Xenos

[Sam]

This will be a rant- feel free to poke holes in it, offer opposing opinions, show how horribly, horribly wrong I am, etc.

...

In fiction there is a desire to make aliens or fantasy races unique and differant from humans. Of course, there are certain limitations (the author has to be able to concieve it), but given the... uniqueness of certain authors (Any one there when Niven went to the convention with the "I mate outside my species" button?) that isn't as big of a problem as it sounds.

For anything approaching hard science fiction, they should be rather similar to us- they need to be able to advance scientifically, work together in a group, have a large industrial base, etc. Their brains are probably going to be wired differantly (our brain was layed down in three differant layers so to speak, based on the previous on before it), but their behavior should not be so alien we cannot understand it.

In softer scifi and fantasy, this gets thrown out. It is important to remember before you claim "alien psychology" or "alien culture" as a justification for something- many of the examples of "alien psych or cultures" have existed in human history. A quick look at the pychology texts shows that human nuttiness has spanned a LARGE range- you will have a hard time finding something that no one has ever thought of or done before.

Now, for the topic that started this- alien psychology or culture as a justification for differant morality. Lets look at the four big no-nos: killing, torture, slavery and property crimes- or in modern terms: murder, rape, kidnapping and theft/arson.

Murder is defined as "nonapproved killing". As such there is certain types of killing that is condoned or approved of. Generally, killing that is condoned is only undertaken to defend the society.

Torture and rape are always looked down upon unless the opposite sex isn't considered people (for rape) or if enemies aren't considered worthy of certain rights (for torture).

Slavery is owning other human beings- making them your property. It also includes more sanitary sounding versions, such as debt slaves and the like.

Theft is taking what belongs to others- arson is using fire to destroy what belongs to others and there are a whole host of other property crimes. This is a more flexible one- certain societes have differant versions of what is considered property and how much control you get over it.

Now, will a differant culture or species have the same prohibitions against these? Yes (although property crimes may vary depending on the conditions it is in), but only for the "in group. Those who are not the in group might NOT be accorded such rights- it depends on the nature of the culture and species. A species that preys upon other intelligent creatures (the mild flayers for example) will probably not view morality as applicable to other living things- after all, they are prey.

Such a view is (not surprisingly) considered evil, although it isn't. However, killing such a predator is a nonevil action in return. As such, any creature that has to feed upon other creatures, while not technically evil, forfits its right to exist in the eyes of its prey.

For more normal fantastic creatures how do the rules apply? If they don't apply the prohibitions on murder, slavery, torture, etc on outside members, they are evil.

There are little to no exceptions- a claim of "alien psychology" doesn't help, because pschopaths, despite lacking an inbuilt sense of morality are able to grasp these. The only exceptions to these rules are:
- the species doesn't realize that the actions kill (Speaker for the Dead and the piggies is a good example): ignorance. This is the biggest one, and it has alot of permutations.
- No other options (end justifies the means). This is rare and, more importantly doesn't usually apply to societies.

For example, if a society practices slavery, saying they have a differant psychology does not change the fact that their actions are evil. They may view the "lesser races" they are enslaving as less than human (or elfy or civilized or whatever), but it doesn't change the fact that their actions cause pain and suffering AND they know it!

Now, there are cases where their are intelligent creatures who are at the bottom of the pile or enjoy servitude, but that doesn't require slavery either.

There is no moral way to justify slavery, despite the Dregin empires repeated attempts and rationalizations.

[skywalker]

Extra-terrestrial life could actually occur in a number of forms, couldn't it? I mean, hive-mind, on an Earth where a meteor fails to kill the dinosaurs, insects(or their successors) could eventually evolve higher level functions, maybe? Or maybe dinosaurs(or birds, etc.) could evolve higher level functions? I think the coolest idea is the idea that non-carbon based life forms could exist. Could they evolve, I don't know. Would we recognize them as alive? I have no idea. But they might force us to.

Good and evil are purely abstract concepts that we've thought up. Just because you've acquired sapience doesn't mean you've acquired the corresponding value system we have. You can argue, like Darwin, that our moral system is that which serves us best, and that it in fact evolved just like our bodies, but I'm not sure I buy that.

