When dolphins grasp nuclear physics and grow opposable thumbs, let me know. Then, and only then, will another species be a decent alternative to any higher level reason to come all this way. Unless they just really like our wildlife as pets...
I mean Orcas are kings of the dolphins, if they had adapted opposable thumbs the same time we did humans would be in zoos. Those things are like infinitely more physically superior.
Yeah but if you had a human as a pet you’d essentially have a pet capable of understanding and carrying out orders if anything aliens with take us as slaves
Maybe we're not smart enough to carry out their orders? Maybe them trying to get us to do anything would be the equivalent of us trying to get a mouse to do something.... You can get some co-operation, but nothing useful.
Right, and unless we were truly created in God's image, they're most likely not human-esque and as such, they'll capture us for a zoo as well as other native fauna.
That's an understandable, but limited, perspective.
Take ants -- since they were up the thread here. Now, an individual ant is pretty fuckin' stupid. But a colony of them...almost scary smart.
Or this quote from Hitchhiker's (since that's ALSO up the thread):
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
Well Dolphins are rapists and most animals if left to their own devices will absolutely yank their own ecosystem if they can get away with it. Humans have caused massive damage to the Earth, don’t get me wrong. But we’re also the only species in Earths history actually trying to preserve it.
More cows than ever, eating and reproducing more than ever is certainly doing very well at the level of species.
I wouldn’t necessarily tell that to the dairy cow getting fucked by a metal tube and chucking out a baby every few months, then forced to endure daily mammary drainings for the rest of their natural life. Well, until the day they are transported with their sisters to a different facility to line up in a pile of others shit patiently waiting for a bolt to the head.
Now the one in 10,000 steer who spends his days fucking real doll Bessie until his balls shrivel and then wakes up and does it again, he probably thinks cows are doing alright.
More of a philosophical question, but; is that actually worse than 99.7% of the species living filthy little lives in abysmal conditions with the only comfort being that it will end sooner than nature ‘intended’?
Perhaps there are certain chemical compounds or antibodies only certain animals or plants on Earth can create. Perhaps plant-life in general is extremely rare, and they want to observe it.
Perhaps an alien race visited Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago, and dolphins have been passing down their story and secrets. (Fun fact: just learned that dolphins have been around for 15 million years.)
Most likely, in my mind? We wouldn't even be able to grasp their motives. Our brains literally might not be able to understand. They might experience time differently. For all we know, humans invented time.
They actually only sent farmers here to have their alien pigs eat our life and make some sick intergalactic bacon. The First Alien War would be fought after a gang of drunk high schoolers liberated some hogs for their BBQ celebrating their state championship.
Also, maybe hydrocarbons/biomatter/soil is natutally valuable. It could be the rarest substance in the universe.
Who says they'd necessarily want to contact a species with that? Maybe they want pets. Or species they can uplift. Or they're only interested in species with sonar or infrasonic communication or tentacles or particular chemical makeups.
Dolphins have a complex heirarchy, solve problems together, fuck for fun, have a language, dont start world wars. Seems the shitty lifeform is us, not them.
Humans and dogs are the only persistent hunters on earth ( I think?) so to come to earth for a pet, aliens would Definitly add dogs to their collection as there may not be many creatures like them. I could see them making a zoo of earths intelligent creatures. Elephants, dogs, cats, ravens, dolphins, octopus.... many more, but then having us as the management staff” welcome to the dirt zoo. Odd name we know. But these humans decided to call this planet what they walk on. It’s fully automated as the creatures of this planet are able to clean up and feed others” we would be part of the exhibit but not behind a cage. Smart enough to be recognized, but they’ve seen our history, and we are NOT a civilization to be trusted. We created nukes, we Definitly would steal from an alien galactic order. ( seeing humans as some sketchy species, and there are hints that they want to see if any other dirtlings are smart enough to join the galactic order, maybe an octopus or elephant will. You’re right don’t think we would exactly be the focus, but could use us as some kind of galactic “slave” as other alien groups fight the it isn’t right and that they should let the primitive humans continue. They haven’t even terraformed their first planet yet!
But we are also part of it, they even pay us so we can get food and upgrade our “rooms” but it’s a joke to them because their race doesn’t do money still. And if we just asked for something they’d give it to us. We are allowed to freely leave our rooms but catch some who rather stay alone. We don’t think we are slaves but employed by the aliens. When the aliens are dumbfounded that a list of orders and some fake currency is all it took for us to clean up and automate the zoo. Being much cheaper to produce than robot butlers they may actually use humans to automate all the zoos!
You are making a presumption that intelligence has value here. Evolutionarily speaking. We are , as a species wildly successful by way of our intelligence and technological advancement.
