Pthigrivi’s Moral Dilemma:

[kerbiloid]

First make cats sapient.

Only then think about buttons.

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

First make cats sapient.

Only then think about buttons.

how do you klnow the alien isnt a hyper-evolved kitty?

i think id be too busy trying to give it scritches to push any buttons. perhaps that was its intention all along. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Nuke

[SunlitZelkova]

13 hours ago, tater said:

Any chance of a second crack at evolution results in the same issue (any intelligent species has to go through an industrial phase, and this premise seems to say that "animals" doing things for animal purposes is "good" but smart animals doing things for their own purposes are "bad" and deserving of extinction.

If you have the time, I would be interested in a clarification of this sentence.

"Human level intelligence" =/= evolution, as sharks are older than us they are more evolved, without needing spaceships or smart phones to be considered so.

I haven't seen people really saying anything akin to that "animals good smart animals bad" remark. It has to do with who is disregarding the environment and who isn't. If it was the rabbits somehow pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and dumping garbage into the oceans, humans would be off the hook and the rabbits would be under fire, despite humanity having the spaceships and rabbits being rabbits.

13 hours ago, tater said:

The evil aliens in this scenario don't accidentally kill species by being insufficiently concerned about their environment, they kill species out of malice, apparently. To me the moral question might become which outcome increases the chances of creating the ability to take out these murderous aliens.

I would also regard this as instinct rather than an opinionated choice, or a "moral" question. Thing presents threat so one kills it. This is widely seen across terrestrial species, at the very least.

The alien's behavior is akin to a cat playing with its food before actually eating it or the sadistic traits found in some humans. As they are aliens it is likely they don't possess human "malice".

Can a chimpanzee really be said to have "malice" if it attacks its owner without proceeding to eat them?

EDIT- To be clear, I mean “if a chimpanzee attacks its owner without eating them can it really be said to have malice (with the limitations of what we know about animal emotions)”

13 hours ago, tater said:

For sure they go extinct in ~5B years, vs maybe Earth life going on longer than 5B years.

What difference would it make?

Going by the logic that life on Earth is pointless if it ends in five billion years, human life is pointless if it ends in X amount of time until the universe ends, because if it can't be elongated, it is worthless.

I am asking from a logical point of view. As an opinion it is certainly fine, just as I might enjoy my ice cream while chowing it down in a matter of minutes while you can enjoy it while taking an hour to eat it (for example).

Edited August 21, 2022 by SunlitZelkova

[tater]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If you have the time, I would be interested in a clarification of this sentence.

"Human level intelligence" =/= evolution, as sharks are older than us they are more evolved, without needing spaceships or smart phones to be considered so.

I haven't seen people really saying anything akin to that "animals good smart animals bad" remark. It has to do with who is disregarding the environment and who isn't. If it was the rabbits somehow pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and dumping garbage into the oceans, humans would be off the hook and the rabbits would be under fire, despite humanity having the spaceships and rabbits being rabbits.

Everything extant right now is equally evolved by definition. Horseshoe crabs are just as evolved as we are—they perfectly fit their niche.

I was specifically referring to "sapient" life. Self-aware intelligence like our own. The point being that presumably the point of a "reset" is for a NEW highly intelligent species to evolve, and that the likely candidates might be Great Apes since they are in fact already highly intelligent, and need only change a little for improved communication, dexterity (tool making), etc.

 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I would also regard this as instinct rather than an opinionated choice, or a "moral" question. Thing presents threat so one kills it. This is widely seen across terrestrial species, at the very least.

The alien's behavior is akin to a cat playing with its food before actually eating it or the sadistic traits found in some humans. As they are aliens it is likely they don't possess human "malice".

Can a chimpanzee really be said to have "malice" if it attacks its owner without proceeding to eat them?

Any intelligent species that presents the OP "quiz" is nasty, and needs to be exterminated, IMHO. They presumably do this throughout the cosmos. Any notion that the test is specific to humans for some reason is simply a measure of bias on the part of OP in this thread. The universal "fair" test is, "find intelligent life anywhere, offer to exterminate THEM, or all other life on their world" watch results (for the LOLZ?). If the test is specific to humans because OP thinks "we are bad" the entire premise is nonsense, IMO.

So we have evil aliens, or this isn't worth continued discussion, as a given at the start is biased.