[Micate]

What if an alien race had slaves (possibly evolved on different parts of a world with impassible terrain separating them, until one eventually was able to reach the other, stagnating the others intelligence at caveman levels, but with the slaves still self-aware, thinking individuals), but treated them as well as we treat our pets, would they necessarily know they were doing something "wrong" (as we would probably label it)? They would need a reason to think their slave species was worth having rights, like you said, but with limited intelligence, might instead just pity them and think leaving them to their own a worse crime (the way we protect many endangered species, refusing to let them go extinct, even if its not our fault (something we can't know, and thus almost have to assume it is our fault) in some cases).

Alright, I've had to rewrite that too many times to care if it doesn't make sense anymore... (the first couple drafts had horrible flaws in the logic, and contradictions), so if its wrong, sue me... also if a thought seems incomplete, that's why.

[chiasaur11]

Heck, even Lewis, as committed an individual as you'd like to the concept of right and wrong as objective truth, suggested that some things an alien race would do that look wrong to us wouldn't be.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Despite making a claim for psychology remaining essentially the same between species (I can see your point here as to why it would be), you fail to make a distinction between ingroup members and outgroup members.

Doing something bad to ingroup members is frowned upon in pretty much any society. Doing something bad to outgroup members was, and still is in many societies quite acceptable. That is, it's OK to murder/steal from/rape people as long as they're not from your tribe/clan/nation. It still is to an extent, although not on quite the same scale and not everywhere.

It's not just that a Roman with a Celt slave considers him as less of a person. It's that he doesn't care about it because the Celt isn't Roman.

Also, most societies with slavery had some laws about how slaves should be treated (Aztecs and religious sacrifice aside).

PS: It's usually the soldiers who engaged in bad things anyway. Farmers simply didn't get a chance to go out raping and pillaging people from another country very often.

[Destichado]

Oh psh, slavery is easily made morally justifiable. It just has to satisfy certain conditions.

1. it must be an equitable condition. You must have done something to merit the status of a slave. Be it personal debt you cannot pay by other means, a killing you must make right, a legally imposed penalty (or substitution for a more severe penalty), or even the consequence of losing a war (according to the accepted laws of war); the terms of falling into slavery must be known and equitably enforced. [eg: the Romans took Celt slaves when they were victorious in battle, but when they lost they themselves were taken as slaves. This was known and universally accepted, and therefore equitable.]

2. it must not be inheritable condition. If you are a slave, it does not follow that your children will be. If both parents are slaves they may act in that capacity until their age of majority, but they may not be slaves themselves. This follows from the first rule.

3. the condition must have legal rights. They may be minimal, but they must be there. Foremost the the right to not be murdered as a slave; other rights follow as culture and conscience dictate.

[Sam]

I had a bad feeling that my rant was a little dense so I'lll give an example. A book called Grasp the Stars by Jennifer Wingert. I got a load of Scifi books donated to me and this was one of them. There are just a couple... insane flaws.

-only humans are opposed to slavery.
-only two of the six alien races will trade with humanity because... we are inferior or something.
-one of the two alien races we DO trade with doesn't practice medicine. In fact it has taboos against medical treatments.

The last is, quite simply, impossible- the others can be justified poorly, but a society that has no medicine whatsoever could not get into space. Disease outbreaks would prevent them from being stable long enough to get there.

Now, to comments...


Extra-terrestrial life could actually occur in a number of forms, couldn't it? I mean, hive-mind, on an Earth where a meteor fails to kill the dinosaurs, insects(or their successors) could eventually evolve higher level functions, maybe? Or maybe dinosaurs(or birds, etc.) could evolve higher level functions? I think the coolest idea is the idea that non-carbon based life forms could exist. Could they evolve, I don't know. Would we recognize them as alive? I have no idea. But they might force us to.

Good and evil are purely abstract concepts that we've thought up. Just because you've acquired sapience doesn't mean you've acquired the corresponding value system we have. You can argue, like Darwin, that our moral system is that which serves us best, and that it in fact evolved just like our bodies, but I'm not sure I buy that.

Insects don't have a hivemind. In fact, hiveminds would require telepathy, which has no place in hard sci fi. It can work in fantasy or space opera, but it is a WAY too soft for anything claiming realism.

Non-carbon life would be alive the same way robots would be alive. It isn't an ethical problem- just an out group problem.