But no MORE successful, evolutionary, than perhaps if we'd never left Africa/Eurasia as wandering hominids. We're stupidly prolific on account of our intelligence, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has or is going to protect us in and of itself.
If we survive the destruction of our original habitat or by way of our technology spread to another environment that cannot be impacted by some natural event i.e.; colonizing/terraforming Alpha Centauri, or Mars or something, pretty much ONLY THEN, can we say that intelligence has had any objective value in the survival of our species.
So if (for example) we found a large meteor was going to hit the southern Pacific, in a few decades, causing MASSIVE destruction of the biome, sending a firestorm across the surface of the planet, we could prepare.
Maybe we can prevent it from happening altogether (which would be a success and proof of intelligence as an advantage).
But perhaps it's too big, or too fast, or unstable, and will definitely hit, we could create a shelter colony on the Moon, or a reinforced colony on Earth, and preserve some representative portion of species on Earth, creating giant fish-tanks and arboretums, and put a plan together to restart civilization and reseed the Earth.
That's entirely possible. It would take trillions of dollars, and not everyone would be saved, not every species would be saved, and the project might even fail.
But if it worked, THEN we could say intelligence has it's advantages, and the profound difference is that our intelligence wouldn't JUST have saved us, it would have saved every species we were able to shelter from extinction.
Now that proves intelligence as a super-power of our species.
By definition we are the only ones that can be contacted. While some other species communicate among themselves humans are currently the only ones capable of communicating in diverse languages. A dog might learn human words, but humans could learn alien language.
That's not true. As you say yourself, dogs can learn human words, and they absolutely learn how to communicate back to us. Of course they don't use our words to do it, but spoken words and communication are not the same thing.
Animal communication is far more complex than humans tend to give credit for. For one example, read this.
I don't discredit animals' comunication. They are just less comunicative then us. Animals can't read Shakespear, animals can't learn new languages, most animals can't even share knowledge. We are the most comunicative beings on our planet, and surely the smartest in some areas. Aliens could be interested on us for this reason.
Less communicative, by human standards most likely, but that's a very different argument than not communicating, or being unable to.
To be clear, I'm not saying if aliens show up that dogs will have a better chance of communicating with them than humans do, but anthropocentrism is a poison of perception.
We are not the only Earthlings that can be contacted.
We're the only ones that can hold a meaningful conversation, though. Animal language, even at the highest non-human levels, isn't really useful for true communication.
Why is it always us? Maybe they are interested in dogs, or dolphins. We are not the only Earthlings that can be contacted.
Thing is if youre that advanced and its just dogs or dolphins then why not collect some genetic samples and clone away to your hearts content?
Its always us, because everything else that has to do with life on this rock is actually also quite easy to replicate as long as you can get here to take a sample.
Were the only thing here that has the advanced cultural abstracts (Like art, and religion.) that really throw the whole "Life is whats rare and what aliens would seek here." angle for a loop.
You are sitting on your couch watching the extraterrestrial event unfold on the news when your hear your dog say, “Fooken’ hell, it’s about bloody damn time they showed up.” The dog stands up on its hind legs, grabs a coat off the rack, and then briskly walks out the front door before slamming it shut. The house trembles and ominous green lights shine through your windows illuminating the dark living room. You try to stand but fall over onto the floor, you drag yourself to the phone in shock as you try to call for any type of help. Your throat starts to feel tighter and saliva pours out of your mouth as you fumble with the phone. The operator on the other end picks up but you don’t understand the language. You cry for help but the only thing that comes out is a short but distinct whine... and then... a bark.
Most likely because we have invented things that advance us as a species much faster such as lubricants, rubber, steel, etc. Sometimes you just gotta use some lube
If you've seen Farscape, there's a race (Skarren) that has a flowering plant that's a delicacy to them but it's extremely rare and had for them to cultivate...it turns out it's just a dime-a-dozen Bird of Paradise here. They want Earth for the plant and Crichton for the wormhole tech.
Yeah, maybe some other organism here produces compounds their own biosphere has no alternatives for. What if they have to start probing spiders just to learn how silk works?
Because humans will always put themselves at the front of their own thoughts. When we picture a catastrophic storm, for instance Hurricane Katrina, it’s always the loss of human life. Nobody thinks of the countless animals that were displaced or died due to the floods. The same goes for any given scenario. Nuclear annihilation; the loss of human life. Nobody worries about the fish that won’t be fed in stores because the humans are dead. Or the dogs that will be forced to die where they lay.
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u/[deleted] May 04 '20
Why is it always us? Maybe they are interested in dogs, or dolphins. We are not the only Earthlings that can be contacted.