, I hope not, but, if we encounter a race with vastly superior tech, I hope we are wise enough to understand that life would be better as a farmer, than dead (I am reminded of the Great movie "The Magnificant Seven", where the farmers ultimately decided that giving food to some raiders occasionally, was preferable to losing most of their lives permanently.)
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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:06 am

Yes, another example, The Goths were denied food they were promised, when the Romans seized their lands, and they went on to sack Rome.
This is different case in fact. Romans came and took what belonged to Goths and Goths tried to take it back and revenge.

What I'm trying to say is that cultured or civilized people have certain morale set, they won't act like barbarians or parasites like romans. And this attitude isn't just mere set of rules imposed by religious fanatics and etc, these rules are derived rationally from peaceful way of coexistance with each other.

The same applies to aliens. If they managed to learn how to travel in space the surely would have solved all their problems concerning food, energy, resouces, and what is more important they would be on higher level of cultural development and possibility of such behaviour as invasion and destroying species wouldn't exist.

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Time
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Postby Time » Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:34 pm

The same applies to aliens. If they managed to learn how to travel in space the surely would have solved all their problems concerning food, energy, resouces, and what is more important they would be on higher level of cultural development and possibility of such behaviour as invasion and destroying species wouldn't exist.
We can hope so.

The flip side of the argument, would be, should humanity be prepared (to some degree), incase they are not.
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Overlord2
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Postby Overlord2 » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:33 am

The flip side of the argument, would be, should humanity be prepared (to some degree), incase they are not.
Prepared to be slaves? :wink:
Again, I think, this is not possible. Look - the slavery on earth was widely in the period of romans, but they didn't manage to learn how to travel in space :P


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