Except that morality is quite obviously an evolved construct. Take a look a sociopathy- it is usually a determential characteristic. It turns out that a certain level of morality is optimal (good enough so you can be automatic, flexible enough to insure your survival). Some people simply fall outside the average.

Of course, other groups could be lacking morality... but then they would be socipaths, who, by D&D definition (and consideration in real life) are neutral evil.


What if an alien race had slaves (possibly evolved on different parts of a world with impassible terrain separating them, until one eventually was able to reach the other, stagnating the others intelligence at caveman levels, but with the slaves still self-aware, thinking individuals), but treated them as well as we treat our pets, would they necessarily know they were doing something "wrong" (as we would probably label it)? They would need a reason to think their slave species was worth having rights, like you said, but with limited intelligence, might instead just pity them and think leaving them to their own a worse crime (the way we protect many endangered species, refusing to let them go extinct, even if its not our fault (something we can't know, and thus almost have to assume it is our fault) in some cases).

Alright, I've had to rewrite that too many times to care if it doesn't make sense anymore... (the first couple drafts had horrible flaws in the logic, and contradictions), so if its wrong, sue me... also if a thought seems incomplete, that's why.

Drengin.
http://galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Drengin_Empire

More to the point, that is exactly how ALL slave groups in human history have been justified- we are civilizing them, they can't take care of themselves, etc.

Any species intelligent enough to be enslaved is intelligent enough to take care of itself. For example, Homo Habilus would be dumber than us, but they probably could survive in our world.


Heck, even Lewis, as committed an individual as you'd like to the concept of right and wrong as objective truth, suggested that some things an alien race would do that look wrong to us wouldn't be.

I hate to involve religion, but that was an inevitable result of his belief system. A person who believes in an interventionist God MUST believe in relativistic morality.

If you look at people who had TRUELY absoltue moral systems, they held that it applied to everyone- even aliens. After all, intellgient self interest is a logical concept- and species that don't embrace it have the habit of going extinct.


Despite making a claim for psychology remaining essentially the same between species (I can see your point here as to why it would be), you fail to make a distinction between ingroup members and outgroup members.

Doing something bad to ingroup members is frowned upon in pretty much any society. Doing something bad to outgroup members was, and still is in many societies quite acceptable. That is, it's OK to murder/steal from/rape people as long as they're not from your tribe/clan/nation. It still is to an extent, although not on quite the same scale and not everywhere.

It's not just that a Roman with a Celt slave considers him as less of a person. It's that he doesn't care about it because the Celt isn't Roman.

Also, most societies with slavery had some laws about how slaves should be treated (Aztecs and religious sacrifice aside).

PS: It's usually the soldiers who engaged in bad things anyway. Farmers simply didn't get a chance to go out raping and pillaging people from another country very often.

My point was that such behavior is evil. They are denying others rights because they can. It is no differant than denying others rights because they aren't YOU.


Oh psh, slavery is easily made morally justifiable. It just has to satisfy certain conditions.

1. it must be an equitable condition. You must have done something to merit the status of a slave. Be it personal debt you cannot pay by other means, a killing you must make right, a legally imposed penalty (or substitution for a more severe penalty), or even the consequence of losing a war (according to the accepted laws of war); the terms of falling into slavery must be known and equitably enforced. [eg: the Romans took Celt slaves when they were victorious in battle, but when they lost they themselves were taken as slaves. This was known and universally accepted, and therefore equitable.]

2. it must not be inheritable condition. If you are a slave, it does not follow that your children will be. If both parents are slaves they may act in that capacity until their age of majority, but they may not be slaves themselves. This follows from the first rule.

3. the condition must have legal rights. They may be minimal, but they must be there. Foremost the the right to not be murdered as a slave; other rights follow as culture and conscience dictate.

1 Except that it isn't. It means that the poor become slaves of the rich. See what happened to Athens prior to Solon the law giver. See the "Black Codes" for a fun example. This inevitably leads to the situation that Europe had in the Dark Ages- the population as sefs under the rule of warlords. After all, the peasents became sefs looking for protection from violence AND debt.

2 Except they have no money and immediately become slaves.

3 You can still be worked to death- the worse position slaves had in the ancient world was miner.

There is also another problem- you are assuming these rules will be followed. Now, rules are never universally followed- people always manipulate them to suit themselves. Usually the bending is minor because they have opponets watching them. In the case of slaves you can violate the rules and get away with it- who is going to stop you?

