Good aliens are bad?

[marsbug]

Yeah, there´s no way to compare. We´re before a new dimension of interaction.

I think it all boils down to the definition of 'good'. What´s the supreme good? I say it is Supreme Justice. If they´re capable of supreme justice [as the OP implies], where´s the evil?

The evil comes from there being as many definitions of supreme good and justice as there are thinking individuals in the cosmos, hence any attempt to establish sureme good and justice will be oppressing someone elses point of view.

Argos, you seem very eager to sidestep the proplems of human nature by surrendering our control to someone older and wiser. Isn't learning to understand, accept and function with your nature one of the biggest steps toward maturity? It seems to me that the course you are advocating would take from us a burden and responsibility that it is vital we carry by ourselves.

Both pride and arrogance runneth deep througheth the human soul.

Indeed, and that is something we must come to terms with ourselves!

[stutefish]

Argos, benevolent dictatorships are all well and good, until they start dictating to you. What if the aliens tell you, "everybody is pretty much free to do whatever they want, but your genes are corrupted and we have to prohibit you, Argos, from ever reproducing"? Then what?

Or what if they say, "Argos, you're a vector for certain diseases; we're going to have to kill you, for the good of all mankind"? Then what?

Or what if they say, "It's your thoughts, Argos; we're going to have to sequester you and brainwash you, before you're fit company for your fellow humans". Then what?

[toothdust]

Benevolent dictatorship is an oxymoron. Dictators are NOT looking out for the best interest of the people.

[Neverfly]

Benevolent dictatorship is an oxymoron. Dictators are NOT looking out for the best interest of the people.

Exactly.

Look how many of us carefully expressed the growth of a human in this thread.

If an Alien being truly knew what was best for us, they would know, too, that a dictatorship would not be best.

So it would be more than a little odd for one to try to set one up.

[Argos]

You guys are implying erroneously that they are dictators, based solely on the fact they´re not human. The OP does not say that.

Stutefish, our democratically elected human overlords can sometimes deny us certain rights [and even override constitutional guarantees] in the name of supposed threats, as we´ve seen so many times, cannot they?

[Ilya]

Benevolent dictatorship is an oxymoron. Dictators are NOT looking out for the best interest of the people.

Human dictators, of course.

But OP is talking about hypothetical aliens who ARE looking out for the best interest of humans. Which is at least theoretically possible. After all, I certainly look out for the best interest of my tropical fish. (And presumably the disparity in knowledge and power is on the same level as between me and my fish.)

[Neverfly]

You guys are implying erroneously that they are dictators, based solely on the fact they´re not human. The OP does not say that.

Oh...ok..
"Eventually, presumably after decades or psychological priming using occasional UFOs to reduce the chock, aliens come to earth to be the masters of humankind."

Masters then.


"So, would this alien-goverened utopia"

The OP seems very self contradictory actually.

he tries to describe them as non interfering, yet turns around and describes them as very controlling, creating a dictatorship.

[geonuc]

You alien overlord haters are twisting the hypothetical. The OP presumed benevolence. You can go off all you want about how that's an oxymoron or impossible, but that is in fact what the hypo proposes.

And asking what if the once benevolent aliens go all nazi on us and start brainwashing operations is also outside the hypo.

Neverfly expressed himself well, at first. He votes no, even if the aliens are what the OP proposes. That's fine.

This is an aliens-have-come-to-earth hypo. It isn't real.

[Neverfly]

You alien overlord haters are twisting the hypothetical. The OP presumed benevolence. You can go off all you want about how that's an oxymoron or impossible, but that is in fact what the hypo proposes.

And asking what if the once benevolent aliens go all nazi on us and start brainwashing operations is also outside the hypo.

Neverfly expressed himself well, at first. He votes no, even if the aliens are what the OP proposes. That's fine.

This is an aliens-have-come-to-earth hypo. It isn't real.