 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

EDIT- To be clear, I mean “if a chimpanzee attacks its owner without eating them can it really be said to have malice (with the limitations of what we know about animal emotions)”

What difference would it make?

Going by the logic that life on Earth is pointless if it ends in five billion years, human life is pointless if it ends in X amount of time until the universe ends, because if it can't be elongated, it is worthless.

I am asking from a logical point of view. As an opinion it is certainly fine, just as I might enjoy my ice cream while chowing it down in a matter of minutes while you can enjoy it while taking an hour to eat it (for example).

If the universe might last 10s or 100s of billions of years, then the life here ending in ~5B leaves a lot of future life off the table. That depends on the cosmological model we pick as likely, I suppose. Note that while the extinction in ~5B years is certain, it could happen much sooner via some "planet killer" event. The only hope to avoid those is spreading consciousness out of the solar system ideally, but certainly off Earth. A wandering planetary body could slam into Earth, and with spare colonies in deep space, Mars, etc.—life survives. (as an aside, any kooky Mars colony should import as much biodiversity from Earth as possible for this exact reason, even as it evolves to maximize survival in the new, man-made environment it finds itself in)

I see your point, that the slow motion extinction is not the best of the arguments for "red button" though. I'd push it regardless of that argument.

Edited August 21, 2022 by tater

[kerbiloid]

If every sapient race in the Universe pressed their green button, all sapient races die.

If every sapient race in the Universe pressed their red button, all but one sapient races die.

For the sake of sapient life in the Universe, we must press the red button before somebody had done it for us.

[Pixophir]

Anybody pushing red would die of hunger or thirst the other day or in the mob plundering the grocery stores that can't be refilled because lack of, well, other species that the stuff is made of.

 

But the aliens are certainly not as gruesome as to enable a single individual to extinguish whole species. The whole setup was just a test, a statistical probe, no life was actually lost *phew*. Participants are invited to listen to some alien poetry before being beamed back to their homes :-)

 

Btw., evolution is not a state machine. It is (simplified) a constant, gradual process of adaptation through variation. No individual or species at a certain point in time is more evolved than any other. Also, there is no perfect adaptation, there can't be because such a high specialization would hardly be able to adapt to a change of the niche, they would be prone to die out quickly.

When we let's say zoom out of the dimension 'time', the whole concept of hard definition of a species dissolves because they are in constant change. Which also means that taking out any part of an evolutionary system, species or environmental, makes it collapse and take away part of the basis of existence of other species in the system. It may reach a new state, but it can't be put or directed into a prior state.

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Pixophir

[DDE]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

For the sake of sapient life in the Universe, we must press the red button before somebody had done it for us.

The Dark Forest hypothesis, redesigned.

1 hour ago, Pixophir said:

Btw., evolution is not a state machine.

You're way too charitable to states. The level of signal loss and calcification of internal official and unofficial rules of play is such that they too plod along with little care for what the figureheads want.

[kerbiloid]

19 minutes ago, DDE said:

The Dark Forest hypothesis, redesigned.

Just one alien species of infinity, selects the red button, and it's a total game over for others.

Though, maybe we have already pressed it?
And this explains the Fermi paradox.

As humans weren't able create it, we should have a look in Ancient Egyptian graffitti.
Maybe those "gods" already had given the choice. Maybe they pressed the button.

Btw Sphinx.
Isn't it a perfect manifestation of what the humans should go to? A cat-human symbiosis, the ultimate expression of which are catgirls.

The alien pyramid builders have built it for reasons.

(Btw is Sphinx boy or girl? Can't see, it's lying.)

Edited August 21, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Pixophir]

29 minutes ago, DDE said:

You're way too charitable to states. The level of signal loss and calcification of internal official and unofficial rules of play is such that they too plod along with little care for what the figureheads want.

What ? Oh, a state machine is not a political but a logical construct that stores its information in discrete states (no gradual changes) and their interdependencies.

Btw.: what will the red-buttons (analogy to red-pills :-)) eat, without gut flora. Even the yoghurt has vanished (not everybody hates yoghurt :-)). Think of it, there's no way to space in a couple of days until starvation. In a particularly ugly vision they'll have their beloved but at some stage maybe tasty looking children or other relatives. Because there is nothing else to eat. They may hope that their first poop contains some seeds left from yesterdays meal worth trying to grow something, but that'll take months. And, you know, it may work in the movies, but irl it would need some knowledge many of us don't have. Also, there is no soil any more. Nothing grows on pure sand. They may write a kitchen recipe for their children describing how to cook themselves, and leave it on the table tucked with a knife, then finish themselves off and hope the kids do the right thing. Which they probably won't. So back to plan a, have the kids.

