Happy Monday! Tabled this weekend at the local “Glens Falls Chronicle Book Fair.” Which was lovely. Tabled and hung out with the very talented Marika McCoola, and then went home and drew some more. Oh, and while at the fair, I also doodled a lot, including this:
I think a manual for first contact with humans should say don’t contact them first. Humans tend to misinterpret friendly gestures as threats and inoccuous objects as weapons. Don’t approach them with open gunports. Don’t try to shake tentacles. Don’t inject them with babelbots. Treat humans like the abused feral animals they are. They need therapy before they’ll accept you, and continued therapy afterward.
What ‘moral implications’? People are responsible for their own actions, not the actions of others. Defending yourself against aggression is a universal principle, even animals get it. Even if the argument is they trespassed, they tried to flee and were not allowed to. Morality is not subjective, the non-aggression principle (do not initiate force) is logical and empirical. Alien mindset or no, any being capable of reason and capable of understanding the concepts of ‘self’ and ‘other’ can derive it. These NEBS morally only had the right to force the humans off their land, not box them in and move in to attack.
now i am dying to know what surprised the lady in your doodle.
Don’t approach them with open gunports.
You’d assume future generations to have grown up watching Babylon 5 much in the same way that we would have our children listen to Mozart and Beethoven. Right?
They can’t spend all their time watching remakes of SpongeBob XV? ah, who am I kidding…
Um… don’t stab the humans. Don’t grab the humans. Humans need to wear better armor, something equivalent to 1 inch (25.4mm) RHA (Rolled Homogeneous Armor).
@Gnarlydoug, I respect that and understand your point. But personally, I think there are always implications when one kills. And they don’tknow why the “crabs” are attacking, or if the crabs even view it as “attacking.” That’s the problem with things alien.
Just had an odd thought.
Crab: And and she was stressing out, so I hit her with a stress reduction medication. And then they freaked out so we went into full intervention mode. And then these monsters blew us up and ate our slain with butter and lemon.
@CHRISTOPHER BALDWIN
Sure, anyone who initiates force has to justify it, and killing requires the most justification. Being stabbed, trying to flee, and being chased to a corner meets that criteria unless the concept of self defense itself is invalid. That some humans may have done the same thing to the Galnaans as the crab-aliens are doing to the humans however does not mean these particular humans bear any ‘original sin’ for that.
As for the aliens having an ‘alien’ mind, sure. That cannot be a stand-in for a ‘irrational’ mind however. Math and logic are universal, valid or invalid. There is no ‘my logic’ vs. ‘your logic’ like most people imagine, there is just ‘valid’ and ‘invalid’ logic. An alien who believes 2+2 = 5 or that something can be A and Not-A at the same time (principle of non-contradiction) is not just different, it is wrong.
Now it is possible the crab-aliens don’t understand they are initiating force. For example maybe they are part of a hive mind for the world and think they are dealing with cancer cells because they are not part of the ‘world mind’ or something. It’s a stretch, you have to go pretty far afield to get to an ecology where they don’t understand (assuming they are intelligent at all) what they are doing, but it is possible. Even if so it still does not change the fact that the humans have a right to defend themselves. They do however have an obligation to consider these possibilities and to minimize hostile action when possible, but they did that. It will be an unfortunate tragedy if they harm or kill some of these creatures when no harm was meant, but it won’t be ‘wrong’.
I do agree with him bringing Anna to heel with thinking about the possibilities, I just disagree with how he did it.
Well, i still disagree (I think). He simply says, when aliens first visited us, we attacked them, and they became our allies. it was a fear based attack, and whatever misunderstanding there was – it was figured out. And so he’s pointing out this could be a similar situation, and that they may not be “monsters” as she says. That he’s willing to so it, but it’s good to know that they don’t know exactly what motivations are at work.
Well, I actually agree with all of that actually. If animals there is no moral issue here, if not animals they could be attacking for all sorts of reasons.
@Coyoty: Duly noted