Of course it isn't real...
but the point of discussing it is to cover it as if it were real.
The OP stands on its own. It assumes benevolence, but can that be assumed?
Also, We have clearly covered how dictatorship is not benevolent. So how can the hypothetical situation be considered by its own merit?

If "benevolent" aliens showed up claiming to take care of us lowly dogs... Would we resist?
yes. We have spelled out why. You can't just call us haters or dismiss our reasons without acknowledging them.

[Argos]

The OP stands on its own. It assumes benevolence, but can that be assumed?

Yes it can, IMO. I have reasons to believe that intellectual progress leads to ethical advancement. Our own history shows that. There´s one point at which all primitive, limbic impulses, aggressiveness, vanish, and what is left is a scientist-philosopher.

[Neverfly]

Yes it can, IMO. I have reasons to believe that intellectual progress leads to ethical advancement. Our own history shows that. There´s one point at which all primitive, limbic impulses, aggressiveness, vanish, and what is left is a scientist-philosopher.

That's your human opinion based upon your experience of living with humans on a human world?
Oh.. incidentally... I like to eat meat. Does that mean I'm not a scientists because I have a primitive urge to kill and devour?

[stutefish]

It seems to me that the assumption of benevolence has three distinct problems, as presented in the OP.

First, it's highly implausible. If the question of the OP is simply "if truly nice people came around doing truly nice things, would you object?", then my answer is "no, of course not". But how far does that get us, really? Because of the other two problems with this assumption, I don't think it gets us very far at all.

Second, it's extremely unverifiable. While I'd be happy to cooperate with truly nice people to accomplish truly nice things, I'd like to verify the truth of their niceness before going along with their plans. If I'm not able to verify it, why should I cooperate?

Third, the OP's scenario is therefore profoundly contradictory. If I'm not permitted to withhold my cooperation, then what? They might be truly nice people, but I have no way of knowing. And I have no way of opting out. The aliens govern me whether I like it or not. Not only that, but the OP provides no mechanism for removing the alien government. Apparently I cannot vote them out of office. Nor do I apparently have the technology to remove them by force.

Thus the whole scenario is unacceptable. It's implausible, unverifiable, and self-contradictory.

Finally, I would dearly like to see Argos address these three points, without reference to human institutions that may or may not be any better than the OP's hypothetical alien insitution.

[PetersCreek]

This discussion brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

I find it hard to reconcile "benevolence" with many of the conditions the OP sets but then it appears self-contradictory in several respects. Is it benevolent to place oneself as master over another? To substitute their mores for ours? To stifle the growth we naturally acheive by making mistakes? In their moral framework, perhaps...but not so much to many of us, I think. And I think that's the main stumbling block to this scenario.

I've long heard and read speculation that any alien civilization we meet is going to be really alien...not only in physiology but in psychology, as well. But even in an ideal what-if world, I think it's tough to argue for so high a degree of congruence between value systems that our definitions and perceptions of benevolence would be the same.

[eburacum45]

The idea of a benevolent dictatorship by aliens is much more complex than some people might think.
Consider the current freedom to act, the available energy and technology, and the general level of happiness of the human world as a whole as it exists today. To reduce this concept to a simple image, let's picture that field of values as an easy to imagine object; say a square on a graph, one unit by one unit in dimension.

I happen to believe that through our own efforts, we could eventually increase the dimensions of that square by at least ten times in both dimensions; this would increase the freedom and happiness of humanity by a hundredfold, but this would take a long time, (a hundred years at least) and no doubt would require a lot of effort and suffering by the people who try to achieve this. Improving the world won't be easy, and at the end of the day we could very easily make it much worse.

Along come the benevolent dictator aliens; they offer to give us, as a gift, the means to instantly increase the well-being and freedom on our planet from one square unit of happiness to two hundred square units of happiness. This is better than we could do ourselves in a hundred years, and would happen instead very rapidly and as painlessly as conceivable.

