Grrl Power #1005 – Dads be like…
Obviously Cora launched that FTL Comm Relay. Otherwise that conversation with Frix would have taken thirty years.
I’m not sure conflating Terrans with super powers and mass stupidity in the minds of the alien public is going to be a formula for reasoned discourse, but the space internet is as the space internet does. Let’s just hope their space news-feed algorithms are a lot less echo chambery than ours. Even so, that Einstein quote about there being only two or fewer infinite things feels exceedingly appropriate lately.
I have to imagine space-reddit has to have subreddits like r/Species_X_be_like, cause especially if there a bunch of monocultures like ferengi or klingons, stereotypes will abound. Also, I’d like to think that most alien species wouldn’t be a bunch of snowflakes. Like if you make a joke about a klingon starting a bar fight, I’d think most klingons would be all “Yeah, we totally would.” I’d hate to think that humans would be the snowflake race. Well, we wouldn’t be, at least not monolithically. Humans are always the “Anything we can do, you can selectively do better, but the point is we can do anything” race.
Woofs are the “date your daughter without too much fear of some dad taking a swing at them” race. Well, they’re in that group, along with the bugs from Starship Troopers (not that they date much, but most dads aren’t going to step up to one of those) Xenomorphs, Yautja… actually it’s probably a pretty long list, but then I guess it might depend on what race your dad is. It’s a chart with at least two axes.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
It’s done! And by done I mean it’s about ready to send off to the people who volunteered to spot check all my weird uses of ‘and’ when I meant to type ‘an.’ I’m going to give the new scene a once-over and send it off.
I really did not think it would take six months from when I started posting these updates, but at least the updated kept me on track better than me going “Oh, yeah, wasn’t I working on a book?” once every six weeks.
This month’s vote incentive guest stars Lana of Spying with Lana. One of my own secret agents, Pixel, is trying to assist, with various levels of success and… nudity. Well, in the Patreon versions. The Vote Incentive will give you a pretty good idea of what might go down. Here’s a dedicated post in case you want to comment.
Check out Spying with Lana. Their current vote incentive features a certain gold-plated glamazon. Also it’s a funny comic with tons of skin.
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Given that Sydney Sr. is just as much a geek as his daughter I’d think he’d be all on board with the idea of furry half-alien grandchildren.
7’4 catgirl/catboy incoming.
He’s probably proud to have the next possible basketball player and/or first family athlete instead.
The text implies that Syd Sen is on board because he fears the knuckle sandwich from somebody who is 7’4″, yet, everybody else implies that he is on board because he wants a basketball star in the family (or because he is a furry). It is rare that I am with “Everybody Else” on any topic, andf I am not in this case either. He is too much of a nerd to be into basketball. He just wants the Shortstack Scoville curse broken. There hasn’t been a Scoville measuring above 5’5″ since…how many generations?
Very viking. “You will improve our hold’s genepool. You shall be kidnapped and made one of us.”
*observes quietly, and resumes engineering The Irish Empire in her game of CKIII*
Given the average height of humans before the twentieth century? ANY generations! My grandfather (born 1893) was 5’10” and was apparently considered a very tall man. My dad (born 1921) was 6’5″ would still be considered tall were he still around. I’m 5’8″ (born 1954), and around average for my age.
5’5″ IS a bit short for modern Americans. Especially since Sydney Sr. was likely born in the 1980’s, when American males hit their tallest average…
I’m French born in 1976 and I’m 6’2″ (1,88 m) my paternal grandfather born in 1910 was 5’11” (1,80 m) , my maternal granfather born in 1922 was about 5’10” (1,77 m) my Father born in 1948 was 5’10” (1,78 m) also and my brother born in 1980 was 6′(1,82 m)
For non-US residents 6’5″ is about 1,95 m, 5’10” is 1,78 m, 5″8″ is 1,72 m , 5’5″ is 1,65 m and for history inclined Napoleon Bonaparte was 1,69 m about 5’7″
Size is complex matter for exemple the average heigth for a male French citizen is about 5’9″ as for a male US citizen, a male Greek citizen is about 5’10” and a German one 5’11″…
An in 12th century in the city of York UK the average male heigth is 5’9″ ( 1,75 m)
While I don’t have the mumbers, I know that even within a country different regions have different average heights, even in small countries like Japan. People in Osaka are shorter than in Tokyo, which is why the industry standard measure for a tatami in Tokyo is larger than the tatami in Osaka.
Interrrrresstiiinggg. If we (in our iggerance) assume any of Frixes pups would be rather like English Mastiff pups, ie: tiny, then maybe Syddles could carry 2 or 3 to term and not look too much like a whale or hippotamus…
:)
and then we get to see a 7’3″ catgirl named.. Mouse. James Butcher grumbles.
Yeah, but what he says is “Why didn’t I think of it first?”.
Nothing he could do. I mean the reverse of a 7’3″ catgirl named Mouse has been old news for centuries.
At least since a big guy was named… Little John.
the scientific name of the house mouse is mus musculus; i would like to think a 7’3″ catgirl would be muscular
But what the name means is ‘most mouse-like of mice’
You missed the joke…
With wordplay, Etymology Online is required reading.
And then Mouse roared! Mind you, I think she would have more than just political manoeuvring to enforce her will.
No roaring mice… this isn’t the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
Short, mine is 7foot 6″.
No, a 7’3″ catgirl named Sydney Trouble Scoville III
I’m sure team members will help how they can #pregnancyhammerspace
Just imagining Sydney with a police box tattoo spell glyph on her stomach.
Assuming Frix has 23 Chromosomes, they might even be fecund enough to reproduce.
Nah. He’s enough of a nerd that he’d get hung up on “How is this even possible? You’re not even the same evolutionary line, let alone the same species.”
I’m with you on that.
If by some chance they did have kids, there’s almost no doubt they’d be sterile. And that’s assuming they’re even viable. Here’s hoping Frix’s species has 23 chromosomes in a similar fashion to humans. Extra chromosomes (plural} would wreak utter havok. Humans have all manner of issues getting just one extra one. Trisomy is the general term; Down, Edwards, Patau, Kleinfelters Triple X, and Warkany 2 syndromes, along with trisomy 8, and XYY are the ones where the baby will actually live.
You forget Frix is a fully qualified medical doctor AND a mechanic. He’ll fix it.
Especially since “Medical Doctor” aboard an intergalactic spaceship no doubt includes quite a bit of expertise in genetic engineering and manipulation. Who needs an “Accommodation” spell, when you can just “Make it work” with SCIENCE!!!!
Heck, he may not even have DNA, and still may make it work.
Not to mention the size contrast. It was difficult for them even to manage coitus. Pregnancy, even ending with a c-section, would take quite a toll on Sydney.
Ewww. Natural birth? Of course you’d use an artificial womb.
Naw, I’m guessing in Frix’s species, its an honor for the male to carry the child, and impregnation can happen on contact. We’ll suddenly be surprised next month when Frix introduces Sydney to her gender-doesn’t-apply child: Sydney Scoville III
Who will, nonetheless, be the most b’dorable Koinu pupper girl-looking babbe in ever.
Her first blep will reduce all of Archon into doting pillars of squish-faced, cooing Aunties & Uncles.
The first time mlems, Max will suddenly feel her clock going BONG, loudly enough to rattle the windows in a hundred mile radius.
So Math is going to be the ‘cool’ uncle then?
Sorry, completely derailed my train of thought.
What I was getting at is that the only complex terrestrial life forms that can reproduce and get viable and fertile offspring despite having wildly different numbers of chromosomes getween the parents are plants.
I mean, unless that ‘half-breeder’ potion does more than just accomodate for size differences.
we know that nature has ways around these issues to some degree and usually within a species range (closely related species), such as horizontal gene transfer and kleptogenesis (in which an all female species can procure sperm from related species and pick and choose traits from it somehow so the offspring while different are genetically the same species as the mother and always female).
you could get a whole gene mod species with traits like this (implied with Succubus origin) but also modified for a species seeking some biological ascension or just evolutionary perfection (the capacity to adapt and change physically to any condition, environment, and reduced limits on reproduction in various forms).
so advanced enough genetic understandings, and providing the different species follow template rules on genetics *as well as at least being made of the same chemical bonds and materials* (this cross-breeding process may be a (tad) trickier if one partner is a silicon based, crystal hive mind, plasmic entity, robot, ect…
then yeah, it should be possible to make a hybrid between different species, this new hybrid could even be considered the first of a new species depending on how their genetics work, or those of either parent species, or how said species identify “species”,
I believe succubi are kleptogenic if what Dabbs said earlier about their reproduction is true, they have sex with many species but only give birth to females.
Mr Spock, was made by genetic manipulation!!!
There are multiple semi-human hybrid races (Frix’s captain is one, and she talks about others), truly alien genetics, parasites who can control multiple disparate species, that merc who merged with her lizard friend, galactic medical tech, magic users famously focused on breeding & related activities…
In the world of Grrl Power, Sydney Sr. ending up with hybrid furry grandkids seems to be quite possible, no matter that is impossible in the real world.
most of that is true, but just want to point out the mercenary and lizard one looks more a case of partial possession than merging. Her species looks to fall into the quasi-ascended or pseudo-ascended category *meaning likely a 2.5 or above civilization, explains having a handheld time dilation stasis gun on her*, basically a species that tried to transcend physical limitations and become “pure energy” ended up instead as either a contained consciousness matrix, or upon “ascending” rather than becoming god like psionic entities ended up something closer to wisp demons that require a host body.
-worst case of civilizations pulling this is the brain in a jar or consciousness in a tube that has to be downloaded into another compatible body *although this version is more often seen as a holy grail thing for a much lower civilization who only managed it for a select few*
in any case her species seems to need a host body to move around, but has limited control over a concious host, like her lizard friend, so her people use bio-frames, (meat puppets) that are built/grown specificially as host bodies without a conciousness of their own. We assume the demon like look is their default and likely based on their original biology.
conversly as we don’t know the above to be certain we can’t excuse the possibility that her species naturally evolved as energy beings without a physical phase but like some demons and spirits that end up going from their natural astral or ethereal realm or whatever, upon arriving or being summoned or some accident via some civilization trying to tap into astral energy and instead unleashing demons and monsters from another dimension on their world, ect… they ended up needing host bodies so possessed everything around they could, finding dumb animals easier to control than sapient beings, but preferring those bodies eventually leading to them creating humanoid sapient bio-frame compatible forms just for them.
at least those are some possible origins we can infer comparing to past media with similar entities. In nay case, energy matrix/quasi ascended/pseudo-ascended possible beings that need a host body to get around but can’t take over a sapient being so build their own bio-frame bodies.
At which point, we refer him to Dabbler. The Succubi obviously have their own method of rendering themselves sufficiently compatible with many and varying Peoples, and their history suggests that it’s a pre-existing technomagical ‘building block’ solution that others may be able to use.
On the one hand, ‘species’ is badly defined enough it gets fuzzy around the edges and weird stuff can happen, on the other hand the main reason it is badly defined is that part of the definition which says members of a species can produce fertile offspring.
Sydney Sr. so far has been carrying the pages he is in. Its like a second sydney with even less self awareness
Sydney Jr. is much the same. She typically steals the spotlight when she is around, so it makes sense that she gets it from her father.
Difference being, Junior is annoying, Senior is endearing
Of course it’s okay when the penis does it. *facepalm*
Nope, Junior has always been annoying, why do you make it about gender?
