How would human populations think in an environment with nonhuman populations?

[Souper]

We have a population of humans in interaction with one or more nonhuman intelligences. All of them are at least alien to the point you can tell they aren't human from a distance, meaning things like neanderthals are off the table. How would humans:

- look at the other species?

- look at themselves (compared to how we look at eatchother in human-only world)?

- interact with the other species?

- interact with eatchother?

[magnemoe]

Not sure if it would have had an major impact historically. 
It was not uncommon to think that other races was not humans historically, the Spanish actually debated if native Americans had souls or not. 

So an fantasy world setting with gnomes, cat people and orcs would not be so weird for them.  Then we would be kind of used to it. 
As times goes more modern things will start differentiating. Racism against none humans would last longer depending quite a bit on how human or cute the other species is. 

[Superfluous J]

We'd be jerks. Not out of any inter-species drama or anything. Humans are just jerks in general.

Less fatalistically, I'd like to think after the initial hubbub we'd settle down and get back to normal. I mean, I'm assuming these other creatures are relatable in some way, like they also like ice cream or think sunsets are pretty.

Edited October 25, 2019 by 5thHorseman

[kerbiloid]

Just talk about KSP with your neighbors and get an experience, lol.

Edited October 25, 2019 by kerbiloid

[micha]

Did humans evolve together with the non-human species (ie, typical fantasy setting)?  In that case, no different to how humans generally treat others who are different (skin colour, cultural background, political leanings, etc). Ie, a significant proportion of the population has zero issues, and a significant proportion of the population are just <self-redacted>.

Assuming the non-humans are new on the scene (eg, future alien contact), I guess the same: most people would be ok, but a large proportion would not be. It would also heavily depend on the context of the initial contact - was it friendly or due to competing for a resource?

Perhaps if the contact is some ways off in the future there is a slim hope that our society has become more tolerant but looking at the current state of things, it's not looking great.

The problem with these questions is that there is no thing as "we" to encompass everybody; there is enough personal variation between members of our society that there will be a huge multitude of responses.

 

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, micha said:

Did humans evolve together with the non-human species (ie, typical fantasy setting)?  In that case, no different to how humans generally treat others who are different (skin colour, cultural background, political leanings, etc). Ie, a significant proportion of the population has zero issues, and a significant proportion of the population are just <self-redacted>.

Assuming the non-humans are new on the scene (eg, future alien contact), I guess the same: most people would be ok, but a large proportion would not be. It would also heavily depend on the context of the initial contact - was it friendly or due to competing for a resource?

Perhaps if the contact is some ways off in the future there is a slim hope that our society has become more tolerant but looking at the current state of things, it's not looking great.

The problem with these questions is that there is no thing as "we" to encompass everybody; there is enough personal variation between members of our society that there will be a huge multitude of responses.

 

Yes my premise was that we evolved together or more likely ran into each other later on. 

Any future version of this will be stuff like uplifted animals and how humans will probably diverge into multiple species in the future. 
Don't see much worse problems with this as in cultures will generate more problems than species. 
 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Any future version of this will be stuff like uplifted animals

It will be humans with implanted cat-like ears.

[micha]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes my premise was that we evolved together or more likely ran into each other later on. 

Running into each other later on : basically different species/societies started off geographically separated (whether same planet/different continents or other barriers, or different planets in the same solar system).

In the former case, given our history, I'd guess humans would attempt to subjugate/exploit/exterminate, just as the European civilisations did globally in our own history against our own species, assuming the humans were the first to develop the technology to travel to other continents.  Conversely if they were the first to reach humans, it's difficult to say. Probably heavily dependent on their approach to us. Most civilisations have been cautious but curious about visitors.
Then again, if the civilisations arose on the same continent but encountered each other later, there might be a more gentle interaction; probably still lots of wars, but also trade and cultural exchanges which would eventually result in a society similar to our modern one, just instead of the differences being limited to minor racial differences it would be multiple species along with racial differences within each species. Perhaps that might make the merged society more tolerant, rather than less?

In the latter case (interplanetary contact) I would hope to guess contact would be friendly - it would take technology on par to our current civilisation to reach other planets and mostly we've started to respect other cultures now; at least in cases when there are no economic pressures. Case in point the tribe on that Indian island is being actively protected, whereas the natives in the Amazon are still being driven away/killed by local farmers with only lackluster governmental protection.

I'd strongly suspect that if we had detected not only life, but a civilisation on another planet by now we'd have rapidly continued to advance our technology sufficiently to be routinely able to travel there and back instead of stagnating in LEO. If they would be at a similar level to us technologically we'd probably have established long-range communication before and have had significant cultural exchange prior to a physical meeting. If they had not yet reached our level of civilisation I'd strongly suspect we'd practice a no-interference policy.

[farmerben]

Intelligent aliens would be able to manipulate humans into treating other humans in ways that served the aliens interest.