[Don Julio Anejo]

I'm too lazy to quote specific passages, so I'll answer in one long post.

1. Poor are still slaves of the rich in a sense. The only difference is that now the poor can choose who they're a slave too and control over them is more subtle than a master-slave relationships and involves rich lawmakers (come on, look at any legislature in any country... 75-80% of them are rich people who have nothing to do or they're supported by rich people) and well-paid lobbies.

2. Same thing. Nowadays those born rich have money to get into Harvard just because their daddy built a new science wing and become at least vice-presidents of companies while those born poor are stuck in either dead-end minimum wage jobs, or at best middle class jobs like doctors, and even then it's only the most ambitious and smartest of them that get there.

3. We still do it.

Now. The main point of slaves is not household servants (and in any case, these guys often have a pretty decent life). It's the industrial slaves that have a sucky life. 2500 years ago it was miners. 1000 years ago it was farmers (serfs).

These days it's little kids in sweatshops making 5 cents an hour. The conditions still suck, you can be worked to death, and the only difference between this and slavery is that you choose who works you to death - Gap or Nike. But no-one really cares or does anything. Why? Outgroup. There's also political reasons but I won't get into them.

Also, you seem to think slavery is denying people political/civil rights rather than economic ones. It's simply not the case - again, in some countries citizens have just about as many rights as slaves, except it's more subtle and they're slaves to governments as a whole, not specific individuals. And economic slavery exists anywhere where there's high unemployment - companies can dictate their rules to workers and pay them next to nothing. If workers leave, well, they can hire more.

So humanity being against slavery is a moot point.

And finally, slavery is not an evil, immoral act to those who practice it. They see it as a rational, economically viable alternative to paid workers, and unfortunately that's the sad truth.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Onto other points:

You should have mentioned that you're discussing a specific book, it would have made our life easier.

In the same book the fact that only two alien nations trade with us holds true in our world just as well. You don't exactly see developed countries selling less developed countries instructions on how to build nuclear reactors or cruise missiles, and for very good reasons.

Which is usually what people want to trade if they're self-sufficient... Aliens may not want our art, they may have enough of their own food/natural resources to go around, they may not want to share technology with us (so we don't use it against them, which knowing humans, we will eventually), so.. well, there's nothing else to trade.

That race that doesn't practice medicine - what's wrong with that? It could be different enough from us that it has either an extremely strong immune system, has some way of healing themselves without outside help (Jaffa from Stargate universe come to mind), don't value human life (as in the lives of individual members of their species, not humans) or viruses don't work on them.

[Syka]

All of what you mentioned happens in human society. Seriously, certain groups won't trade with others. Romans and Greeks had slaves- if you weren't a citizen, you could be a slave. Just because they could, potentially, survive doesn't mean that the society doing the enslaving feels that they are giving the "them" group a better chance at life.

Not practicing medicine as we know it is not the same as not having medicine. I'm not familiar with the book, but maybe they have a certain plant that is part of their diet that helps ward off disease. Maybe their immune systems are just that incredible.

And I should add, as was emphasized in my Social Psychology class, morality is relative. There is no one moral principle in every society that we know of- there are always exceptions, and no doubt this would hold true for alien societies. Just because someone's morals are different from you doesn't make them "evil" and just because they're the same as yours doesn't make them "good".

Cheers,
Syka

[Sam]

I'm not discussing a specific book- it is a thing ALOT of authors do that annoys me.

That book was particullarly egregious which is why I am using it as an example.

[Sam]

1 The poor are in no way slaves of the rich. They are powerless compared to the rich, but they aren't slaves. For starters, greater power=/ slavery.

2 You obviously have never heard of something called "social mobility". Let me give you a hint- the richest man in the US? He didn't start rich. There are alot of people who are "old wealth", but there are a good number of people who are "new wealth". The fact of the matter is that although social mobility has been slowing in the US, that is incomparison to its recent pass. Compared to when serfdom existed, social mobility is phenomenal! In addition, there is a differance between holding people down (which would be part of slavery) and trying to get the best for your kids. What is the point of money if you can't use it for what is most important in life?

3 I am unfamilar of any cases of individuals dropping dead on the job because their bosses refused to let them leave their posts.