It’s a good trick to find fault with anything and anyone. Assume, then judge based on the assumptions you brought in yourself. Do it in a science-y-looking paper and you can dress it up by calling it “critical theory”.
No, it’s called ‘Having an opinion’, look it up sometime
And once again, you demonstrate that the most sensitive part of the penis, is the man attached to it.
The idea that a double standard has a long history, doesn’t make it any less of a double standard.
What double standard? Don’t like Junior, but do like Senior
That’s your opinion and that is fine. And that wasn’t what my previous comment was about. It was in answer to the question posed.
Since it came up, I’d argue that a double standard by and of itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s the particulars of the double standard that make it noxious. Or not, as the case may be. The flip side is that if the standard wasn’t double, it would be applicable to each and everyone, in full, in all respects, no exceptions.
Assumption that any double standard must necessarily be bad, assumption that there is a double standard being applied, assumption that the speaker must have a certain disposition, and many more like assumptions, those are, let’s say, ill-advised and likely to paint one assumptuous.
I would suggest that what makes most double standards noxious is that they rely on criteria that are both assumed to be widely agreed upon, and yet too uncomfortable to spell out.
We’ve had a thousand-odd pages of Junior, and only a few of Senior. Give him a chance for the novelty to wear off.
Junior was always annoying to me though
so, you are reading a comic where the main character for the last several years of comics annoys you.
Good thing she’s not the only character, isn’t it?
We need a channel of “humans be like” because I would sooooooo be subscribed! Because we humans be soooooo stupid!.
America’s funniest home videos makes humanity looks stupid enough
On YouTube are some channels that are based in the sci-fi genre & most alien races that humans have encountered have classified Earth as a Level 12 Death World…Most aliens would not be expected to last long on Earth, between a potentially toxic atmosphere, various chemical compounds in most of the natural environment, a myriad of dangerous plants & animals & even more more in cities. Humans are classified as extremely dangerous; It takes a tough creature to survive on Earth & many alien races are wary of humans, being the top predators on an extremely hostile planet. many of the stories are written as if from some alien’s viewpoint on humans, either by rumors they’ve heard & even documented studies by the galaxy’s premier xenologists.
You can find such stories (by various authors but following the same formats) at YouTube by using the search terms “Humans Are Space Orcs.”
Then there are also the classifications as :
“Mostly harmless.”
That’s the one I personally prefer.
Earth is a Class 12 Deathworld, but Humans? Humans are rated as mostly harmless.
It’s a paradox that terrifies most civilized races.
It’s the behavioral adaptation for interspecies pack-bonding.
Mostly harmless? Yes mostly. If you try to act unwisely near the Archon headquarters, you can very quickly find out how harmful they can be. Ask the fallen Fel.
As in “They MOSTLY come at night. Mostly.”
as much fun “humans are space orcs” can be as a humanity self reflection exercise, I feel as an actual sci-fi setting would get really dull real quick and require pretty much all other sapient species to by coincidence ALL end up basically as soft space muppets.
I am fond of the idea of humanity as space goblins. Very much like space orcs, only add in other species aren’t weak, but humans are tinkerers, like to keep dangerous things as pets/bond with random things, small, vicious, swarm about in large numbers, like to take things apart to see how they work, ADHD abounds, and tend to puff themselves up over estimating their own strength and importance to the rest of the galactic community.
in any case in a scenario with already established space powers it is too much of an ego trip to assume humans will become the champions of space (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Gate, ect…).
Yep … “space goblins”.
We need some sort of “space hobgoblin” to keep us in line.
The Variation I prefer is
Humans are Space’s Doc Browns
The fun thing is that it’s actually backed up by history. The reason Humans out-did Neanderthals was because we were totally like this. Neanderthals stuck in small comfortable groups, stuck close the the medeterranian that they knew, and never crossed dangerous terrain. This is despite them being twice as large and smarter than humans and able to tank most anything.
Humans, we were like, “What’s over that hill?” “Let’s cross that desert” and any observing alien would be like, “WHY THE HELL IS THIS TERRESTRIAL LAND-BOUND STONE-AGE SPECIES FROM AFRICA NOW INHABITING EASTER ISLAND!?!”
During the world wars, people discover this inhospitable continent of ICY DEATH at the south pole, and the response of literal warring countries is “Race you to the center of it for bragging rights!” Tallest mountain that’s super-deadly? Lets climb it! Firworks? We freakin’ blow stuff up for fun.
One of the hfy bits that plays it pretty straight about what kind of … things … humans are, and one of my own personal faves, is this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/nzfyaq/the_truth_about_humans/
basically most of https://www.reddit.com/r/hfy
“in any case in a scenario with already established space powers it is too much of an ego trip to assume humans will become the champions of space (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Gate, ect…).”
Is it really an ego trip though to say that humans are special? I mean… we are special. At least on our planet.
And lets look at the fictional universes in which humans are the ‘champions of space’ and why.
1) Star Trek – Largely because while humans are not the strongest, the most advanced, or have any powers whatseover, they’re very good at pair bonding with other species, with diplomacy, and with being very innovative with what we have. ie, we’re clever despite being weaker. If we werent so weak, maybe we wouldnt be so clever in the first place. It’s not like there arent also other species in the Star Trek universe that are not clever as well (as nazi-esque as the Cardassian society is, they’re clever – take Garak as an example), or diplomats (Betazoids are extremely diplomatic, plus have psychic abilities to help them in diplomatic measures) or innovative (the Romulans are easily as innovative as the humans, plus have many of the natural advantages of vulcans) as well. But we do all three of these to a good enough level that we can combine those skills to their maximum use.
2a) Stargate SG-1 – Remember who you’re comparing the humans (the Tau’ri) to – the Goa’uld are not innovators – they’re parasites. They don’t invent anything, they just glom off a previously-existing technological-wielding race, the Ancients. The only Goa’uld who is in any truly innovative and diplomatic at all is Ba’al, who winds up being the last goa’uld system lord standing, and his main weakness is his arrogance.
2b) Compared to the Asgard, humans are definitely inferior in almost every way except our ability to breed without needing cloning technology. The only reason we had for being better than the Asgard at all, according to Thor, is our weapons are literally ‘too stupid for the Asgard to have come up’ – which ironically makes our weapons far more effective against the Replicators than almost anything the Asgard had created. It’s just a good thing that most Asgard are like Thor, rather than like Loki.
2c) And other races, like the Ashen, are better than us literally in every way, including patience, and the only way we defeat them is to send a note back in time after we’re already defeated in a bloodless takeover that most humans don’t even realize they’ve done to MAKE SURE WE NEVER MEET THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. And the Ancients, while superior to humans in every way as well, are so complacent that they let their enemies run rampant over them, like the Ori. And humans only ability to beat the Ori is based on using Ancient technology (The Ark of Truth) AFTER the ori have a war among themselves.
3) Babylon 5 – I mentioned how humans were special in Babylon 5, and it’s again because of them being good diplomats, not because they’re the best warriors, or even particularly good warriors compared to MOST other alien races (even the Centauri have superior weapons tech). Only the youngest races – the Narn and the Humans, seem to be good at the questionable ‘strength’ of ‘never surrendering.’ And the Narn are not good at diplomacy. It’s only because of his long relationship with humans and his study of humanity that G’Kar becomes one of the best diplomats around.
Yes, all of which are ego power fantasies about being the special child or the special explorer who goes among giants and is either cleaver enough to best them, can bluff them, or can negotiate with them because the human hero is just that charismatic.
It is no different than stories of the man who tricked his way free of the fairies, became loved by and outwitted gods, and used simple tricks to confuse ogres, giants, and trolls, among other things.
It is power fantasy, which isn’t awful, but you focused in on it, if we wanted to be realistic instead of ego stroking power fantasies and used a scenario with super powers already at the table, Earth would be better off either cozying up to one of these super powers and hope humanity has something they want (like entertainment value), or stay neutral and hope there is no strategic reason to involve Earth in any serious conflicts.
as those examples showed, humans were the champions because the best powers in those settings lacked human innovation, imagination, bravery, compassion, and force of will to see things through.
to add I don’t say humans as “space goblins” is a bad thing.
if anything it is better than most pessimistic sci-fi, but not as ego heavy as the other way around.
humans have value, can see things differently, and may be so out there as to come up with crazy ideas and solutions and gambits no one else would dream of tryi8ng. the space goblin scenario even allows for much of the space orcs ideas, humans are these weird creatures that bond with predators nearly their own size, keep small vicious predators as pets, like tot take things apart and make them work even when the thing wasn’t meant to work, bond with random things out of lonliness, will fight tooth and nail for those they care about. which is understandable some species who developed slower but had a head start may lack.
the two elements which seem the most eye roll to me are the *humans have the solution to every problem* and *humans are tougher than everything else*…I mean sure there is a good chance humans are bigger than most intelligent life going by the size chemistry brain to body ratio xenobiology theories *that stipulate most likely intelligence favors smaller bodies to a certain degree*, but there equally could be a universe of elephant scale sapient life forms out there (the other end of the brain to body ratio that could exist in environments with plenty of nutrient rich foods when the sapient life form evolved). So humans tougher than all is the odd thing (also the smaller life forms wouldn’t make sense to all be super fragile, especially if the reason for being small were a high gravity “super earth”, they’d be small but tough and strong for their size.
one tiny bit to add here (wish could edit comments).
I am saying these are STORY TELLING elements which I find outdated and egotistical by today’s standards.
but you seem to be saying “of course, it makes perfect real world rational sense that these simplified reader insert power fantasy elements would be just like this if we met aliens in real life”
Well… I’m saying a little of Group A, a little of Group B actually.
I think it does make real world rational sense.
But I also think the ‘Humans are awesome’ trope is great for storytelling as well, especially since it actually BUCKS the common trend in science fiction for the majority of the last 70 or 80 years.
In science fiction, REGULARLY, the aliens are stronger, more advanced, have what are basically superpowers compared to the puny humans, live far longer, etc. And all that humans tend to have is pluck and a can-do attitude.
This does make sense from one standpoint. The hero is only as good as the challenges set before them. If there are no challenged, they are less likely to face actual adversity and get forced in the fires of their trials.
Star Trek, Stargate, The Orville, Battlestar Galactica, War of the Worlds, V, Aliens, Predator, Alien Nation, Dr. Who, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Mass Effect, all aliens in Warhammer 40k (and that’s saying something considering how tough the Emperium of Man is), Lost in Space, Dark City, Steven Universe, Transformers – with very few exceptions, humans tend to be far weaker and more primitive in EVERY conceivable way.
Even in Star Wars, the only reason humans were spread out throughout the galaxy is they used to be enslaved by a far more powerful group of Dark Force wielders called the Rakata, and humans mainly took over because the Rakata died out and humans were the most commonly used slaves, so they became the most numerous alien species in Star Wars in the Inner Core. And of course, even the Jedi AND Sith are no real match for the Yuuzhan Vong, who pretty much kill Jedi and Sith with impunity since they’re able to bypass Force-based powers and their biological weaponry is superior to human tech nology weaponry.
Even in comic books, even when humans have superpowers, usually the most powerful superhero or superheroes (or supervillains) will be aliens – Superman/Supergirl, Thanos, Ego, Imperiex, Mogo, the Asgardians, Sinestro, the Guardians of Oa, the Qwardians, Dormmamu (sort of an extradimensional alien), Icon, etc.