Seriously, killing everything else is killing oneself. Killing oneself gives everything else a chance.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Pixophir

[DDE]

56 minutes ago, Pixophir said:

what will the red-buttons (analogy to red-pills :-)) eat, without gut flora.

Yeah, I had noticed that hole as well, but since this was a moral hypothetical, I decided not to nitpick.

In particular, it was my understanding that the chicken-tasting algae would provude sufficient sustenance, whereas no seeds or other biological material would be allowed to survive.

[tater]

10 hours ago, Pixophir said:

Seriously, killing everything else is killing oneself. Killing oneself gives everything else a chance.

That's not the condition of the thought experiment. That poll would be:

1. exterminate all life

2. exterminate just humans

 

 

[kerbiloid]

And then the poll would make no sense, because humans get extinct anyway.

[razark]

13 hours ago, tater said:

That's not the condition of the thought experiment. That poll would be:

1. exterminate all life

2. exterminate just humans

3. Exterminate both through not choosing 1 or 2

I misread that.

Edited August 22, 2022 by razark

[kerbiloid]

4. Be algae.

[Starwaster]

I refuse to push a button

[Admiral Fluffy]

I have a revised answer.

If we have a perfect genetic code of every animal, then Red. We can just make the animals again later.

[Pthigrivi]

12 hours ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

I have a revised answer.

If we have a perfect genetic code of every animal, then Red. We can just make the animals again later.

For many we do! However my mom was a proteomics researcher for decades and Im pretty sure because of epigenetics and complex ecosystematic feedback systems we’ve only begun to understand that data is going to be way insufficient to reconstruct life as we know it. The life we rebuild would be like replacing all coral reefs on earth with like a fishtank with a goldfish and a plastic sandcastle. 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

and a plastic sandcastle. 

This!

Now we have the way to utilize spent plastic!

[tater]

Any non-sapient (whatever we want to call highly intelligent) life that survives on Earth is great if you push green, but the evil aliens that put this choice to you still live, doing this to every intelligent life form that crops up. It's a moral imperative to eat the $#@! algae, develop interstellar travel, and hunt them down and exterminate them before they can remove more life from the cosmos.

[kerbiloid]

The aliens don't have a chance to look pleasant and cute for us. Exactly like humans for them.

Look at the extinct species. They look ugly and deformed, and only for this reason exotic.
And the aliens would be same. Not a noble humanized appearance of human actors with "alien" make-up, but looking deformed and disproportional, with disgusting chemistry, smelly or slimy, and with habits we would consider terrible. 
And the same would be their impression about us. 
Do many people prefer frogs to kittens?

We got used to treat this specific kind of apes beautiful, and love similarity.
While an alien would see a former four-handed creature, walking on rear hands and trying to not fall while standing vertically.
Covered with formerly sensitive antennas which became useless thin threads hanging down from the body top and for unexplainable reasons growing around the input and ouput ports,
And what's the most weird, in armpits. At least one reason to have hair in armpits? But they have.
(Let's refrain from detailed description of the output end which is literally turned inside out and thus dual and consists of various separated parts).

These senseless threads (aka "hair") ar so thin everywhere except several bunches that even don't protect from cold.
So these humans are at the same time slimy ("sweaty") and "hairy" on touch.
Ask the cats about what do they feel when you are hugging them to bare chest.

Their rear hands (aka "feet") have so thin surface and weak ligaments that they can hardly walk without attaching plates below (they call it "booting"), or have it even more deformed than usually.
More of that, some of them attach so-called "stilettos" to make the former rear arm (aka "leg") look longer, and the former rear hand (aka "feet") more strenuous, considering this beatiful, and totally forgetting that the sole purpose of this limb is to climb on branches and skin bananas.

These human permanently drink water and immediately excrete it with all body surface, becoming wet from liquid whose composition is mostly the same that their urine has, but also dissolve and wash excessive fat from their body surface. They pee with skin, what can you add more?

They fall inactive for several hours in a day, usually making weird sounds due to weak and badly constructed breathe system.

