If aliens want a teaspoon of our ocean water do they ethically need to ask for it?

This question does not have a simple answer. Now my brain is scrambled thinking of our first encounter revolving around a request for a resource.

Right.

At least in my ethics.

Ethics is largely subjective.

In my ethics, they’d also feel a desire to look into how dysfunctional some of our situations are, and how many species are liable to go extinct, and whether they might (with their presumably very advanced technology) be able to help us out in a few ways.

At least, I like to imagine space aliens, who would do that.

But for an example of subjective ethics, the Federation in Star Trek would bar themselves from doing that, because of their Prime Directive. (Well, maybe not if someone like JJ Abrams were writing the script . . .)

No. Who would they ask?

Afterall, humans don’t own the universe, and what makes that the Earth’s water and not the universe’s water?

I don’t even think humans own the Earth.

To me it comes down to impact.
Property literally does not matter, since Humans do not own the planet.
The question is solely, what the removal has on the local and global ecosystem.
A spoonful of water will have little effect on much of anything, but removing the whole ocean would pretty much destroy all life on earth.

If aliens had the technology to reach Earth through the vastness of space then they would have the power to take whatever they damn well please.

Why would they ask in the first place?

Who would they ask? We just reached (so I heard) around 8 billion.

Although protocol says that permission should be asked before removing anything from the Earth it is extremely unlikely that any alien race would ask, especially if they wanted to remain unidentified.

Another question we should ask is why they would want to take a single teaspoon of seawater is beyond me.

One more question is why they would want the water?

If they have the technology to find and visit ||Earth I would have thought they would have encountered many planets containing water and some with water made up in the same way as our seawater.

@Poseidon There is microscopic and small life in a teaspoon of our water. Perhaps that’s unique.

The aliens would give us gifts to kill us all off then they would take what they wanted no questions asked. Just like we gave blankets contaminated with smallpox to native Americans.

If the aliens killed us humans all off, perhaps they would be doing the Earth a huge favor. How could that be a bad thing??

@gondwanalon I was thinking the same thing.

Do humans ask birds if we can fly airplanes in their sky?

No. Just take it. But no more. It’s removing water from the aquatic ecosystem and that water can’t be replaced. So take your water and shoo!

We never asked the ethics of removing rocks from the moon, and we took much more than a teaspoonful.

This question seems to assume that aliens have more ethics than humans.

^^^^ @raum It’s not like we set a very high bar…..

Fair point.

Remember this exchange between Quark and Sisko:

Quark:
I think I figured out why Humans don’t like Ferengi.

Sisko:
Not now, Quark.

Quark:
The way I see it, Humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget.

Sisko:
Quark, we don’t have time for this.

Quark:
You’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you… we’re better.

Why, are aliens ethical? If stories of abductions and shift shifters Reptilians are to be believed, it is hardly ethical just to abduct our kind and study them without their consent. Moreso, hide in plain sight like the Reptilians or the Transformers. Besides, who knows how many volume of our ocean waters they have siphoned already without our knowledge. Having said that, they have to ask if they want what is ours. We, humans, learned that in Kindergarten.

” Having said that, they have to ask if they want what is ours. We, humans, learned that in Kindergarten.”

I would posit that most western powers have never learned that.

Most countries have never learned that.

Why would we assume that the ethical standards of extraterrestrials would resemble humans?

@canidmajor “Why would we assume that the ethical standards of extraterrestrials would resemble humans?”

For the same reason we might assume the mathematical standards of extraterrestrials would resemble human math. Moral theory would be universally applicable. It’s not crazy to operate under the assumption that a civilization advanced enough to master interstellar travel would have to have developed some system of morality to get where they are. Just like natural selection, species with failed moral theories would either develop better ones or kill themselves off.

It’s certainly not proof, but it does give one reason for cautious optimism.

@gorillapaws: Moral Theory is not like math. Some of the basic principles might apply, for example, the idea that a greater number of participants in a community contributes better to the survival of all, but taking resources from a group of beings that one considers non-sentient may also be considered a boon to survival.

If you envision an alien species that has a some kind of hive mind or intra species telepathy, you would probably have a high degree of internal cohesion, empathy and cooperation within the species. Their culture would then have no concept of murdering or enslaving each other.
However, it by no means follows that they would apply this to other species. They might just as well be murdering conquerors and slavers when it comes to species other than themselves, as long as they deem it advantageous to themselves.
A beehive or ant colony have exceptional internal organisation and harmony, but they will fuck up anyone else without mercy.

@canidmajor “Moral Theory is not like math.”

There are many academic philosophers who would disagree with that assertion. In fact, there’s an entire discipline within philosophy dedicated to it.

@gorillapaws But most humans don’t have very high ethical standards. I would be scared of an alien species who told us they would treat us like we treat each other.

@gorillapaws I pretty well covered that in my second sentence.

@canidmajor and why would we assume otherwise?

@Genie19….what?

@Dutchess_III @Genie19 replied to an earlier entry.

Yes. I got that. But which one @Ltryptophan?

Because, @Genie19, even among terrestrial creatures the various types of ethos that govern survival can be very different, as per the post of @ragingloli. To think that there would be development parallel to human cultures on distant alien planets is just so very unlikely as to be simply silly.

@canidmajor ”...but taking resources from a group of beings that one considers non-sentient may also be considered a boon to survival.”

One could certainly make the case that such a society would likely never survive long enough to become an interstellar species.

@canidmajor “I pretty well covered that in my second sentence.”

Respectfully, Metaethics has thousands of papers written debating the nuances of the subject. Many claim that there is a natural morality, as evidenced by other species seemingly demonstrating an understanding of fairness/justness.

@gorillapaws I don’t dispute the wisdom of human philosophers and ethicists, I am merely stating that applying terrestrial values to non-terrestrials is not appropriate.
And really, do most people ask the sheep’s permission before donning the wool sweater?

It would depend how big alien teaspoons are.

@Dutchess_III Scroll up, and find the entry that @canidmajor says:

“Why would we assume that the ethical standards of extraterrestrials would resemble humans?”

or just accept that I correctly copied it