In Dungeons and Dragons, humans are basically the ‘default’ setting, and other races always have different advantages that humans don’t have.
In Owl House, humans don’t have that sac that attachs to the heart which allows other creatures to do magic (although Luz does figure a workaround to this).
In Dragon Prince, Callum is the only human to ever actually be able to do primal magic. All other humans are incapable of doing so because they have no ties to the arcana, and the best they can do is use Dark Magic, which requires using animal and plant parts to basically siphon those creatures arcana to fuel their own magic. Otherwise, they’d be helpless second class citizens in the world, since every other creature on the planet is able to do some form of magic on their own EXCEPT humans.
In Ben 10, pretty much every other alien species has powers except for humans, which is why Ben’s Omni-watch thing basically is treated like Sydney’s orbs – it gives him powers by letting him turn into different aliens, each of whom has a different superpower (and there’s one alien that’s basically omnipotent).
In Starship Troopers, the bugs are stronger, faster, more adaptable, and have more powerful psychics. Even humanity’s advanced tech doesnt seem to be any real help against them, except to SOMETIMES allow for a stalemate when the Bugs send asteroids to destroy the Earth.
In the Expanse, the aliens are so much more powerful than the humans that, even extinct, they pose a massive danger to humanity from the stuff they left behind.
Same for the video game, Master of Orion 1,2, and 3. The only reason the human (you) has any real advantage is you got ahold of a Precursor ship (an alien ship that’s more powerful than most other alien ships). But most alien tech are far more powerful than human tech. Even the Spathi – fortunately they’re incredibly cowardly.
In the majority of comics and science fiction, the only time a human is superior to the alien is if they are the chosen one (Luke Skywalker), or have very uncommon superpowers that put a very small percentage of them beyond that of normal humans (X-Men, Grrlpower Universe, Avengers),or are part god (Hercules, Perseus, Theseus), or are given powers from a wizard (Shazam) or group of ‘space wizard imps’ (Green Lantern), or are genetically enhanced specifically because humans see how grossly outmatched they are.
It’s why characters like the Punisher or Batman or Iron Man tend to be fan favorites by a very staunch fanbase. Even if they’re amazingly skilled, they’re still human with no special abilities of their own, other than that which they make for THEMSELVES.
That’s why it’s so much fun to imagine scenarios where humans and their NORMAL abilities are actually amazing in comparison to other aliens (because we tend to see ourselves as meh in the grand scale of the cosmos, because that’s the enlightened way to look at things).
It’s why it’s fun to think ‘Okay the normal human ability to eat garlic and not die winds up being, galactically speaking, one of the most astounding superpowers that any biological organism can possess.’ Or something else we don’t generally think of as ‘amazing’ about us – like our freakish ability to pair bond with other species, or our considerable ability to heal, despite it not being ‘wolverine’ level healing. Just… normal levels of normal human healing. Or the ability to be able to throw and catch objects with alarming accuracy, which normally would require a supercomputer to calculate all the variables in the speed it takes us to do it almost instinctively.
Do I see a fellow r/HFY reader?
Yep, me too… i’m about 70-ish chapters into the Jenkins-verse, and only about 17 into the Tales from the Terran Republic
Tales from the Terran Republic is good.
When you catch up to the author (he’s still posting) try the First Contact series. First installment is the hilarious “Pthok Eats an Icecream Cone”. It gets more serious later. There are over 500 chapters at this point, and the author has turned it into a full time job.
Do you have a link? Searching “First Contact” isn’t doing much good. Also, is “Fire with Fire” part of the Tales of the Terran Republic, because it doesn’t say that anywhere on the book that I can see.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/series/tales_from_the_terran_republic
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/f94rak/oc_pthok_eats_an_ice_cream_cone/
huh,
never seen an actual series of this setting, usually just see the thought exercise snippets like humans keeping dangerous pets, or alien report about human ships, ect…
As brichins said. It’s also on Royal Road if you prefer that, but I usually read reddit (he posts to reddit first, but I think the royal road version might have the (rare) typos corrected).
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33726/first-contact/chapter/517818/pthok-eats-an-ice-cream-cone
RR is up to Ch. 635, but there are occasional .5 chapters, so its really 679 entries.
Let me introduce you to “Humans are Space Australians” (replace Australians with Fae or Orcs if you want other related flavours of fun, or directly say “Earth is Space Australia”).
As a literary process this is called defamiliarisation. And of course, any trend named THAT is both funny enough and creative enough that tumblr went nuts over it
Humans be like [mathematical equation largely disproven in wider galactic community]. LOOOOL!!!!1
Uh we already have that. It’s call half of YouTube and most of Tik Tok.
there’s a web comic called “strange planet” by Nathan W Pyle, that is basically r/ humans be like
I think that channel is Tik Tok, and it has sub-channels…
Like Straight Tik Tok…
Thot Tok…
Dance Tik Tok…
Tik Tok fails…
Woke Tik Tok…
Alt-Right Tik Tok…
Religious Nut Tik Tok…
Isn’t ‘Tik Tok fails’ redundant?
There’s a Becky Chambers novel where a disparate group of aliens discuss how weird cheese is. Humans take infant nutrition fluid from *another* *species*, let it rot and get moldy, and eat it. That can’t be right? Isn’t that an urban legend?
is this any surprise on a planet where several species regurgitate into their infants mouths to feed them?
That’s… not the same thing
Green Lantern cartoon covered this in a nice way (funny thing is Hal’s reaction is weird to me because what Killowog is eating just looks like a lobster)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCVXpmfUwjM
I think “Dads be like…” should probably be “US Dads be like…” because there’s some cultures where their equivalent of Sydney’s Dad upon hearing Frix’s height would be like “I have a -Bat at home!” the dash being Baseball or Cricket depending on the culture.
And there’s some cultures where the reply would be “I’ll let your mother know…” because in that culture mothers don’t care if its King Kong as they’ll still take him on if they feel they need to (and probably win).
heh – take him on….
heh….
yeah they will
always fear the shoe/slippa
The Grandma archetype gains Weapon Specialization: Chancla as a bonus feat at level four.
Is the gag that Frix is big and strong and hard for Sydad to fight, or was it that ‘tall human is good human’ and Sydad wants to get some tall genes for Sydthree?
Dad senses in a handbag. A new strange male interested in daughter ; caution should consider combat Solutions. Daughter is happy and strange male is a massive slab of muscle. New son-in-law !
Time for weapon’s grade father/daughter lunch.
Hazmat suits are in that closet over there. the dog and donkey suits are in that room beside the closet. you were warned.
For the sake of the curious, how close are we chronologically to the strips first page?
From private to corporal, depending on the branch and country, is one to two years
Let’s be bold and postulate 4 months since Bank-Hold-Up-Day. Syddles is now officially a Private (possibly First Class), so I’ll assume we need another 3 months to make Corporal. This is not her lack of brain-power, but she really does need to get the iron pumped.
These are all fresh graduates… and already with three ribbons. I wonder how that works.
(If you’ve seen the series “A Touch of Frost”, the superintendent spends the series with one sad ribbon on his chest.)
On another note, the webcomic “Terminal Lance” is called that for a reason. The USMC apparently has a bit of a problem promoting grunts.
Based on discussion on previous pages, the US Army is rather more generous with its decorations than the British one, and the British Police have even fewer opportunities to earn that level of recognition. The ARC recruits could get a decent head start with any awards for marksmanship or other proficiencies, probably one just for being on the right type of active service (which they now are) at the right time, anything that they earned for pre-graduation actions such as the Restaurant Rumble…
As far as the ‘Terminal Lance’ issue runs, my understanding is that it’s effectively a “retired men’s shoes” bottleneck in organisational structure. They can’t promote if there aren’t billets at that level to be filled, and they just don’t need as many Corporals as they have Lances eligible.
Yup, IIRC Frost earned a George Cross for something heroic he did prior to his wife’s death, before the start of the books and TV series. There are normally very few opportunities for a policeman to earn medals, or perhaps very few things there are medals for.
Just for context, “In the UK honours system, the George Cross is equal in stature to the Victoria Cross, the highest military gallantry award.” (Wikipedia).
Australia has 5 civilian awards, the Cross of Valour, Star of Courage, Bravery Medal, Commendation for Brave Conduct, and the Group Bravery Citation. The Cross of Valour is the non-combat equivalent of the Victoria Cross and is awarded only for acts of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme peril.
And it’s convenient plot armor. But he mostly doesn’t wear it. I was talking about Mullett, who normally does wear uniform, with one sad ribbon. At least in the first few seasons.
I do notice that the other recr^Wfresh graduates have the same couple of ribbons (not counting Sydney’s medal), and they weren’t (visibly?) in the Restaurant Rumble, so it’s not for that.
Reading Terminal Lance, the problem is more that the “cutting score” system ends up biasing against grunts, so they end up with squads entirely of Lance Corporals including for the leadership.
Wasn’t she lost in the future for like 6 months?
2 months and that is now in the past.
And she was only gone for days from her perspective
This might get double posted, tried to reply but don’t see it.
Depending on the branch and country, private to corporap takes one to two years
Sometimes DaveB’s server is a trifle over-stressed. But I don’t think he wants us to just go away, rather give him some more dineros to upgrade his capacity.
It’s a common issue I’ve seen on several comment systems similar to DaveB’s.
Basically, the “load comments page” instruction manages to queue-jump the “save comment” instruction.
I’d prefer he switch over to Disqus. At least you can edit out your typos
I believe this is just the built-in WordPress comment system. Maybe a plugin for spam. Disqus is a bit heavy, and doesn’t always load on mobile devices, but it does have some nice features.
A number of comics I follow use Disqus, and it simply doesn’t load. There is always a note somewhere asking “Disqus not loading? …..”
Or worse, not all hosts turn on the “Post as guest?” feature
I don’t. In fact I have disqus blocked because it is fscking horrible. And yes, that means I won’t be commenting on any comic or any other site using disqus. Not to mention all the problems that come with giving control away to some shady company. But hey, if those are upsides to Dave, then he should switch, sure.
Part of the problem is the sheer inertia of the comments section as it currently stands. If DaveB decided to switch the comments to a third-party hoster – be that Disqus or anyone else – he would have to either discard the hundreds of thousands of posts already made or find some way of copying them across to the new system. Granted, some of the old comments are of more ongoing value than others, but who’s volunteering to sift through and transcribe them?
Disqus’ advertising policy is kinda funky, but otherwise I like the platform. It affords a few more options, like editing and some nice ways to crossreference stuff. Also unless I have a super crappy connection I don’t get loading errors on mobile usually, idk what that’s about. ComicFury is also decent, but a bit stripped down tbh.
Remember though, this is a BRAND NEW SERVICE BRANCH. Still got that new smell and all…. And considering the fact that the members of it range from being a company in of themselves to being an major military in of themselves, the rise in rank at first is going to be very accelerated. Once the new top brass of the new service is established and well rounded out, then you will see much slower rising in ranks. Sydney, with her powers from the orbs and her innate strategic thinking will probably rise faster than her fellow graduates there. I’d say 5 years to Colonel at most….
It’s not the news that echo-chambery. Well, not as much as “social media” with timelines and shit. That “maximising engegement” shtick is just about the perfect setup to create echo chambers. Just add your own crackpottery.
