This thought struck me the other day... Perhaps I should've posted it on Ask MetaFilter - Assuming such things exist, what *automatic* rights would a visiting extraterrestrial alien have here on Earth, today?
Are they *default* rights even a Nematode has?
Doesn't part of the answer depend on whether the extraterrestrial alien arrived due to technological means of its own design, or whether it arrived as a collected sample from our own forays into space or on the surface of some earthbound meteorite? One would indicate superior intelligence, and the other would indicate existence of a mere rarity to our experience.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I mean, I've heard of Human Rights... I'd assume all living things have rights to live... and that when one eats another, they just cancel out. (Each organism is enforcing their-own rights, till the desert-course arrives)
ReplyDeleteI suppose I could ask "What's living mean, when it comes to aliens?" but we can't know that until we've definitely identified them. A reverse argument might be "If a sentient being landed here, and we could converse with them, what would our rights be in their eyes?"
{Starting to wish I hadn't started this now}
[edit]Assuming intelligence is a fairly recent thing... which may have occured/evolved when nature conspired against (then) existing life... Intelligent beings sought refuge, made clothes, grew crops etc inorder to survive (therefore added intelligence to their armoury of evolutionary tricks)... and an alien that arrived here has, at the very least, had the same-type of background, their rights would cancel ours in the same way. {I'm rambling, ignore this}
I'd vote for the Golden Rule and hope they understood it.
ReplyDeleteRight of Conquest?
ReplyDeleteSo, "the visitor" wins... If we make it to another intelligent lifeform's abode before they come to ours, we "win"? That sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteDo you ever watch SciFi? No one submits to the new overlords... Besides, they won't know where all the good hiding places are.
ReplyDeleteLOL - "Underground" (in a David Essex "War of the Worlds" Stylee)
ReplyDelete"visiting extraterrestrial alien"
ReplyDeleteIt may depend on the nature of their visit-if hostile I'd imagine rights go out the window and it would depend on who has the best weaponary.
What was that movie(and spin of TV series back in the 80's called?) about Aliens coming to earth and some integrating into society better than others?-they all were terrified of sea-water as I remember...Alien Nation.(oh yes)
We come in peace... NomNomNom!
ReplyDeleteNope, but READING Sci-Fi suggests that they will do. "The State of the Art" short story by Iain M Banks is a case in point and that doesn't even deal with the Agressive Hegomonising Swarm (a la Borg).
ReplyDeleteWhat if the whole of planet Earth has been the subject of an alien terraforming project and we, and all other terrestrial lifeforms, have merely forgotten where we came from?
ReplyDeletePain in all the diodes down the left side... Little white mice... Square root for -1... 42...
ReplyDeleteThat is, essentially, the premise of a Niven short story.
ReplyDeleteNot surprising. It's a pretty logical approach to the problem of our apparent inability to generate life from scratch.
ReplyDeleteThat would certainly explain cauliflower - weird vegetable, it is.
ReplyDeleteJ/k ;-)
And HHGTTG
ReplyDeleteThere's an AC Clarke short story based on this, where the aliens (==us, who are on their way back, to the rescue) broadcast to Earth that they're aware that a horrible mutation has blighted some of their descendants.
ReplyDelete"If any of you are still white, we can cure you" is a rough approximation of the punchline.
Why is this a problem?
ReplyDeleteGive it time, give it time.
Protecting Aliens From Us—an E.T. Bill of Rights
ReplyDeletehttp://worldofweirdthings.com/2010/11/04/blogger-drafts-an-extraterrestrial-bill-of-rights/
Alt Text: The Unexpected Danger of Alien Space Squids
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?Itemid=81&id=4924&option=com_content&task=view
ReplyDeleteFirst seen on Fark of all places (then Here are YML)
Search engines have same speech rights as New York Times says Google report
ReplyDeleteSpeech-Via-Algorithm Is Still Speech, And Censoring It Is Still Censorship
ReplyDeleteCounterpoint: algorithms are not free speech
Can A Scientist Define “Life”? By Carl Zimmer
ReplyDeleteHuman rights for animals?
ReplyDeleteGhost Rights?
ReplyDeleteMagna Carta of Space
ReplyDelete