An alien civilisation decides to end humanity and punish you for your sins. Does Humanity deserve survival? Tell us why, or why not.

Easy one. NO! We suck. Maybe the animals will have a chance without us. But if they are planning on eating us, I’m going down fighting.

If they simply want to punish us then nah, they shouldn’t bother. Just take your spaceships around the block, come back and we should be gone by our own means by then. If they want to live here after we’re gone then definitely push the kill button as quickly as possible.

Yes, because some of us are actually in favor of progress. Although you already know this, but a sin is nothing but an artificial law….

No. Wipe us all out and give the bugs their shot.

Yes, humans are amazing. We’re intelligent, enquiring creatures capable of stunning deeds of both awe-inspiring majesty and humbling kindness. We’re also, in the words of Bill Hicks, “a virus with shoes”. But our capacity to fall short of greatness shouldn’t blind others to our incredible capacities.

@meiosis Awesome. A virus with shoes. LMAO

Of course we deserve to survive, for the simple reason that no intelligent life form has the right to decide the fate of another. They should not kill us for the same reason civilised people don’t kill dolphins, dogs or elephants. I think it is reasonable to assume that any civilisation technologically sophisticated enough to travel through intergalactic space has the required moral sophistication to treat humans with respect and dignity.

Yes but only on the condition they use their highly advanced technology to cap the world population at an even billion. They would achieve this by installing towers, that scanned everyone so as to rate their genetics, sterilizing the inferior populous.

@truecomedian What is the inferior populace?

Ehhh it sucks cause I think im personally a good person as well as others I know, but humanity as a whole? Fuck em. We dont deserve to go on.

@FireMadeFlesh what about all the life humanity has permenently wiped out in becoming oh so very “civilized”

@uberbatman I don’t call my cat immoral when she kills a rabbit. There is a critical point at which a species becomes intelligent enough that you can deem them responsible for their actions, rather than blaming them on instinct. I don’t think humans should be held responsible for the species we wiped out as part of our upward path, such as the Neanderthals and the Moa. We should be held responsible for more recent extinctions though, such as the Thylacine and myriad of species becoming extinct today.

Extinctions are part of the process of evolution – however a civilisation that is advanced enough to come here from another planet would probably be morally advanced enough to have not caused an extinction for hundreds of years. We are still in the process of moral advancement, and we have more power than sense. However in the last few years people have become increasingly globally minded and paid much more attention to the environment, so I expect within the next several years we will stop damaging the environment, and potentially start repairing it.

@FireMadeFlesh things like putting a damn in the amazon river which is happening soon,that will literally wipe out hundreds of species isnt anything like your cat killing a rabbit to survive. Considering this damn is going up in the near future I wouldnt say we’ve really changed much. Sure there have been changes, but day after day we fuck this earth over more and more.

lol i said damn instead of dam :P

@FireMadeFlesh
The inferior populace is the genetically inferior bottom rung of every human living. I got that out of my amatuer eugenicist manual.

In my Professional Eugenics Manual it says that amateur eugenicists are genetically inferior ;)

@uberbatman Education takes a long time to permeate the population, but it does happen eventually.

@truecomedian Please don’t use a word in its definition. What are you calling inferior?

@FireMadeFlesh
So you’re one of those people that think everyone is equal. That Donald Trump is the same as some poor kid in a third world country. I sort of believe in reincarnation, and with each life, you become more. That’s how I think people become great as opposed to the norm. By living lives and scoring proverbial points. Like gold being refined. I’m not saying inferior in a racial sense, think of it as ten degrees of mental retardation. To some degree we’re all retarded, some people are less retarded, there’s not a guarantee that this person will do better in life, but in the grand scheme they will. Quite possibly the reason why I’m not that retarded, poor, and evil is because I already was in another life and I grew from that. But I’m not a hundred percent sure on the reincarnation aspect in the traditional sense. I know it goes against christianity which is more linear in the sense that we live one life and either go to heaven or hell. But I believe that those aren’t permanent states of being. I mean, Satan supposedly got kicked out of Heaven. See in discussing energy, there is higher and lower forms, or even, lesser or greater amounts. All laws are connected just as we are connected to the lower energy realm, “hell”, and the higher energy realm “heaven”. People are only good and evil in the sense that they are either more good, or more evil. For arguments sake, let’s say evil people are inferior. It’s not what I’m calling inferior, it’s who. I personally believe that everyone in the world could be numbered from least to greatest. This concept might shatter one’s delicate sensitivities but it happens to be true. We are all not equal, that’s just a lie propped up by nationalistic propaganda, and what mother’s tell there ugly children.

@FireMadeFlesh fair enough, but personally I think its all too little too late.

@truecomedian I don’t think everyone is equal, I was just interested to see how you defined inferior, ie. genetically, mentally, circumstantially, morally, socially etc.

Although I do not think everyone is equal, I don’t think anyone is so inferior that they should be denied basic human rights. Your original post was, as I interpreted it, dangerously close to supporting eugenics.

As for Donald Trump and a poor child in a third world country, without having further information the only difference we can identify is opportunity. The poor child may be as intelligent, but they are never educated. They may have the same flair for business, but they are too busy struggling to survive to ever discover those higher order talents.

Humanity deserves survival, because forgiveness is part of humanity.

@FireMadeFlesh
I was just describing what an alien civilization would do as pertaining to the question, I’m not a Natzi.

@truecomedian The question asks “does humanity deserve survival?” I see no reason to assume that an alien civilisation would be any less ethical than ourselves, so I was expecting you to answer in a human context.

@FireMadeFlesh
I think it’s more interesting to think how aliens would have our same concept of sin. I know if I had to pay for my sins, it wouldn’t be so bad. Aliens most likely wouldnt share our same ethics, but that’s what makes this question interesting.

@truecomedian Humans can’t agree between themselves what sin is. I personally don’t think it exists, while 1.5 billion Christians alive today certainly believe in it. I think aliens would most likely share our sense of ethics, because our ethics are a direct result of the evolutionary process – which I assume is constant across the universe.

@FireMadeFlesh Ethics aren’t even constant across the office I work in, let alone the universe. Why assume that an alien civilisation would even have a concept of ethics, let alone that they would share ours?

@meiosis Ethics are largely the same for most humans. If you meet anyone who thinks unprovoked murder, rape or paedophilia are ethical then I would be seriously worried. The grey areas in our ethical sensibilities, or the variations between individuals, come from concepts that were either rare or impossible for primitive humans. Our ancestors couldn’t abort a baby, choose a baby’s sex, experiment with stem cells, and marriage was a social construct more than a legal one since women had few rights to begin with. The ethical principles we agree on are a direct result of evolution, and those we disagree on are a more indirect result.
An alien civilisation would presumably have evolved (as opposed to spontaneous generation?), and therefore they are likely to have developed the same ethical sensibilities as a result of the same natural forces.

@FireMadeFlesh given that chimpanzees have also evolved, do you think that they share the same generalised ethics as humans?

Murder, rape, paedophilia etc. are outliers when it comes to human ethics, and indeed most well balanced humans would agree that these are deeply unethical acts. However, I think you’re on very shaky ground if you think that nuanced ethical difficulties are only present for modern humans. Stealing, sleeping with other people’s partners, lying, false representation, etcetera – none of these are particularly recent adaptations

@meiosis Chimpanzees have not yet evolved to an extent where we could reasonably expect an advanced ethical code. Stealing, cheating, lying etc. have been around as long as humans, but they are things that people will do without ever truly believing it is ethical. Thoughts and actions do not always correlate.