io9 
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San Francisco, 2:58 PM
Tue Dec 8
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/27/09
[www.mooncross.net]
11/27/09
we need more intelligent pilgrim scifis.
11/27/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
The era of colonialism really wasn't that long ago, and really never ended in many ways. Arguably, economic globalization is mainly a continuation of the process. And whether or not you believe the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan were justified or even heroic attempts to create freedom... for some reason we still can't resist helping ourselves to their oil.
So the point is: the same mindset that created colonialism is still alive and well in Western culture, and plenty of non-Western cultures, too.
The only humans I can safely imagine coexisting with aliens are people from many of the same cultures that were almost entirely wiped out by colonialism.
Many of these cultures were entirely uninterested in conquering anybody and would have been humanity's best ambassadors, had they not been conquered by less civilized societies.
11/26/09
This is not to say that we are in any way enlightened but to imagine that an encounter with aliens today would automatically turn into an Aztec-style slaughter is equally unlikely.
In the current social climate there would simply be debate and debate and debate until a course of action could be agreed upon that required very little action and almost no accountability.
We are no longer savages...we are bureaucrats. At least the savages stood for something - even if it was an irrational genocidal hatred.
11/27/09
Like it or not, we "civilized" folk tend to carry an attitude of domination--a holdover from our feudal agrarian days that's built into our political, economic, and religious institutions.
That, and it's often the people who were historically classed as "savages" who tended to be far more civilized. Obviously not in all cases, but in many cases the culture in question was wholly uninterested in power.
11/27/09
My point is that the large scale imperialists have moved from slaughter to hand-wringing. You could simply blame or credit the media for this but now, as you pointed out, it is done with deals and treaties.
The slaughters today tend to occur within national borders and to peoples who are arguably part of the cultures who slaughters them.
As to the Iraqi oil contracts. Yep, friends got the construction contracts. But Iraq gets all the oil. That is in fact the center of a minor controversy in the US.
And no, it seems that the current administration is no different. Worse possibly.
11/30/09
The aversion to colonialism you suggest American culture displays is actually an aversion to the word colonialism, not to the act of colonialism. In fact, I would posit that most people who talk about anti-colonialism don’t even understand they’re having a debate on semantics, not on the issues of colonialism itself.
Americans don’t like to think that what American corporations do is a form of colonialism. I believe this has a lot to do with the fact that so much of American identity is caught up in the idea that we were born out of a struggle against colonial tyranny, that if we really came to grips with the modern version of colonialism (which we wholeheartedly and unabashedly engage in) we'd face a similar crisis of identity as that which reared its head during the Vietnam War. Perhaps an even worse manifestation of it.
Yes, colonialism is alive and well. It’s just that in our era, colonialism is run and promoted by corporations. Government leaders take the moral high ground by shaking their heads with disapproval in public while winking through cigar smoke at their corporatist sponsors in back rooms behind closed doors.
As far as the idea that our bloated bureaucracy would prevent us from acting irrationally violent if confronted with an alien species, I’d say this: The darkness in the heart of mankind that drives our fear of the Other doesn’t push papers, it wields a club. Oh, light is there too, but it rarely takes the stage until darkness threatens to destroy us all, righteous and wicked alike.
I can’t imagine humans reacting to the sudden appearance aliens with anything other than homicidal, genocidal fear, no matter how the aliens arrived or how convincing and sincere their proclamations of peaceful intentions were. That’s just the nature of the human species.
11/30/09
Please don't accuse me of waging an argument of semantics. I'm not and you KNOW I'm not. It is simply difficult to keep track of your argument. It's quite broad.
You prefer to see things in black and white. I do not. You see man's cooperative nature as an exception to history. I prefer to count exceptions as part of the world as we find it. I do not refute what you say as being untrue. Only that other things are also true. Nothing more.
11/30/09
12/01/09
12/01/09
11/26/09
I wouldn't argue for a story that's all about peaceful coexistence. I realize that that's boring. What I'd be interesting in seeing is a story where the immigrants come in peace, and then see how good intentions can go horribly awry. I still think there's dramatic heft there.
11/26/09
I mean, seriously. Have you tried *reading* le Guin's _Always Coming Home_?
11/29/09
11/30/09
12/01/09
And in Le Guin's novel, it's an interstellar human Alliance making first contact with what I guess is a tribe of humans that have been genetically engineered, and then evolved much differently than those of other planets who they weren't even aware of. I mentioned it because it's almost a role reversal of the "we come in peace", we're, on the surface anyway, the recognizable human has come to the alien society with no ulterior motive, simply making contact. Again, not the results, but the initial motivations, are what matters, at least that's how I interpreted this article.
11/26/09
And, sadly, I doubt any of us will live to see it. Hopefully, someone else will.
11/26/09
11/29/09
11/26/09
[www.imdb.com]
Or "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
[www.veoh.com]
Or "Third from the Sun"
[www.cbs.com]
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/27/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
Humans as it is only accept people from outside if they have a use for them.
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
cj cherryh's Foreigner series is probably a good example of the pilgrim idea...
11/26/09
Because art imitates life....