Their eyes are turned inside out as well, and thus they see everything overturned, but used to think it's straight.
And the light gets to the sensitive layer after passing through the whole eye body, thus they can see their own blood vessels.

Their body is full of useless rudiments like a New Yesr tree of toys.

Their input end is almost a bit of horror. With separated entrances ("nostrils" and "mouth"), and just don't look at their mouth, with a weird restless tentacle (aka "tongue") and calcinated... what do you think?,,, yes, taste sensors used as a mill. To prevent water and food falling back from this mouth, they have alway wet or cracked "lips", for unknown reasons bright red.

Look at their clowns. They don't try to look like another species to look ugly and funny. They enhance the natural colors of the own humans body! The humans find the accented human-like view disgusting themselves!

And after all of that they basically need about one third of their ration to be a meat of killed animals.
Some of them try be "vegans" but finally just make things worse.
Even their children schoolbooks are made of cellulose from killed plants.

Their pets are usually even more carnivorous than they are themselves, and they kill huge peaceful grass-eating cows and birds to feed a swarm of cats, dogs, and others.
 

***

After all of that, can we expect from a random alien race anything but hate and disgust?

No. Any alien race would like to wash the Universe from such ugly species like the humans are.

And we, in turn, also won't be hugging them to chest like kittens for same reasons.
(Well, actually some will, but it's a topic for another forums
(Actually it's hard to understand those furry and lizard fans. What can look more weird and alien than the human itself?)).

***

So, what do we get in the dry residue?

The first wave of human colonists' fleet should consist of

Spoiler

To sterylise the planet regardless of lifeforms there, and to prepare it for subsequent peaceful colonisation.

Anyway any lifeform there will be either toxic or aggressive (depending on its side), or usually both.

The red button is an easy way for that.

Edited August 23, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Pixophir]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

... a fishtank with a goldfish and a plastic sandcastle. 

Even running an aquarium needs some knowledge and dedication or the inhabitants are in danger of dying.

[tater]

Post red button people enjoying algae, plotting the destruction of evil aliens.

[Nuke]

perhaps the button colors need to be reversed.

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

This!

Now we have the way to utilize spent plastic!

a pressed plastic brick product always is an option. perhaps round bricks with a void in the center you can stack for hybrid rocket motors. one day i expect to see factory trawlers converted to sweep the pacific garbage patch and press the resulting plastic slurry into bricks and other materials for light construction projects. its a shame how sorry the state of plastic recycling is. a process to convert soda bottles into 3d printer filament exists. you can do it in a lathe with a razor blade in the chuck, run the strip through a hot end nozzle of appropriate diameter, through a cooling stage and to a take up real. not 100% efficient though because of the endcaps being discarded. though polycarbonate is not exactly the bees knees as far as 3d printing goes. its still all downcycling.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Nuke

[kerbiloid]

Love, Death, and Robots, season 3 is released, and s03e01 (with a rather optimistic final) is all about it.

P.S. Also, SpaceX related.

[magnemoe]

On 8/20/2022 at 5:30 AM, Kerbart said:

Red: putting all your eggs in one species-basket. A species that doesn't have a good track record of thinking about the long term future.

Green: basically a reset. Statistically, chances are something better comes out. It's hard to imagine that something worse will come out of it.

It's like a non-zero sum game.

Humans are peaceful compared to most mammals or even primates. Modern humans order of magnitude more. How often had you got into fights outside of primary school? 
Yes we are idiotic lethal but we are not violent just very good at large scale organisations who gave us writing and therefor civilization but includes armies it has been ramping up as organisation became larger with regressions but after we started industrialized stuff got wild. Starting with stuff like ironclads and machine guns and going into stealth bombers and loitering munition. 

I say that is another great filter, how likely is that intelligent creature create large states. Say you rely on smell to differentiated friends from outsiders, it might be very hard to create nations who needed writing to keep track of stuff as all the others was outsiders even if all in your river wally spoke the same language and had the same gods. 
Yes it has large scale benefits as in large scale infrastructure projects and larger armies but it would be not internal trust so structures would not last. 

And you could easy get stuff way worse. We had lots of very horrible cultures in our history, at our point of view, all of them 
It could easy be much worse and no civilizations and they also kill off the other large animals but you farm but the tribal warfare goes on for thousands of years with even changing alliances, you get bronze and perhaps iron but no real writing as its no standards.