On another note, I wonder if Gene Roddenberry ever stayed outside the US for more time than it takes to do the All American eight countries in seven days tour… (*looks up on wikipedia*) or to end up in another plane crash.
You mean other than flying dozens of missions for the us in the Pacific theater? Oh, an flying airlines from the us to South Africa and India, rescuing fellow passengers in a Syrian desert, and he even considered moving to England…
Yeah, I mean, like, actually moving to England… actually not England, but someplace you have to put effort into learning the local language. Not just landing and flying away again, even if it’s the next day. Or not even landing at all.
This isn’t ment to be disparaging, mind. He probably was a fine flyboy. It’s just that there is more to culture than the hat you wear.
I think this is part of what put me off Star Trek eventually. It’s all cool and froody but at the end of the day, rather shallow. I did watch the first season of Picard when they aired it here. Interesting premise, nice reunion, cute touches here and there, but a little rote in its plot. Enough so that I wouldn’t have watched the second season even if they would have aired it here.
I was and still am totally put off by Patrick Stewart. Before Startrek he made a big show of denigrating and looking down his nose at something so plebeian as popular entertainment. After all, he was an “English SHAKESPEAREAN” actor – not just some run-of-the-mill Hollywood hack. Of course all that changed when he was offered a ton of money to play Picard. Nothing like money to turn oneself into a prostitute. I do get any enjoyment from watching a hypocrite.
This had to have been the inspiration for Alan Rickman’s character on the Galaxy Quest show mentioned in the Galaxy Quest movie.
“I was an actor once, damn it!”
Patrick Stewart was in the original Dune movie. He played Muad’dib’s self-defense instructor/bodyguard, Gurney Halleck. Just saying.
He was also in “Lifeforce”, a movie about space vampires that came close to conquering Earth
which movie trivia has his first on-screen kiss.
What’s the “All American eight countries in seven days tour”?
Is it like briefly touching down at evey major country in the Anglosphere, or something?
It was a bus tour of western Europe popular in the 50s and 60s and was depicted in the movie “If this is Tuesday this must be…”
The United Federation of “Hold my beer. I got this.”
https://imgur.com/gallery/wpZ4w
Thank you, that was glorious.
To summarise, Humans are the unholy mashup of Girl Genius Sparks and WH40k Orcs?
Add in “extremely friendly” (Pander posted a short for that a few pages back) and we have a recipe for some kill-you-with-laughter level comedy.
I wish I was a better writer…
Um, “extremely friendly” doesn’t begin to cover it. I like to imagine that some human who was fed-up with logical behavior and wanted to break his or her stuffy alien crewmates’ brain mentioned “Rule 34” to someone that had that irresistible urge to look up every unknown thing to find out what it meant and then keep investigating until they thoroughly understood it.
And then spent the next year giggling as the poor sod spent more and more time becoming obsessed and getting drawn into a complete mental breakdown.
this is the sort of thing that justifies the idea that humans would be the space goblins of any space federation.
in a fantasy setting goblins would be the ones that build a pit trap full of spikes, poison the spikes, then fill the pit with venomous snakes, and just because it would look cool have walls that close in with spinning axes after a few seconds as the spikes retract into the floor…oh and then it starts to fill with water (which granted is how the heroes escape out of the pit at the last second, but still…to the goblin (it looked cool, it made sense, and if you could survive it, awesome, let’s throw something even crazier at the heroes next time).
There was a lot of that in Stargate SG-1 as well. All other species and civilizations had perfectly boring Stargates because they used them “as is” with all the built-in safeguards, but the Earthlings kept tinkering with theirs in highly inadvisable ways.
Also, in one episode a super-intelligent, highly advanced alien species was in danger of extinction by the Replicators, so one of them (Thor, who had worked with humans before) thought to look for fresh ideas:
Thor: “You have demonstrated their weakness may be found from a less sophisticated approach. We are no longer capable of such thinking.”
Jackson: “Wait a minute, you’re actually saying that you need someone dumber than you are?”
O’Neill: “You may have come to the right place.”
[later, after defeating the Replicators]
Major Carter: “We did it!”
Thor: “It was your stupid idea.”
not as far fetched an idea as it may seem. Different senses, different evolutionary paths, different experiences as a culture, different biological outlooks (psychology) on the universe. Where a human could build a diagram of a molecule or see faces and outlines another species would not recognize the diagram as being relatable to the real thing *if they can see it and mentally process the details properly*, or be able to visualize these faces and outlines in random objects and thus could miss or be fooled by simple camouflage because their species never had to evolve a reaction to ambush predators, ect… or even the complexity issue, a species so used to gravity engines, Bore-Einstein condensate sensors, sub-space “plasma” conduits, ect…that when stranded it never even occurs to them anymore that electricity could be used as a power source for anything even remotely complicated (seriously even modern society is getting like this when you show someone things like vacuum tubes or steam engines…like they’d never even thing of things like that anymore, due to what they are used to these concepts have become foreign).
“But don’t you know, there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight? Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do: and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.”
Mark Twain
As interesting as this is, I actually disagree with Mark Twain, maybe a so-so Swordsmen or fencer more likely would be caught off guard by some idiot swinging a sword around like its a club, but an experienced swordsman would still most likely win, seeing the big glaring openings, off balanced foot work, and telegraphed swings of their over confident opponent who thinks because they are just hacking away that they will magically catch the expert off guard and win.
The greatest tactician is prepared for anything, even for brash, irrational, stupid, and foolhardy opponents.
Also, an experienced swordsman wouldn’t give an idiot rookie a chance to do anything
That’s stated a bit strongly. It was more a probability/injury thing. The best swordsman will beat the second best. He will almost certainly beat the idiot with a sword, but the idiot might charge in and land a cut that the best swordsman can’t block because his sword is stuck in the idiots ribs.
I fence. If you are willing to take a hit you can land the blade on someone much better than you are. You won’t get the point in a competition bout, but things are so fast that if the weapons were real you would both be cut before you had time to even feel it.
And coming from another fencer, it’s not just the binary option of whether or not you ‘get cut’. Proper training tends to be geared towards modern competition rules, therefore towards getting a quick hit in first. (Not to mention the right-of-way rules in Foil and Sabre…) In many cases that translates to taking the most minimal hit that will count, simply because anything more impactful would take longer to arrive. The novice is more likely to go for what would be an injuring or even killing hit, because he simply doesn’t know how little he actually needs to do to satisfy the scoring. Which, if it were translated to actually fighting with sharps, may well end up with a novice getting a very scratched forearm as he consistently follows through to the expert’s face.
“There was a lot of that in Stargate SG-1 as well.”
It was also a key feature of Sheridan’s ability to defeat a Minbari war cruiser, while using a vastly inferior Earth ship.
Don’t worry, they are planning on rebooting Stargate to make SG1 never existing (probably because there is no way to recast Col Jack)
that is a shame, although the show did kind of jump the shark after a few seasons and by the end got to the point where the reveal of the Star Gate to the public would also come with *oh and by the way we also have visited other galaxies, been at war with an interstellar species that posed as gods…and won, become major players in the galaxy, and not only met ascended beings but figured out their tech and killed other ascended beings*.
yep, we kept it secret from everyone that Earth is a galactic superpower now and oh, here are out space shops…and over there is a time machine, and a weapon to blow up suns, and a chair to help ascend, and near infinite energy which we kept from you all as well, and medical devices we’ve known about for like ten years that could have saved countless lives…and why are you all approaching the podium with angry looks io your eyes…
“and not only met ascended beings but figured out their tech and killed other ascended beings*.”
Well technically they just used Merlin’s invention to do it. Not like they invented it on their own, which left Vala’s daughter Adria to have all the power from the Ori’s worshippers. And Adria wasn’t killed. She is just in an eternal battle with Oma De Sala forever. Although after the Ark of Truth, Adria might not have as much power anymore once the Ori’s worshippers stop worshipping Adria, since the Ori got their power FROM worship, while the Ancients do not.
“become major players in the galaxy”
Yep. It helps that humanity is given that technology from the Asgard as their final act before self-destruction of their species (okay not technically their entire species, since there’s still an offshoot of the Asgard in the Pegasus galaxy) and also they do have the technology from Atlantis as well.
“yep, we kept it secret from everyone that Earth is a galactic superpower now”
There’s still at least a reasonable explanation about why the government would have kept this a secret. People are adaptable, but you can’t always spring everything on them at once.
To quote Men in Black:
Edwards (Agent J before he’s J): “Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.”
Agent K: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know… tomorrow.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMMNvYTEyI
I remember mentioning this in the past about Ebay.
Ebay’s background used to be yellow. They wanted to change it to white. So one day they did so. And there was a mighty uproar from the user base who HATED the new look. They got so many complaints that they changed it back within a week.
Then they started lightening the background a shade at a time, each day, just imperceptibly lighter. By the end of the year, the background was white. And no one cared. No one made an uproar. Barely anyone even noticed. :)
People individually can often handle sudden changes and adapt to them. They can even handle it as a collective civilization …. under the right circumstances and depending on the change. But sudden change without a good, universally acceptable reason, with possible negative side-effects? There will usually be a schism at the very least, and possibly a full on revolt, especially if the government doubles down on their hardline stance.
That’s why Dabbler said, during the press conference, when asked why she didn’t let them know that she was an alien, that ‘People other than me [the government] decided you guys weren’t ready for superhumans AND aliens ON THE SAME DAY.’ :)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-758-dabblers-non-terrestrial-origin-revealed/
To be fair safety regulations are written in blood and greed is universal. I’d be incredibly wary of any race that didn’t have safety warnings everywhere, since that means there’s probably no regulating force against corporate exploitation.
I bought a new tractor. It had a warning sticker on it that said DO NOT EAT
A guy made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for eating a whole plane. If there’s a warning label, it’s because someone was dumb enough to do it.
I think this one pretty much tops the list:
https://everything2.com/title/Do+not+attempt+to+stop+chain+with+your+hands+or+genitals
some idiot tried to hold the chainsaw chain and keep it from going as he worked on it by holding it between his legs.
Claymores come with warning a warning label that reads “do not eat, not rations”.
…because of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
The device itself is stamped with “front toward enemy”
Yep. -_-‘
Be careful what you pick in bad lighting: ( https://duckduckgo.com/?q=claymore+mine&t=palemoon&iax=images&ia=images )
See also Item 100 on the (in)famous Skippy’s List.
I wonder how Skippy’s doin’ these days…
Did you at least lick it?
Most of the parts for the car I’m building come in boxes labeled with warning that they cause cancer when eaten. California law (law number listed right on the box) requires anything that can cause cancer when ingested carry the label even if unlikely to be ingested, because someone somehow did.
You’ve also got the regs that were written because dozens of factory workers died because management chained the doors to fire escape shut so workers wouldn’t smoke on it during their breaks.
Some regs and warnings might seem nonsensical, but the big ones came about primarily because a bunch of people died to save the company a penny.
Also, not all the notices and warnings are necessarily there to point out the obvious.
For instance, the example given in the comic about the fire door remaining unlocked during working hours is there to tell the workers and customers that that door in particular needs to be unlocked so long as at least one person is in the building, and if it isn’t, it needs to be reported immediately.
Explaining that reason to aliens is going to make humans look evil in addition to dumb.
It’s going to make some humans look evil.
We have a word for them, in fact.