Besides, who REALLY wants to watch us make peace with a bunch of noble space savages when we can either bilk them out of their land with some Neptunian beads, or just kill 'em for sport. ;)
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
"Hi, we're from a planet far away. We call it earth. Mind if we set up a colony here on your planet and look around at all it's wonders?"
"No, of course not. make yourselves at home. How about if some of us do the same on this 'earth' of yours?"
"Hey, no problem. Go crazy. Knock yourselves out. Maybe we can trade, get rich and interbreed?"
"Sure, sounds great. Glad we met."
The End.
I don't know about you, but I'm fascina.....zzzzzzzz.
11/26/09
I'd much rather just watch Kevin Costner try to make peace with them until the rest of the whitemen come to follow divine providence and kill whatever isn't white and doesn't have a vagina....
11/26/09
Didn't CONTACT deal with the early steps towards peaceful co-existence? That might be the closest we've come. What makes it hard is the scope of such a production, at least in terms of film. A movie where we go to an alien world only to sit around and act chummy wouldn't exactly put asses in theater seats, and as Cameron has illustrated with his mega-production, you need to hedge your bets with surefire dramatic tension (ie. killing of the indigenous lifeforms).
This is something easier to pull off in prose where not as much money is riding on the project.
11/26/09
Humanity is, in general, violent. And for stupid reasons, I might add. That's why in real life E.T's haven't visited us. We've frakked up not only members of our own race, but other species whenever we get the chance, whether accidentally or on purpose, whether on the sea or in the sky. Terran real estate didn't use to suck until we started bombing the crap out of everything and pumping toxic waste into the air. And all those elk carcasses couldn't be a good sign--Sarah Palin alone should be one big blinking "AVOID EARTH" sign to whatever extraterrestrials may be out there.
Also, technological advancement only comes when there's some hapless species you can test it on. And THAT is why alien/human conflict in the movies is so much fun. :)
Peace sucks and so do black holes. :P
11/26/09
Quit buying into the equally dumb myth of the "noble, wise, living-in-harmony-with-the-environment Native Americans".
11/26/09
Disagree.
11/26/09
Perhaps, but it's quite likely you only believe that because you live in a warlike culture in the first place.
11/26/09
As it is, they have to somehow reconcile ancient values with modern ones, and with modern tools and modern pressures. Of course people are going to act stupidly in that case.
I'm not saying they're magical in any way, but with an intact culture, they'd more than likely behave much more intelligently.
11/26/09
11/26/09
11/26/09
You know, as I write this, I see the potential for a huge story that would ultimately turn the eye inward toward a broader definition of what it truly means to be human.
Hmmm...
There was a film or TV show - I can't remember which - where a human character called his alien companion 'human'. The alien was insulted and pointed out that he had never even been to Earth. The human's response was that the best humans he knew never had.
11/27/09
Aliens and humans meet and cooperate. They are very similar on a genetic level. So similar in fact that it is long suspected that via transpermia or ancient alien intervention we must be lost brethren.
Priests, philosophers and the like support this notion because we also share so many basic moral and ethical tenents.
While our cultures collaborate on colonization of Earth-like worlds and sustainable energy technology, an effort to map our collective genome is under way to try to discover an exact point of common biology.
Soon enough evidence of our kinship is found in mitochondrial DNA markers of both our species (although the aliens themselves do not have mitochondria but something roughly analogous).
The story twists however when a researcher discovers that the evidence is entirely manufactured.
The second half of a Dan Brown novel follows.
The conclusion exposes a cabal of leaders from both species who realize that if we are not kin, then our social and ethical systems, like our biology, also arose by chance. They simply were not ready to provide answers to the questions this poses. Were we both the products of a common creator? Or is the nature of carbon-based biology such that any ethical system of a surviving technological civilization going to be similar to ours?
The frightening implication to some was that those parts of ourselves we thought to be noble and special were merely an involuntary consequence of conscientiousness itself. To others this was was vindication. Neither felt that our young co-civilization was ready for such information.
The End.
Sorry. The best I could do at 2am...
11/27/09
"Perhaps, but it's quite likely you only believe that because you live in a warlike culture in the first place."
Would I rather live in a peaceful society? Of course. Absolutely.
Do I want to read about it/watch a movie about it? Not really. To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, it's just hard to eat popcorn to that kind of story.
(And while Toronto is rather grumpy at times, I hesitate to describe it as "war-like". Unless you mean human culture in general, in which case, who doesn't?)
11/27/09
(but, still, Yay Toronto! I love and greatly miss that city!)
11/27/09
Sarah Palin shooting things from the sky, rogue Native caribou poachers, I don't think the aliens will tell the difference. Historically & typically Native Americans have been the more environmentally conscientious community, but hey, when the Romans have taken over your space and kicked you to the backstreet, do as the Romans do, I guess. It's just too bad that nobody ever thinks to ask the "trophy game" whether they want to rot into the ground or be dried, stuffed and hung on some hick's wall.
But all I'm saying is somebody better pay for Three Mile Island since my generation's going to be paying for it for the next century. Savvy? :)
11/27/09
11/27/09
11/27/09
You know what? Isn't Start Trek exactly that?
10/19/09
-Kle. #mutantpumpkinsfromouterspace
10/18/09