All very well and good- but it turns out that the benevolent alien dictators themselves enjoy a degree of happiness and freedom that is a hundred times larger still in every dimension; they are very sorry, but humans are not entitled to participate in this greater wealth of freedom and wellbeing, and will just have to put up with what they've got.

The average person on Earth is two hundred times better off than she was, but no doubt feels bitter and angry about being denied the even greater wellbeing of the benevolent alien overlords.

Perhaps the benevolent aliens will understand this ingratitude- but that doesn't mean they will change their minds...
.

[eburacum45]

Perhaps, with a hypothetical happiness index two hundred times greater than today's, the people of an conquered Earth would mostly be content; there would perhaps only be a minority of discontents who would struggle under the velvet hand of these oppressors.

These people- the types who might be leaders of a free world, or at least influential in some way or another - the troublemakers; the Benevolent Aliens might find it easy to identify them from the amount of fuss they make and deal with them.

Perhaps by making them into honorary Benevolent Dictator Aliens themselves.

Human society would be impoverished by the loss of these troublemakers; perhaps their removal will make the rest of humanity docile.

Oh dear- not a very appealing picture, despite the vastly improved living conditions of the rest of humankind.

[marsbug]

You alien overlord haters are twisting the hypothetical. The OP presumed benevolence. You can go off all you want about how that's an oxymoron or impossible, but that is in fact what the hypo proposes.

Assuming outright benevolence, I would still resist to the best of my abilities, because I truly believe that if we want to achieve a better world we must work for it ourselves. I think I've covered why in my previous posts.

You guys are implying erroneously that they are dictators, based solely on the fact they´re not human. The OP does not say that.

Stutefish, our democratically elected human overlords can sometimes deny us certain rights [and even override constitutional guarantees] in the name of supposed threats, as we´ve seen so many times, cannot they?

I'm stating that they are dictators, as they have taken power without invitation, and will not leave! And I do not approve of peoples rights being denied, regardless of who's doing it!

I have reasons to believe that intellectual progress leads to ethical advancement. Our own history shows that.

Please could I have an example?

There´s one point at which all primitive, limbic impulses, aggressiveness, vanish, and what is left is a scientist-philosopher.

Last year I was bitten by a scientist who was trying to expose his genitalia to the entire pub. That night, in an astonishing display of violence, he bit one other person, tried to gouge out someone's eye, and then attacked four policemen. He was provoked into this rage by another scientist, because they both fancied the same girl. Prior to that night he was the most bashful, quite man I had ever met!

How would a race of impulse free, aggressionless scientist philosophers cope with an expanding, highly aggressive, technologically advanced species, who take 'survival of the fittest' to its logical extreme, within and without their own society? Because if we are prepared to accept the former as possible, we must also face the possibility of the latter.

[Neverfly]

Last year I was bitten by a scientist who was trying to expose his genitalia to the entire pub

HIJACK! lol
Ok.. I won't ask for details...

How would a race of impulse free, aggressionless scientist philosophers cope with an expanding, highly aggressive, technologically advanced species, who take 'survival of the fittest' to its logical extreme, within and without their own society? Because if we are prepared to accept the former as possible, we must also face the possibility of the latter.

Exactly the reason to be our dictators no?

Keep us in check... Control us...

[megrfl]

Hey guys!

From the onset I have been unsure of how I would feel about our hypothetical alien overlords.

I believe to the depth of my soul that we (everyone of us) are meant to be free. I feel the resolve and passion of all of you who have expressed yourselves to that effect.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/free

Are any of us free? We all experience varying degrees of freedom, yes, but none of us are truly free and that is fine, that is society; there has to be rules, there has to be rulers (so to speak). For the truly oppressed, our simple infringes (as long as we keep them simple and sensible) would be a piece of cake.

This is our world today in a nutshell. Death, destruction, excess, freedom, tyranny, and beauty. Warning second link is somewhat graphic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28056268...mode/1107/s/2/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27827268...ramenumber/12/

This is my question, what would the aliens be ending or taking away from us?