“Capitalists.”
yes
“look evil”
there are a few very good reasons one hopes if the universe/multiverse is full of sapient life that something bigger and stronger as well as smarter and far more benevolent contacts humans before humans come across some foot tall soft bodied stone age through simple machines stage civilization. Kind of hard to scrub (planetary genocide or *we ate the inhabitants as a delicacy* from one’s cosmic ledger.
My name is Schlock?
Mercenary Schlock? otherwise I am missing a reference.
Yup.
“Kind of hard to scrub (planetary genocide or *we ate the inhabitants as a delicacy* from one’s cosmic ledger.”
I’m pretty sure humans aren’t angling to commit planetary genocide. Even within our own solar system, NASA is pretty careful about even accidentally doing anything to possible life on other planets/moons via infection of earth-based microbes on our long-range space probes. They’ve been sanitizing deep space probes and planetary probes to try to make sure not a single microbe is left on it, so as to not infect another planet’s natural formation of life.
Even the outright evil humans in our fiction tend to not want to commit genocide.
Take Avatar for example (again). The humans are definitely the bad guys. UNDENIABLY so. Evil and ruthless corporatists searching for ‘unobtanium’ (the name feels like a placeholder for a real name), and willing to displace the ‘noble savage trope’ aliens (who apparently force their genitalia onto their animal mounts, but that’s another story) and destroy the natural symbiotic beauty of Pandora, destroying the Na’Vi’s holiest spot with callous indiference, to get rocks that make human ships go faster (so that the humans can leave the planet and become an interstellar species, since they basically destroyed Earth’s biosphere).
And yet the evil human corporatists don’t do the MUCH easier route of nuking these bow-wielding Na’Vi tribespeople from orbit until there are no Na’Vi left alive, then go down to the planet and mine it to their hearts content. They seem unusually concerned with minimizing casualties among the Na’Vi. They first try this avatar program for diplomatic negotiations, then even after armed conflict is decided upon, they do so in a way to minimize casualties. It’s almost the most unbelievable thing about the movie about evil humans in mech-suits fighting 12 foot tall alien natives on flying birds and monster horses. That they didn’t just wipe them out from space or at least via continual high-atmosphere aerial bombardments, over and over again until there’s no opposition left.
At least with Starship Troopers, we know why they didn’t just nuke Planet P from orbit – they were trying to capture the Brain Bug and wanted to make sure it was on the planet first (even then, they did do a bunch of aerial firebombing sweeps of the surface first). In Starship Troopers 3, once they find the planet that has the Bug ‘God’…. they use a mega planet-busting missile to just destroy the entire planet that the bug god was on.
Because the writers, like you, want to believe that humans aren’t really capable of horrific evil. Or they just don’t think their audience would have the stomach for it. And yet we know from history that humans are absolutely capable of not only genocide, but of justifying it to themselves.
“Because the writers, like you, want to believe that humans aren’t really capable of horrific evil.”
Torabi I know you actually read what I post, but why are you acting like I said something different than what I posted? I said about Avatar, “THE HUMANS ARE DEFINITELY THE BAD GUYS. UNDENIABLY SO. EVIL AND RUTHLESS CORPORATISTS…” and then listed their evil doings.
And obviously I recognize that humans have the CAPACITY for horrific evil with massive body counts.
Hitler
Mao
Stalin
Idi Amin
Shaka Zulu
Vlad the Impaler
Genghis Khan
Pol Pot
Kim Il Sung
Saddam Hussein
Ho Chi Minh
Yakubu Gowon
King Leopold II
Torquemada
You’ll notice all of these people tended to be authoritarians. Dictators. Tyrants. Fascists. Because those are the types of societies where it’s easier to get a population to go along with atrocities, or where a leader can commit atrocities and not care what the masses think about it.
Clearly, humans are capable of horrific evil. James Cameron was clearly aware of this fact as well. But these are the exception to the rule. Despite a lot of human history involving fighting and warfare, most humans are not psychopathic or sociopathic monsters. In fact, the more advanced we get, the less stomach the population of nations tend to have for that sort of evil, or tolerance of that sort of evil by their leaders. It winds up requiring a lot more propaganda to get the masses on board with evil practices, often to hide the fact that the practices in question ARE evil in the first place.
Upon reflection, that’s actually probably why the writers did not make the humans in Avatar genocidal maniacs (except for Colonel Miles Quaritch, who probably did want to just nuke em from orbit). But with the rest of the humans who were clearly evil, they didnt refrain from genocide because of naivete of the writers. It’s because that was not the motivating goal of the Resources Development Administration. The RDA is meant to be a caricature of the ‘immoral greedy corporation trope’ – and immoral greedy corporations do not instantly go to murder as their first option. Their goal was to harvest Unobtainium, and it was clearly an allegory similar to how corporations despoil rainforests or tolerate unethical methods of strip-mining lands which may have tribal significance for those natural resources. Genocide would probably not look good on the stockholder’s reports and whitepapers. So yeah, RDA is run by sociopaths after all. Just not intentionally murderous ones. Just ones who don’t give a crap about what happens as long as they get their precious rocks. Because most humans in advanced societies are NOT natural killers, but most humans are inherently greedy. But like I’ve said elsewhere, and my hero and the paragon of humanity and savior of all the world, Deus all praise Deus amen, would agree, very often…. greed can be good. RDA clearly is doing greed wrong though. Deus does greed right. All things are possible through Deus. If Deus was running RDA, he probably would have figured a way to mine the unobtainium without disturbing ANY of the land. Probably without the Na’Vi even knowing about it at all. Plus he probably would have made sure there were not unobtainium veins elsewhere on the planet which would not be anywhere near the Na’Vi (since the Na’Vi only numberd about 1 million worldwide, and Pandora was quite a big world for a population that small). Or he’d have figured out what the Na’Vi really wanted, and let them figure a way to get him the unobtainium without a single human putting a single vehicle on the ground. Again all praise Deus amen.
I also don’t think that audience tolerance for violence was in mind either, or the character of Miles Quaritch would not have even been in the movie. When Stephen Lang is in a movie, chances are he’s going to be a cigar chomping war hawk or someone prone to massive violent outbursts. James Cameron clearly DID want RDA to be the unequivocal bad guys, and wanted the audience to hate them, and feel sympathy for the Na’Vi (who were definitely the besieged victims in the narrative), despite the Na’Vi being imposing looking creatures with vastly superior strength and size, who ride on both flying and galloping literal human-killing monsters, and the entire planet being poisonous to humans in the first place.
Okay my point, though, is that genocide is not something that’s easy for a human culture to get behind and support, especially if it’s a relatively free culture. It needs to usually be dictatorial and heavily propagandistic, so the people do not know what’s actually going on. Why? Because people are, for the most part, not evil. People might be dumb, panicky, and dangerous animals when faced with the unknown… but the one word Agent K did not use to describe humans is evil.
If you really want to think I’m naive for thinking humanity is not to be universally measured by the worst outliers that it has produced though, then I guess I don’t have much I can say to convince you otherwise.
My point is that just because many humans can’t or won’t imagine that they or other humans are capable of horrific evil doesn’t mean that they won’t do horrifically evil things in the future. That unwillingness to perceive themselves that way may in fact blind them to it — when or if they do something horrifically evil, they may very well be unable to recognize it for what it is.
Humanity does have another notable quality: extremely flexible and variable moral capability. They are capable of both great good, and great evil. Unfortunately, this is not a symmetric relation. A good act done for the wrong reasons does not make someone a good person, whereas an evil act does make someone an evil person, in all but the most extenuating of circumstances. I would argue that humans have an almost limitless capacity for evil, but a bounded capacity for good.
And if they have an inherent capacity for evil, but do good primarily in the context of civilization, then that says more about their civilization than it does for the species. If they had any inherent virtue, there would be a limit to their capacity for evil.
“Humanity does have another notable quality: extremely flexible and variable moral capability.”
To be fair we don’t have anyone else to compare that quality with. Animals, for the most part, don’t tend to have a sense of morality. It requires a very high level of sapience to grok terms like good and evil, and even many human beings still have problems with it which is why it’s been discussed by philosophers for millenia. :)
ie, a lion isnt evil, even if it kills a young, helpless human child. If a human kills a young, helpless human child, that’s pretty evil though. It’s just…. being a lion. When dolphins torture and kill a fish and don’t even bother to EAT it…. I’m not sure that most people would classify dolphins as evil either. And dolphins actually have a rather high level of intelligence (and possibly some level of sapience). Some higher level primates and household pets can sometimes be taught ‘this is good’ and ‘this is bad’ but it’s not always clear if, at least in the case of the household pets, they understand the reasoning beyond pavlovian response from training.
In order to know if ‘variable morality’ is a notable quality that humans have, we’d probably need to be able to compare them to other species which also possess the capability of understanding morality.
“Unfortunately, this is not a symmetric relation. A good act done for the wrong reasons does not make someone a good person, whereas an evil act does make someone an evil person, in all but the most extenuating of circumstances.”
I disagree with this. A good act done for the wrong reasons can still mean they’re a good person. Mainly because I’m not sure what you mean by ‘the wrong reasons.’ That seems very subjective.
If I was a criminal defense attorney and I defend someone who was wrongfully charged with a crime, and I’m doing so pro bono (ie, free), does that make me NOT a good person if I’m doing it pro bono if it’s a landmark case that can also make my career. I don’t think the person who I help will care that it wasnt completely altruistic. I don’t think their families will care either.
What if I’m a criminal defense attorney defending someone that I KNOW is guilty. But because of the ethical requirement to be a zealous advocate, I still have to defend him, and do so VIGOROUSLY (although not suborning perjury or engaging in any illegal practices while defending him). Is defending a criminal who IS a criminal evil? Or is it upholding the system that makes defending another person who is actually innocent possible? I’d say the latter.
Or take a businessperson who creates a service that people need, which provides jobs for tens of thousands and legitimately makes the world a better place (at least in most instances). They probably did it, at least in part, to make money. But they also probably did it because they legitimately wanted to do something that would leave a positive mark on the world. And even if they just did so for money, is that automatically NOT good? Providing for ones family seems to be a good quality.
Now as for doing an evil act making a person evil….. take killing another person for example. Lets use a case like self defense. Someone is actively trying to kill you, and they will if you do nothing. You might try to run away, but they catch you and you can no longer try to escape. You manage kill them before they can kill you first. Does that make you evil? What if you legitimately do think that killing ANYONE is evil, and you still do it anyway in order to prevent yourself from being murdered? Does THAT make you evil? I’d argue no – that does not make you evil. Even if you feel wracked with guilt about taking a human life.
Or what about a person who steals a loaf of bread – it’s an evil act right? Theft. But what if you’re doing it because you have no money and your family is starving to death? Is it still evil? Maybe. But does it mean YOU’RE evil? I don’t think it does.
Or to quote Wreck it Ralph’s Zangief:
“When I hit bottom, I was crushing man’s skull like sparrow’s egg, between my thighs… and I think, why you have to be so bad, Zangief? Why can’t you be more like good guy? Then I have moment of clarity… if Zangief is good guy, who will crush man’s skull like sparrow’s eggs between thighs? And I say, Zangief you are bad guy, but this does not mean you are *bad* guy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh4f8SUp-PU
-I’m bad, and that’s good. I will never be good, and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.-
“in all but the most extenuating of circumstances.”
I don’t agree with this either. If you eat meat, I’m sure there are a few vegans who will say you’ve done something evil by taking a life when you did not need to, even if you did not do so directly. But no, you’re not evil for enjoying a good hamburger.