Sweatshops aren't slavery. The conditions suck but you can switch jobs. Despite what you think, if you can get out of the situation, it isn't slavery. Unless it is a company town and you can't leave because you are in "debt"- that would be slavery.

Slavery has traditionally been defined as the denial of basic rights and the usage of people as personal property. You aren't talking about slavery- you are talking about expendable labor. That is really sucky, but poor conditions do not a slave make. The armed forces of several contries have gone through worse and not have been slavery... okay, the Russian Empire probably hit slavery- lifetime consription will do that.



And finally, slavery is not an evil, immoral act to those who practice it. They see it as a rational, economically viable alternative to paid workers, and unfortunately that's the sad truth.

Uh... almost ALL evil actions are rational. After all if someone commits murder they did it for a reason.



In the same book the fact that only two alien nations trade with us holds true in our world just as well. You don't exactly see developed countries selling less developed countries instructions on how to build nuclear reactors or cruise missiles, and for very good reasons.

Which is usually what people want to trade if they're self-sufficient... Aliens may not want our art, they may have enough of their own food/natural resources to go around, they may not want to share technology with us (so we don't use it against them, which knowing humans, we will eventually), so.. well, there's nothing else to trade.

Except we have tech parity. If we didn't they would have stomped us flatter than the plains of Kansas- after all, once you have a species orbitals, you have 'em by the...

In addition, the story takes place entirely on a trading port AND they are hoping to get better relations with one of the species so they will trade with them. Think about that- their destain for humans is stronger than their capitalists desire to make large bundles of money. What kind of space faring society can operate without any degree of capitalism?



That race that doesn't practice medicine - what's wrong with that? It could be different enough from us that it has either an extremely strong immune system, has some way of healing themselves without outside help (Jaffa from Stargate universe come to mind), don't value human life (as in the lives of individual members of their species, not humans) or viruses don't work on them.

In the human species we see individuals who are immune to specific diseases. It is called "Sickle Cell Animia", "Tay Sachs", etc. The fact of the matter is that there is no magic "immune to all diseases" card in life- you have to beat the buggers one bleeding mutation at a time. ANd they mutate MUCH faster than you can.

The Jaffa don't count- they have symbiotes that spend their entire time doing that and pump chemicals into their bloodstream. Now if they invented it they wouldn't need medicine... except they can't- that would require them not to be opposed to medicine.

It is worth pointing out that they DO die from injuries and sickness- the doctor in the book mentions that he finds their bodies on the station and that some of the "duel deaths" are probably mercy killings.

As for not valuing the members of the group...uh, the group is made of its members. It is impossible for such a belief to evolve naturally and culturally- how do you get people to believe that their lives are entirely valueless. These aren't fanatics- they don't have an over all dream- their justification is that it is "unfair".

More to the point, imagine todays world hit by the Black Plague, but with no more counters than medieval Europe. Civilization would collapse! One in three dead from the disease, another third die because services break down, warlordism occurs, crime explodes, etc.



All of what you mentioned happens in human society. Seriously, certain groups won't trade with others. Romans and Greeks had slaves- if you weren't a citizen, you could be a slave. Just because they could, potentially, survive doesn't mean that the society doing the enslaving feels that they are giving the "them" group a better chance at life.

Not purely because we think foreigners are inferior in capitalistic societies. In fact, they tend to FORCE OPEN trade. As for not trading... there were John Deere tractors in the Soviet Union. We even shipped the Reds grain! Why do you think their premier said that "Capitalism will sell us the rope to hang themselves"?

Sure, there have been embargos- but only to countries that are threats... or morally reprehensible, etc. As Perry showed, we want to trade with you.

The Romans AND the Greeks believed that their way of life was superior and that they were doing the "scum" a favor by civilizing them. More to the point, I think you couldn't exactly call the Romans "good"- for starters, reformers had a bad habit of dying horribly, they intended to brutally subjugate anyone who stood in their path... they were like the Mongols or the Tao- join us... or else.



Not practicing medicine as we know it is not the same as not having medicine. I'm not familiar with the book, but maybe they have a certain plant that is part of their diet that helps ward off disease. Maybe their immune systems are just that incredible.

And I should add, as was emphasized in my Social Psychology class, morality is relative. There is no one moral principle in every society that we know of- there are always exceptions, and no doubt this would hold true for alien societies. Just because someone's morals are different from you doesn't make them "evil" and just because they're the same as yours doesn't make them "good".