What can we do to end the destruction (in all respects), are we ever going to achieve freedom for everyone or is that an impossiblility? I submit that it will not happen in my or my childrens' lifetimes.

Should we for the sake of others accept the overlords?

[Neverfly]

Are any of us free? We all experience varying degrees of freedom, yes, but none of us are truly free

Watch "Instinct" starring Anthoney Hopkins.

This is my question, what would the aliens be ending or taking away from us?

Should we for the sake of others accept the overlords?

It's not if we should. It's if we COULD.
We can't.
It's not our nature.

They would not be ending so much as taking away.
Our right to grow. To learn. TO discover. To hurt. To suffer. To LEARN from it all.
Our growth, our freedom... They are intertwined. It's our development.
Sure- the OP sounded nice, talking about an end to cancer etc, but its self contradiction is that we would be trading our livelihood for short term gain and long term harm.

What alien will come along later and save us from our "benevolent" overlords?

What if we could save ourselves?

[megrfl]

What if we could save ourselves?

With an Earth population of 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.) to agree would seem to be an impossibiltiy. So many differences.

[Neverfly]

With an Earth population of 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.) to agree would seem to be an impossibiltiy. So many differences.

Aye, but look at our progress.
At what we have achieved. How far we have come.

If we are dependent on an alien race... Will they save us?
We shuld be able to save ourselves. Not dependent.

[PraedSt]

'The world is horrible!' 'We're all going to kill ourselves!' 'I want world peace!'

Welcome to the Beauty Pageant Forum....

[megrfl]

Aye, but look at our progress.
At what we have achieved. How far we have come.

Agreed.

If we are dependent on an alien race... Will they save us?
We shuld be able to save ourselves. Not dependent.

I agree, but in the mean time I hate the oppression.

[Neverfly]

Agreed.



I agree, but in the mean time I hate the oppression.

yeah....:sigh:

[toothdust]

Wow, in light of how heated htis debate has become, we all must really have no lives

Anyways, how about the plot line of the movie "i, Robot". Horrible movie, some interesting concepts. Never read the book.

Warning: spoilers.

The AI supercomputer whats her name justified all the bad things she was doing in the name of saving humanity from itself. Her reasoning was that she had been programmed to ensure humanities survival, thereby justifying the attempted robot takeover.

[PraedSt]

How good are their cookies?

[Whirlpool]

Warning: spoilers.

The AI supercomputer whats her name justified all the bad things she was doing in the name of saving humanity from itself. Her reasoning was that she had been programmed to ensure humanities survival, thereby justifying the attempted robot takeover.

And in the Movie Wall-E :

The Supercomputer doesn't want the humans to go back to earth and get independent again.

[Neverfly]

And in the Movie Wall-E :

The Supercomputer doesn't want the humans to go back to earth and get independent again.

Interestingly, a lot of people missed that.
They thought he was following his programing.

The movie tells you what the actual case is in one particular scene:

Warning- Spoiler:

The captain, thinking about the Auto-pilots directive, turns and looks at the series of photographs on the wall behind him.

The photos show all the previous captions.
In each photo- Auto-pilot is in the background. However... in each photo, he is slowly creeping closer and closer and closer to the camera.
It's quite clear- Auto-pilot had power. And he liked it. He wanted More.
He wanted to be Captain.

[geonuc]

How good are their cookies?

Didn't we take care of you in another thread?

But, good point. If the aliens have better cookies, might that sway some to come over to their side?

I'd just like to say that I appreciate those that disagree with me on this alien question. You are those I look to to throw off or protect us from the oppressors such as we have on the planet already. I served my time on the wall, so I know something of what that is about.

[marsbug]

My loyalty could be bought for good enough cookies!

In a few thousand years humanity could be on the other side of the fence, wondering if we should intervene with a promising race that seems determined to visit its own worst nightmares on itself.

Good thing we've started debating this now, it'll probably take us that long to get an answer!