Lets look at some more fiction. Stargate SG-1. Teal’c served the system lord Apophis. And while doing so, he murdered many innocent people. But he’s not actually evil as far as the Tau’Ri are concerned, even if he thinks himself forever tainted by his evil acts. Even if the family of someone he killed found him innocent of the crime because ‘The man who murdered my father is dead – this man has killed him.’
Just because you’ve done something evil doesn’t mean you need to be forever evil. Take Vala’s husband, Tomin, who worked for the Ori before turning against them. He did evil acts. He KNOWS he did evil acts. He knew he was doing evil acts when he was doing them, somewhere deep down in his conscience. He considers himself evil, despite forever regretting his evil acts. He cannot forgive himself, and he’s right – he should NEVER forgive himself. Heck… Teal’c tells him that nothing he can ever do will undo the evil that he did while following the Ori. But it doesn’t mean ‘okay I guess I am just going to have to stay evil.’ He’s still able to fight for others in the future, to do good, even knowing it will NEVER undo the evil he’s done in the past, as long as he’s not doing it to seek personal redemption. As long as he’s just doing it because it’s what he should be doing, even moreso than others who do NOT have the same stains on their soul.
Teal’c : Nothing I have done since turning against the Goa’uld will make up for the atrocities I once committed in their name. Somewhere deep inside you you knew it was wrong, a voice you did not recognize screamed for you to stop. You saw no way out, it was the way things were, they could not be changed. You’re trying to convince yourself the people you’re hurting deserved it. You became numb to their pain and suffering, you learned to shut out the voice speaking against it.
Tomin : There’s always a choice.
Teal’c : Indeed there is.
Tomin : I chose to ignore it.
Teal’c : Yet you sit here now.
Tomin : I sit here, and I cannot imagine the day when I will forgive myself.
Teal’c : Because it will never come. One day others may try to convince you they have forgiven you, that is more about them than you. For them, imparting forgiveness is a blessing.
Tomin : How do you go on?
Teal’c : It is simple. You will never forgive yourself. Accept it. You hurt others, many others, that cannot be undone. You will never find personal retribution, but your life does not have to end. That which is right, just and true can still prevail. If you do not fight for what you believe in all may be lost for everyone else. But do not fight for yourself, fight for others, others that may be saved through your effort. That is the LEAST you can do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzuxhOh80M
Or a lesser example in fiction – Plastic Man, as he described himself in Injustice.
Plastic Man was a criminal. A thief. When Wonder Woman says that some people will get second chances under Superman’s new regime, he responds with “I needed a second chance. And a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth before I realized what I was doing was wrong and became a hero.”
“I would argue that humans have an almost limitless capacity for evil, but a bounded capacity for good.”
I’m not sure how you’d measure that. What sort of metrics are we using to define bounded capacities vs limitless capacities for good and evil?
“And if they have an inherent capacity for evil, but do good primarily in the context of civilization, then that says more about their civilization than it does for the species.”
It’s still their choice to do good, regardless if the reason. They could always choose to defy civilization if they wanted to.
Well human history has had this push pattern to it.
when two groups meet for the first time or interacted long enough it seemed that they tested each other’s strengths. if one group could push over the other with minimal risk to their own side, then they would, and just take what they want. In contrast if one side was being pushed over, but not instantly, even when they wanted to be the ones pushing the other side over they’d claim the stronger pusher was evil and other propoganda to try and get more to back them in pushing back *allies, more people to join the war effort ect..)
when two sides met that were too even for one to really push the other over, and some ideology didn’t get in the way to keep trying anyway, then they start to rethink and consider being allies to push others over or prevent being pushed over as well as trade.
the modern world is mostly stable because humanity has reached a point where the strongest nations trying to push each other over would result in mutually assured destruction, although this clearly isn’t stopping these same nations from trying to push others around; and getting frustrated that they have to let their own civilians back home see what they are doing so can’t push as hard as they want for PR reasons, so end up with a scenario where the one they push down keeps getting back up to fight till the stronger ones gets tired and goes home.
Now all that said, the eating the locals thing should be addressed as well.
Humanity is according to some at 0.7 of the Kardeshev scale (personally by adding social elements I’d dial that back to 0.48-0.49, I mean comone we don’t even have permanent civilian settlements in Antarctica or even real research bases at the bottom of the sea let alone civilian cities there; and so many social issues that inhibit advacement by disuading cooperation among different groups of humans, so yeah…0.7 is a bit of a high ball estimate.
any who, humans still eat animals that are at 0.01 – 0.02 (maybe even at 0.03 *according to some researchers on some primates although these behaviors are not as wide spread to make it really noticeable*. But humans do eat animals that have communication, teach their young, learn and manipulate unmodified aspects of their environment *and simple modifications* to their environment done through learned and taught to each other behavior,
So if humas reach level 1 and just above, and end up exploring between stars and come across some non-humanoid species at 0.1 *relatively permanent housing in native environment possible via utilizing local resources effectively*, then there is a reasonable risk the humans could consider them just clever animals building nests and might plow right over them or even ponder if these squishy land octopii or sheep sized tongue looking things, or large pig like creatures with prehensile tongues ect…might be tasty.
“when two groups meet for the first time or interacted long enough it seemed that they tested each other’s strengths. if one group could push over the other with minimal risk to their own side, then they would, and just take what they want.”
Usually true, although after a certain level of advancement (especially social advancement where the mass population has some understanding of the inner working of the leaders, and preferably some say as well), for some reason this is often no longer the case. Or at the very least, it makes having the leaders engage in ‘pushing’ a lot more difficult, if they also need to get support from the public (or if they have a really good propaganda machine to trick the public).
But lets assume you’re right (I can list multiple examples where an advanced culture would have been able to push over a much weaker culture and instead engaged in negotiation anyway – usually because of public pressure if they were to use the stick instead of the carrot – but I’m going with steelmanning your argument), and if one side can push the other side over with minimal risk, they will without bothering to engage in any negotiation.
Like you said, they still likely would not if there was an existing overarching governmental force to prevent that sort of thing from happening, as there is in the Grrlpower universe with the Xevoarchy.
“Humanity is according to some at 0.7 of the Kardeshev scale (personally by adding social elements I’d dial that back to 0.48-0.49,”
The Kardeshev scale has nothing to do with social elements of a society. It has to do with use of all available energy for a species. Currently, Earth is between 0.74 and 0.76 on the Kardeshev Scale. At 1.0, we would be using 100% of all available energy on Earth. It has nothing to do with social mores. It has nothing to do with cannibalism. If a cannibalistic society was somehow managing to build a Dyson Sphere and use 100% of all the energy in their solar system, they’d be a 2.0 civilization, even if they regularly cannibalized each other.
Btw, cannibalism is probably not a great term to use anyway since the definition of cannibalism is eating another of your own species. :) In the Star Wars universe, apparently Ewoks get eaten, and Ewoks have eaten other sapient species. They’re not technically cannibals because Ewoks don’t eat other Ewoks as far as I know. There’s a great video by Generation Films about this, actually. It’s also hilarious. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCoxoCEMsBA
I think what you’re actually saying, and correct me if I’m wrong, is there’s a very real danger that we might not recognize that another species is sapient (not sentient btw, a lot of species are somewhat sentient and we do eat them – if you’ve eaten venison, you’ve eaten a sentient creature, but not a sapient one). If you’ve eaten octopus…. you might have actually eaten a sapient creature, which is why a lot of countries have started banning the fishing and sale of octopi as food, funny enough. They’re simply too smart – it makes things awkward. It’s also why humans tend to not want to eat something like dolphins or chimpanzees – they’re somewhere in the sapient range, arguably. Even some animals that are probably NOT sapient, a lot of people in western cultures will not eat household pets. We humanize them in our minds to the point where we sometimes consider them sapient even if they’re not, so no eating Fido or Fluffy, because it’s just gross to most western sensibilities to eat a housepet. It’s like eating family which is both a no-no and makes family reunions very socially awkward.
“So if humas reach level 1 and just above, and end up exploring between stars and come across some non-humanoid species at 0.1 ”
Your argument is, unfortunately, fundamentally flawed because you misunderstand what the Kardeshev scale is. An Earth full of just Amish people, even if they were the same social awareness as, say, a world full of Elon Musks, would be a lot lower on the Kardeshev scale, even if both civilizations were just as socially advanced. Because the Kardeshev scale focuses on technology, and only on a specific measurement OF technology, which is the complete usage of all possible energy resources of a given area.
Take a space movie again – Independence Day (the first one because the second one sucked and was cringy as hell). The Harvesters are MASSIVELY advanced, and are probably well above a level 1.5 on the Kardeshev Scale, if not at level 2, which is probably why they’ve started harvesting other planets.
They are also absolutely evil and not remotely moral or virtuous. They just harvest a planet, use all its resources (which probably also means the meat of any living beings on it), and then move on. They are a higher level civilization than Earth. Despite them being warlike and probably regularly eating other sapient beings.
Same goes for the aliens in the Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man.’ Massively more advanced than Earth. But they eat other sapient beings, even though they know they’re sapient.
Same also goes for the aliens in War of the Worlds (the movie). They might be idiots who didnt bother to advance for thousands of years and didnt bother doing research on the idea that microorganisms might form on Earth which are deadly to them, but they are also more advanced than humans on a technological level. Still, they treat humans as cattle.
Same also goes for the V miniseries. Etc. there are a lot of examples of this in fiction, really.
If anything, this should give you some solace that humans might not do the same thing though. We keep imagining scenarios in which we are going to be the food – we probably are going to be more cautious about not becoming the monsters ourselves, if for no other reason than most humans do not want to think of themselves as ‘the bad guys’ like Torabi did allude to in another post.
I am aware the Kardashev scale is only raw power usage and not social elements, that was kind of my point in mentioning it. In sci-fi we get caught up on this scale in ranking civilizations even if there are other possible elements like not needing to use that much raw power or choosing not to and instead refining their technology…counter point we also see civilization scales based on how fast a civilization can travel in space or its genetic complexity. I was pointing out if we judge a civilization by multiple elements that all make up the actual body of a society and its likelihood to progress and thrive we should be taking more into account to rank it than power usage. Hence Kardashev is to civilization ranking as Newton was to the laws of physics, got the ball rolling, but we can refine this and add in a lot more elements to be more precise.
which circles back to the first thing you are replying to will or wont push, yes a social order focused on trade and cooperation can and should over-ride the shove over and take aspect promoting civilization forward. Humanity is part way there but the big guys on the field only seem to want to play nice when they are either faced with mutually assured destruction or they are at risk of losing popularity and votes back home as governing bodies and the people are watching their actions.
This is reluctant hospitality that practically means anyone they meet out there needs to both puff up and have some PR campaigns at the ready to beam back to Earth; nothing out of sight. At least as is, give humanity some more time and maybe genuine altruism may arise at the geopolitical level. Although this has constant push back and needs reinforced.
on the fundamentally flawed part, sorry I had actually jumped off the Kardashev scale and was using a more esoteric scale that uses social cooperation, capacity to learn and teach information to others, retention of technology, resource use/efficiency, capacity to survive and thrive in one or more environments, complexity of thoughts and technology, and social behaviors that promote or go against cooperation and future advancements long term.