Except that humans have tried that tactics- foxgloves, aspirin, etc are from plants. However, there is no such thing as a "super immune system"- reality simply does not work that way.

You obviously missed my point- the four differant acts I pointed out are always considered wrong to be done to "in group" members. The only "relative" part is that not all groups have the same view on reality (hence ignorance) or they are doing it to outsiders (hence "evil").

[Don Julio Anejo]

My dad is a hedge fund manager so he deals with rich people pretty much every day. Let's just say there's almost no such thing as new wealth - there's random people here and there who happen to catch on to something new and make lots of money in the process. But 95% of these startups fail or don't make it past tiny entrepreneur status where they're less well off than upper or even middle management in bigger companies and to top it off, much less stable in the long-term.

Oh, and Bill Gates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates) wasn't born poor, his dad was one of the most influential and richest corporate lawyers of his day. And his mother served as a trustee on many non-profit and for-profit company boards, including chairing one where IBM's CEO also happened to serve around the time Bill was making his MS-DOS.

Sweatshops are slavery even by your definition, since they're "holding people down." You can switch jobs to other sweat shops where conditions won't be any better or go beg on the street. Very big choice here.

The Russian Empire never had life time conscription. At worst, they had 25-year terms for criminals convicted of things like voluntary manslaughter or banditism (read: repeated armed robbery and armed assault). Which is quite lenient considering the laws in many other countries. Granted, they had serfdom well into the 19th century, but then so did almost everyone else in Europe until around the Industrial Revolution. Russia just never became industrialized enough at that time and repealed the laws out of humanistic reasons rather than economic ones.

A space-faring society can operate pretty well without capitalism. Star Trek comes to mind. Even though I haven't seen that much of it, and only TNG, it seems as communist when it comes to the economic system as you get. And they only trade for things they need and don't share technology.

And finally, a society could perfectly well not care about individual members. It's called "working for the greater good" and putting the needs of society above the needs of individual and pretty much every single country has resorted to this every so often. In collectivistic countries (which also happen to be much happier on average), it's considered the norm that you would put the group before yourself. In individualistic countries it only happens in a moment of crisis, but it's still there. But I can't say anything for certain about this particular example as I haven't read the book.

I have not once have heard of a John Deere tractor (which is quite frankly, weird, since I was born in the USSR and was growing up around the time of its collapse... I also spent a lot of my summers with my grandma who owned a farm). All were made in the USSR itself. Of course the reason we bought grain is because there were morons in the central committee who SHIPPED our grain to quite a few places. But there's morons in every country's government (a very prominent one comes to mind). We also shipped tons of ores, minerals, oil, gas and other natural resources to pretty much everyone. And heavy machinery and weapons to friendly countries.

PPS: and finally, there's this word called "conflict of interest." This is the main reason for wars, relative morality, slavery of foreigners and other bad things. To simply put it, humans are social animals. They're members of groups and usually owe their loyalty to said groups (be they extended families, clans, cities or nation-states). And they want the best for their children, who are cared for by our society just as much as by us. Both of these are hardwired in our DNA. However, resources (water in a desert, or grassland for flocks of sheep, or oil if we go back to the modern days) needed to raise our children are often finite. And so we come into conflict with members of other groups who want the same thing for their children...

[Sam]

So Bill Gates was middle class or upper middle class.

Lets see... Steve Jobs would fit- as a kid he was adopted.

It is worth noting that social mobility doesn't only apply to going to the top- going from the bottom to the middle also counts. I know that happens- it applies to alot of my school mates.



Sweatshops are slavery even by your definition, since they're "holding people down." You can switch jobs to other sweat shops where conditions won't be any better or go beg on the street. Very big choice here.

Having to have a cruddy job is not slavery. You have a choice- you can stop. You might starve... but given the current situation in most of the first world, you might not. In the third world, you would probably be thankful for such a job- you neeed the money.



The Russian Empire never had life time conscription. At worst, they had 25-year terms for criminals convicted of things like voluntary manslaughter or banditism (read: repeated armed robbery and armed assault). Which is quite lenient considering the laws in many other countries. Granted, they had serfdom well into the 19th century, but then so did almost everyone else in Europe until around the Industrial Revolution. Russia just never became industrialized enough at that time and repealed the laws out of humanistic reasons rather than economic ones.

