It seems relevant for the last 50 years....

Americans need to understand that not every country holds the same values. We have to come to some sort of philosophical comprehension of this, and try to set aside the natural native ego involved.  (We have trouble with this.)

(American values) != (everyone else)
in the same sense that
(Western humanism) != (everyone else)

This doesn't mean that American values are BETTER either. (Or WORSE either, Democrats.)

Different.

How does a liberal society cope with other societies that aren't as liberal? We believe that women are equal to men in capability and opportunity. Certain societies don't believe this. Does this mean that the women there are 'oppressed' and should be 'rescued'? Would they even agree? Should we aggressively evangelize our beliefs, because we're 'certain' they're better in an absolute sense? Aside from the fact that other cultures may be JUST as certain of their superiority, how does this jibe with the (current) Western opinion frowning on the actions of 16-19th century colonialist missionaries, who were JUST as certain at the time that they needed to do what they were doing to SAVE the souls of the 'poor little ignorant fuzzy-wuzzies'?

My personal answer to this makes people uncomfortable. What's yours?

Why we should quit searching for alien civilizations.

Hypothesis:

The universe is roughly 15 billion years old.

As I understand it, our solar system is approximately 5 billion years old, and was generated from a molecular cloud that would itself have been created by a previous star exploding, which would have had a lifespan (to be nova-likely) of something under 1 billion years. So VERY roughly speaking, our entire existence cycle is roughly 6 billion years or so.

Even granting that the universe didn't really settle into its current state for the first 5 billion years, that would give the first civilizations - if there are any, and to me it's likely - as much as a 5 billion year head-start on us.

So extant civilizations in the universe would be anywhere from 0 (just reached sentience) to 5 billion years old. Given that on such a scale, we're just on the verge of reaching starflight ourselves, we don't really have to worry about encountering any races YOUNGER than us...they won't be starfaring.

Which means that anyone we meet is going to be anywhere from 0 to 5 BILLION years more advanced.

Look at Earth, and ask yourself what chance a civilization would have against a group only 1000 years more advanced. And then consider the increasing PACE of development - the next 1000 years' tech will be a MUCH greater step than, for example 0 AD to 1000 AD, or 1000 AD-2000 AD.

And then figure out how 'troubling' we'd be to someone 100,000, a million, or a billion years more advanced?

By their scale, really, we'd be insects (minus perhaps the ability to actually annoy). If they want something we have, they'd just take it and probably not even notice our objections.

So no, I'd like to HOPE that they are also ethically advanced, but I wouldn't stake humanity on it. I'd much prefer that they didn't even know we were here (aside from the chance of accidental obliteration due to construction of a hyperspace bypass...), and that we have absolutely nothing they want.

Further, my thought experiment would also suggest that yes, if they DID care to observe us out of some curiosity, we'd have absolutely no clue, even if they were right here. A billion years more advanced? Do ants notice you watching them? I doubt it. Hell, events that we take to be logically-explainable processes like volcanoes could just be the equivalent of the finger of a bored supersentient adolescent.

Bread and Circuses

Bread and Healthcare^H^H^H Circuses:


After Benjamin Franklin signed the Constitution, he was reportedly asked: "Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" To which he replied: "A republic, if you can keep it."

Franklin is also reputed to have said at some other time, "when the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

Alexander Tyler (1787) re the fall of the Athenian republic
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

Robert A Heinlein:
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. ... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so..." They'll vote themselves bread and circuses every time "until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader [such as] the barbarians enter Rome."

thanks to jimmysmith.blogspot.com