It is an incomplete scale, and still being worked on, link to the basic outline (it goes off the rails a bit near the end as a rant about humanity but you should get the jist of what the criteria are.
the civilization tier list
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/Civilization-tier-list-in-relation-to-Earth-899666074
and a small comparison between it and the Kardashev scale (which was written for a similar discussion elsewhere to clear this up. not the same scale, but power usage is still one of the elements just not the main one.
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/Kardashev-scale-vs-Galactic-Library-Scale-900849682
circling back on the eating sapient things, yes, I was assuming done so more accidentally based on a relative outlook. Basically as stated humans can, have, and even knowing they are, may still choose to eat sapient animals (octopi, crows, dolphins, ect..), however socially humans due to ego (again) may in many societies, groups, or individuals find the idea that these “animals” are sapient feeling and thinking beings like them (we see this in real life today) despite whatever you show them or tell them, offensive and will ignore this. If the other life form can’t push back, and there isn’t enough awareness about it, and people forget they were once like that, we can see a scenario where humans *especially if the alien is non-humanoid with very non human aesthetics to what it makes* don’t immediately recognize this source of protein so far from home as sapient and end up eating them. I doubt humans would ever try at this point to justify eating humanoid life forms with writing and vocal language, but find something like an octopus crossed with a jellyfish/brain with tendrils that makes rock forts and basic catapults in shallow water and whether or not the worm holes and interstellar sales and bio-mechanical limb replacements ect… humans may immediately realize this thing is like an early bronze age (or so) human is a bit of a gamble. Yeah this one is a bit pessimistic and based more on pride and denial of anything else being *sapient enough to deserve equal treatment* but it based on those very same legal and ethical struggles you mentioned.
just some notes, the Civilization tier list scale and Kardeshev scale are unlikely to be far off really, especially as to reach those energy usage points you prob ably do need longer term survivability elements to master that much power and tech needs to be complex in other ways to do it…even if some ideas feel like stuff that on the way there a complex civilization would just shrug and do something else that while not as flashy is more practical like a tier 2 making world ships set in self sustaining orbits around a star and absorbing energy that way while also being a colony rather than wasting multiple systems worth of resources to build millions of planet sized ships to black out a sun…kind of like why today we don’t have sky-trams in every city, hovercraft houses, or walk around with phone screens directly in front of our eyes *to use a more recent example of sounded cool but didn’t catch on or failed a few of the practicality test runs*.
and honestly when setting up this scale there was an argument over if humans should really be tier 0.5 because despite missing TWO of the terrestrial criteria has a rotating staff with resources being brought in orbital habitat (international space station) and has explored nearby celestial bodies…
the hostile habitat elements are there are no year round civilian habitations in Antarctica (mostly just research stations and military installations)…as well as nothing in the sea…not even research stations. (which is a disappointing realization that despite their prevalence in movies there actually aren’t any underwater research labs to study the sea floor, let alone any colonies.
-any the pragmatism argument comes up that it should be considered a positive element for a species to not needlessly endanger their population just to hit every check box and skip a few of these to go froward…like I said, it is an incomplete scale that works best at the lower tiers and really high ones (tier 10 can make their own universes and invent their own physics).
“I am aware the Kardashev scale is only raw power usage and not social elements, that was kind of my point in mentioning it.”
Okay, but… that sort of invalidates most of your argument then, and makes most of your examples completely incorrect.
” however socially humans due to ego (again) may in many societies, groups, or individuals find the idea that these “animals” are sapient feeling and thinking beings like them […] offensive and will ignore this”
1) I’m just saying they’re possibly sapient. It’s not like I can tell for sure. I doubt a crow is actually sapient, for example – it’s brain is simply not developed enough for that sort of higher level thought. They are HIGHLY sentient though – able to solve complex problems and remember faces. But it doesn’t mean they have a concept of the future beyond what’s ingrained in them by instinct. Octopi MIGHT be sapient, or at least have the possibility to become sapient. Even though their brains are not remotely as advanced as a human brain, or even a chimpanzee’s brain, they do have nine of them. Octopi have demonstrable intelligence and puzzle-solving skills, individualized personalities, and seem to be capableof understanding some things in an abstract sense (that last thing is a good measure of determining if a creature has the capability to be sapient instead of just sentient). Even though we can’t be sure that they’re sapient, the question is so close that a lot of countries shun the idea of eating octopi for that reason.
2) I think you’re making a judgment call on why others might still eat octopi, with the implication that they do so out of ego. It might be for a reason as simple as ‘they would rather not starve to death’ or ‘they do not know how intelligent octopi are, or that they border sapience, or possibly even possess sapience. At the very least, most people do find it HARDER to kill and/or eat another creature if they anthropomorphize them and THINK they have human-like qualities, even if they might still do so in order to simply survive.
“but find something like an octopus crossed with a jellyfish/brain with tendrils that makes rock forts and basic catapults in shallow water and whether or not the worm holes and interstellar sales and bio-mechanical limb replacements ect… humans may immediately realize this thing is like an early bronze age (or so) human is a bit of a gamble.”
I understand what you’re going for, and it’s a reasonable argument that you’re making. But I also think that humans who would be explorers like that would probably be a little more enlightened or more scientific-minded than your average joe and jane, and recognize the rock-fort-making octopus jellyfish alien as the marvel that it is and would NOT try to eat it. Like I said, NASA goes out of its way to make sure that possible alien biomes, and possible alien microbes, are not infected by earth-based microbes even. If they’re that way about potential alien microbes, it’s a good bet that they’d be a lot moreso about tool-building alien creatures.
“if humans should really be tier 0.5”
Not meaning to be pedantic but again, we’re actually between tier 0.74 and 0.76 according to scientists who have done a lot more research on this than I have, given the harnessing of geothermal energy, wind, solar, hydro-electrical energy, nuclear energy, etc. Not that I’m one to usually make arguments from authority (because just being a scientist or having a PhD doesn’t mean you’re right), but I know there are pretty in-depths studies on WHY we’re considered that level by nerds like us who put a lot more thought into it than either of us have. :)
“the hostile habitat elements are there are no year round civilian habitations in Antarctica”
Actually, we do. MrMurdo Station. At any given time, there are almost 1300 people there. Sure, it’s all researchers and support staff who are paid to live there, but a lot of those researchers and support staff are still non-military civilians. Still, I agree with you that it feels like a ‘minimal’ definition of ‘civilian presence – it would be more of a ‘civilian’ city if it at least had a McDonalds there. :)
“as well as nothing in the sea…not even research station”
Actually there is one permanent underwater research facility on the planet – it’s called ‘The Aquarius Reef Base.’ It’s operated by Florida International University, but is also used by NASA, the US Navy, and international researchers and educators. It’s located 5.4 miles away from the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary and is on the ocean floor, 62 feet below the surface, next to a deep coral reef called ‘Conch Reef.’ It’s capable of housing 6 people for missions upwards of 10 days on average, and it’s been in continuous operation since 1993,although it was originally located elsewhere from 1989 to 1992.
There are also a bunch of temporary underwater research bases that have been set up, usually for stints not more than 2 weeks before they’re scuttled.
Another permanent underwater research facility is in the works as well, called Proteus. It’s planned on being 4000 square feet, complete with a moon pool like in the movie ‘The Abyss’ and a greenhouse, as well as research labs, sleeping quarters, a video production studio, and other facilities to house up to 12 scientists at a time for weeks at a time. Also…. it will have sustainable power from wind, solar, and ocean thermals (the wind and solar will be provided via an umbilical cable to the surface, and will also replenish fresh air and an internet connection. :)
So…. very big compared to Aquarius. It’s being planned by the grandson of Jacques Cousteau, already has some funding, and will be located off the coast of the Caribbean Island of Curacao, at the same depth as Aquarius Reef Station (60 feet, on the ocean floor).
CNet did an article on it last year. :) We’ll get up to Tier 0.80 any time now!
https://www.cnet.com/news/proteus-is-an-underwater-research-lab-worthy-of-a-bond-villain/
Sapience in animals is hindered by bias, and trying not to anthropomorphosis the animals may in fact come back and bite them causing them to ignore some data points as human error (yes conversely they can screw this up and over emphasize a behavior that isn’t actually sapient..this was the point of tier 0 in the civilization tier scale, behavior that looks smart but is actually the result of instinct and not something they figured out through reasoning.
the alien example is less first contact and more a hypothetical on if space travel became less wooden sail ships on the high seas and more luxury boat trips level of ease. But it still stands as a relative thing, and again people resist attributing “human traits and thought process” to animals both because it could just be projecting and out of ego, which I have seen and had conversations with people who find these ideas offensive and dismiss animal intelligence tests as tricks they taught the animals and that they don’t really know what they are doing. Which given the bias of these tests. In other words, wide enough gap and those goal posts get moved and next thing you know what you could have considered as signs of intelligent life just becomes another indication of a clever animal and nothing more.
and I will be honest as I said I wasn’t even using the Kardeshev scale for the tier 0.48 or tier 0.5 scale. Its like the super hero/villain discussions where we discuss their tier vs power class and while they often overlap they are not the same, Joker is often an A list villain, however this does mean he is an A-class on the power scale.
That said I will still argue they are over-estimating, their own bias interfering with the data, same thing happened back in the 1960s when they believed we’d have human intelligence AI well before the year 2000.
and while they put a lot of thought into it, they are still “ants trying to figure out the metropolitan area” to quote a relative analogy. Imagening alien civilizations will have megastructures around suns blocking them out, and looking foe stellar engines in space as signs of these civilizations would be like somehow getting a scientist from the late 1800s and showing them photographs of a modern city and they see no signs of technology more advanced than their own time…why because what they are looking for are things like air-trams, hover houses, wireless light beam towers *of a type they’d recognize based on their own time and references*, jet packs, flying cars, teleporter pods, moving sidewalks, trains with propellers in the front, ect…
they can’t identify most of the actually advanced technology that passed the practicality test. So yes I will estimate a margin of error when someone tries to imagine technology from the distant future/significantly more advanced civilizations. As well as he likelihood they are over estimating their current progress.
Scientists see this as science advances and realize that an even more advanced society may operate in these new discoveries or beyond them, rendering entire long term or large undertaking projects possibly a giant waste of time, such as SETI, radio transmissions, and realizing their short range from a space perspective, the blink and you miss it windows of even using radio communication for a civilization, and the possibility in the next few decades to a century or so Earth may very well stop transmitting radio signals into space entirely as we refine better forms of communication. So this entire criteria used to try and find alien life was based on a then current scientific understanding that is now rendered as *well chances are over these long distances and advancements they could be using faster and more direct forms of communication, some are postulating laser bursts which would be easy to miss, and some even neutrino beams which Earth lacks the capacity to detect when not expected *and even then just barely*, even after that a future discovery may conclude such civilizations could end up using some property of quantum mechanics we can’t harness yet but could theoretically be used to transmit information or travel through space and Earth for the majority of its time would never detect this.
Many of these scales as I was trying to say with comparisons to scientific discoveries are flawed because of this and while we are looking for giants moving mountains and saying there is nothing there because we don’t see it, we miss the elves building cities among the tree roots.
-honestly I have discussions on the logic of Dyson Swarms and ring worlds and how maybe we should be looking for planets in orbit around stars that exhibit unusual gravity or magnetic properties for their size as possible *world ships* or defended planets using these fields to deflect asteroids and absorbs solar energy without wasting several systems worth of resources to needlessly block out a sun.