From wiki


The term of service in 18th century was for life. In 1793 it was reduced to 25 years. In 1834 it was reduced to 20 years plus 5 years in reserve and in 1855 to 12 years plus 3 years of reserve.[1][chronology source needed]

They did hold me in the army for life at a certain time.

As for abolishing serfdom... they did, but not your debt. Russian serfs were as free as blacks under the black codes- they were still essentially slaves.



A space-faring society can operate pretty well without capitalism. Star Trek comes to mind. Even though I haven't seen that much of it, and only TNG, it seems as communist when it comes to the economic system as you get. And they only trade for things they need and don't share technology.

They are communists.
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Trek-Marxism.html
Not that their citizens die because they have no way to get of their planets- the only space flight belongs to the government. In fact they have a host of inefficiencies. They would easily be conquered by their neighbors due to their weakness and are in alternate dimensions and by the Dominion except by Deus Exus Machina.



And finally, a society could perfectly well not care about individual members. It's called "working for the greater good" and putting the needs of society above the needs of individual and pretty much every single country has resorted to this every so often. In collectivistic countries (which also happen to be much happier on average), it's considered the norm that you would put the group before yourself. In individualistic countries it only happens in a moment of crisis, but it's still there. But I can't say anything for certain about this particular example as I haven't read the book.

In the book they are individualistic- they fight duels for example. In addition, not all people in a collectivist society are so gung ho- we took Japanese prisoners during WW2 despite the amount of indoctrination.



I have not once have heard of a John Deere tractor (which is quite frankly, weird, since I was born in the USSR and was growing up around the time of its collapse... I also spent a lot of my summers with my grandma who owned a farm). All were made in the USSR itself. Of course the reason we bought grain is because there were morons in the central committee who SHIPPED our grain to quite a few places. But there's morons in every country's government (a very prominent one comes to mind). We also shipped tons of ores, minerals, oil, gas and other natural resources to pretty much everyone. And heavy machinery and weapons to friendly countries.

I was partially joking- I say a picture of a tractor with an English name in my old history text. Also, I was refering to the grain that the USSR bought from the US.



PPS: and finally, there's this word called "conflict of interest." This is the main reason for wars, relative morality, slavery of foreigners and other bad things. To simply put it, humans are social animals. They're members of groups and usually owe their loyalty to said groups (be they extended families, clans, cities or nation-states). And they want the best for their children, who are cared for by our society just as much as by us. Both of these are hardwired in our DNA. However, resources (water in a desert, or grassland for flocks of sheep, or oil if we go back to the modern days) needed to raise our children are often finite. And so we come into conflict with members of other groups who want the same thing for their children...

Except it is almost always better to negotiate. It just requires a nonzero sum situation and rational opponent.

[DigoDragon]

I suppose the problem with creating "Aliens" is the lack of definitive proof on how aliens act. We only have ourselves as a basis to come up with a non-human psyche so this isn't going to be anything other then guesswork. At least for now. :smallamused:

I tend to side with those who make aliens that have some developmental parallels to our own. As an example, the alien character Serafina from my online comic- The Arbiters.

Serafina has recognized many human technologies despite coming from a world nearly a hundred lightyears away. The reasoning is that the basic physics on how certain things work should be universal. Airplanes fly using a difference in air pressure on their wings combined with a form of thrust. So it's reasonable to assume that an airplane would fly on any planet with a similar atmosphere to Earth. Airplanes on her world might look a bit different, but i'm sure they'd work with the same set of principals.

[Telonius]

-one of the two alien races we DO trade with doesn't practice medicine. In fact it has taboos against medical treatments.

The last is, quite simply, impossible- the others can be justified poorly, but a society that has no medicine whatsoever could not get into space. Disease outbreaks would prevent them from being stable long enough to get there.


I think that would depend on just how alien the race is. If a species isn't carbon-based, how would a virus or bacterium attack it? Of course if disease is a given in the society, that might be thrown out the window (barring some sort of super-T cell evolution within the species).

[Sam]

Well, we DO have people who act "alien"... but the thing is that none of the... none optimal behaviors could compose a society.

For disease... our disease couldn't affect any xenos, but even if they were silicon based, they still would have silicon viruses and bacteria. Unless they don't use cells.