While I was not aware of there being any sea bases, it being a recent article attests to how I missed it, and I was aware of Antarctica research stations (such a large staff was unknown) but these are not the same thing as having say a Phoenix Arizona there, a city in the middle of hostile environment with a large relatively permanent civilian population living comfortably for the most part.
-you also clearly missed that this should humans be 0.5 was an anecdote of an offline conversation refining this civilization tier list criteria to include people skipping the inhabiting all surface environments criteria.
I do think it is neat there actually are underwater research stations but you know what I mean, like the things in Megalodon, Abyss, and other dee sea movies, ocean bed farms, Aqua Cities, same as how I pointed out we have an International Space station with rotating research staff but not yet have a space colony ship like in Gundam or anything. It is a different stepping stone to go from research outpost to entire families live here.
*does NOT mean Joker is an A-class power…that not was kind of important in that sentence and somehow I typoed it out of existence. This is why I prefer to step back and write things out and make documents rather than try to have discussions like this in a comment section.
“Sapience in animals is hindered by bias, and trying not to anthropomorphosis the animals may in fact come back and bite them causing them to ignore some data points as human error”
I honestly think it’s more based on observation than bias. If anything, we probably tend to assume animals are sapient when they’re not BECAUSE we anthropomorphize them too much, or assume there’s at least some level of sapience just to be on the safe side (whales, dolphins, octopi, chimpanzees, sometimes dogs, cats, macaws and grey parrots, etc). There are, of course, people who follow Descarte, and say that humans are the ONLY animals capable of complex thought. That does seem more based on ego, but it was also a vastly different time period in which scientists lived back then. Mainly because people like Descartes also assumed ‘animals do not have souls’ as part of their scientific inquiry, and if they don’t have souls, they probably do not have the capacity for rational higher thought either. It was admittedly not great reasoning.
Nowadays, we have fields like cognitive ethology in order to come to a more accurate assessment of whether animal intelligence rises to the point of sagacity, instead of just behavioral training and instinct. Think about the elements typically considered for a sapient creature.
1) They need to be capable of judgment – the ability to decide from two non-life-and-death outcomes which would be preferable BEFORE the choice is actually presented, without relying on instinct. There are obviously many animals that do exhibit this trait.
2) They need to be capable of teaching – learning new ideas from specific members of the same species. This is far less common among animals, but we do see it in most higher level primates, octopi (but not squid, who are intelligent but have not been shown to be able to teach others in controlled observation), japanese crows (but not british crows for some reason – which is probably why you are going with the idea of crows being sapient), grey parrots, most porpoise and dolphins, and several variety of whales. Also sometimes certain canine breeds.
3) They can think in abstract thought, and have an understanding of their own mortality outside of a predator/prey relationship. This is the more difficult one to test.
So assuming a creature is not sapient when it does not exhibit these particular elements of intelligence does not mean egotism necessarily. It could just be based on observation and rigorous scientific experimentation.
” In other words, wide enough gap and those goal posts get moved and next thing you know what you could have considered as signs of intelligent life just becomes another indication of a clever animal and nothing more.”
Fair enough. I just think humans are more likely to err on the side of caution when it comes to determining sapience nowadays. And probably even moreso once we’re a multi-planetary species. If only in order to hedge our bets and nothing else. :)
“honestly I have discussions on the logic of Dyson Swarms and ring worlds and how maybe we should be looking for planets in orbit around stars that exhibit unusual gravity or magnetic properties for their size as possible *world ships* or defended planets using these fields to deflect asteroids and absorbs solar energy without wasting several systems worth of resources to needlessly block out a sun.”
I think we do actually do this, although mainly with stars, in order to determine if there are planets orbiting them by the slight discoloration from when a planet orbits around it, or the effect of planets gravitationally on the star (as minute as it may be, but still perceptible to technology).
Those sound like fascinating discussions btw. :)
“While I was not aware of there being any sea bases, it being a recent article attests to how I missed it,”
Yes well, Proteus is recent (2020) but Aquarius has been around since 1993 off the coast of the Florida Keys, and it’s been around period since 1989 so not THAT recent for that one. It’s understandable that you wouldnt know about it though, since it’s the ONLY permanent sea base we have on the ocean floor. I only knew because I remembered watching something on A&E about it.
“and I will be honest as I said I wasn’t even using the Kardeshev scale for the tier 0.48 or tier 0.5 scale.”
Gotcha. I just keep getting thrown off because you are saying Tiers in the same way that the Kardeshev scale uses, but your reasoning for the numbers on that scale seem arbitrary.
“While I was not aware of there being any sea bases, it being a recent article attests to how I missed it, and I was aware of Antarctica research stations (such a large staff was unknown) but these are not the same thing as having say a Phoenix Arizona there, a city in the middle of hostile environment with a large relatively permanent civilian population living comfortably for the most part.”
To be fair, 1300 people is around the size of some small cities or towns. For example, I have an aunt that lives in Kaaawa on the island of O’ahu (it’s where they filmed part of Lost and Jurassic Park btw), and I think the population there is around the same size. Maybe a little bigger or smaller. And it’s a much more comfortable place to live than in Antarctica, so I think it’s impressive to have 1300 people living there full time. :)
“-you also clearly missed that this should humans be 0.5 was an anecdote of an offline conversation refining this civilization tier list criteria to include people skipping the inhabiting all surface environments criteria.”
Yes, I missed that you’re referring to some offline conversation, sorry about that.
“I do think it is neat there actually are underwater research stations but you know what I mean, like the things in Megalodon, Abyss, and other dee sea movies,”
I understand. :) And I do think that will happen eventually. We’re just in the starting steps with stuff like Proteus. That’s the size of a rather large house or small-sized mansion. Eventually they’ll get larger. After all, New York City was only about 1,500 people when it a TINY town called New Amsterdam in the mid-17th century. Now it has a population of almost 9 million people. :)
“but not yet have a space colony ship like in Gundam or anything.”
I think both Elon Musk and Richard Branson are working on that as part of their goals to colonize and terraform Mars, as a stop-off point between Earth and Mars. Seriously :)
“This is why I prefer to step back and write things out and make documents rather than try to have discussions like this in a comment section.”
No problem. I hope you don’t think I’m being overly critical of your opinions. I just like making longform arguments. Your comments and Torabi’s comments on this subject are fun reads.
Understood,
the civilization tier list is new and being refined as we speak, but it looks at ideas like how advancing tech may result in things like using less energy for more advanced devices instead of more. (think how a Cellphone despite being hundreds of times or more complex than some 1960s super computer is actually using less electricity, or modern cars being more fuel efficient. That some tier 2 or above civilization may discover a way to use an energy source not considered by humans as viable or else discover a new one rendering concepts like mastering whole stars impractical. *does it pass the practicality test…popularity test can also affect technology but not usually on bigger scale projects…usually…*,
heck I was having a conversation today about a possible fallacy in how we view aliens. We think of things like *humans are to them as chimps, lemurs, mice, insects, amoeba* ect.. depending on the difference in technological, mental, and physical complexity. So we assume they will treat or regard humans the way humans treat these things. However on the closer scale humans *other than interacting with other human socioeties* don’t have a comparison for interacting with non-human sapient species with advanced tool use who build towns and what not, many of these aliens provided humans aren’t their first contact may do this regularly so how they really think of other sapient species can be vastly different than how humans think of chimps or parrots or dolphins ect…
on the extreme end with the super advanced ones who are basically the galactic empires or even higher the masters of space and time or whatever the *humans are as insects, amoeba, bacteria, ect…* there is the fallacy, we are assuming they will think like humans. Yeah assuming they will think of humans the way humans think of these small things is just projection, an inverted anthropomorphism to a more complex life form rather than less complex one. Moving the goal posts from amoeba to human to human to Amana/Chousin/Abstractives/First Ones, whatever, it is assuming they will have the same outlook on life around them as humans imagine human beings would if they were that powerful *also ignoring the inaccuracy that just because there is this massive gap doesn’t mean you literally would be regarded the same as amoeba anyway*.
*I am going to post that last part on the more recent page of this comic, heck in two days the next, next page will be up, kinda having a lagging conversation here LoL*
“*I am going to post that last part on the more recent page of this comic, heck in two days the next, next page will be up, kinda having a lagging conversation here LoL*”
This is largely my fault because I keep responding, because I find this particular debate in this thread VERY fun. :) If you ever want to discuss stuff on discord, let me know.
Not wanting to consider themselves the bad guys won’t stop humans from doing much. They’ll rationalize, justify, and compartmentalize.
Now I’m pondering the axes you’d have on that graph. You’d have the size of the father, size of the boyfriend, and possibly a “how much do fathers expect their daughters to take care of their own problems” axis. One extreme on that axis could be a black widow species where the father doesn’t care because mother ate him years ago, and the only thing mother is concerned about when it comes to boyfriends is genetic quality and nutritional value.
Geek Coolness Sense and Self Preservation Sense team up to overwhelm Dad Protectiveness Sense. Alien boyfriend is warmily welcomed in the family. Everything works as it should.
Last panel,Sydney,Sr. jumping the gun there… Sydney hasn’t made ANY long range plans around Frix or has she!?
Well, Sydney is known to match surnames of boys she likes to her name as soon as she meets them, and draw wedding pictures of her and fictional characters she fancies, so the apple does not fall far from the tree even in this case. To be fair, father and daughter are so much alike in so many things that I struggle to perceive the influence of Mom’s genes. Well, except the silent talking stuff, but that may easily be a learned thing.
Ideas can be long-range too :P
You can totally see Frix in that last panel going “Well, now I know where she gets it.”
“He’s a doctor and a plumber” should impress the parents.
“It’s the plumber! I’ve come to Frix the sink!”
/obscure??
Whooo is it?
r/UnexpectedLetterkenny
“Welcome to the family, son!”
*Resident Evil VII flashbacks intensify…*
Y’know I think I’ve mentioned it before, but making woopie with Dabs has gotta be a tad bit dangerous. Getting smoochie in all the different positions while doing the thing can cause serious damage whilst in the midst of passion due to her horns especially the lower set. I mean, totally worth it, but…seriously, you could damage or loose an eye to those things. On the other hand they give an entirely new meaning to the term ‘love handles” when she’s performing her orals.
I’m sure she’s got plenty of practice in safe sex. In whatever safe means for Dabbler. Just ask Barberian from WAY back.
you’d have to find someone who hasn’t been hit with the hammer of amnesia.
Maybe she puts wine corks on the sharp ends of her horns and it looks so silly that is the reason for the Amnesia Hammer 40k.
In reference to checking Tamer, I’d suggest having one of the checkers play it through an app such as @voice or the like which will read it aloud to them. Someone with editorial experience (such as myself) and/or A.D.D. (such as myself) will pick up on something that doesn’t ‘sound’ right. Eyes and ears are better than eyes alone. If there was a way to read a book through smell, I’d suggest that as well. :)
Actually, I wonder if there’s an automatic ebook to braille app.
> Actually, I wonder if there’s an automatic ebook to braille app.
If there isn’t, then there really, really should be.
Actually, if there isn’t, let me know and I might just write it. Sounds like a fun weekend project.
I don’t see* much point to an app that merely displays Braille dots on a flat screen, but there are physical Braille readers that can ‘display’ ebooks, as well as other app content.
* ba-dum tss
for the longest time McDonalds had ‘braille menus available’ on the drive through.
So did drive-though bank teller machines
It would probably be VERY scary to a blind person to read some braille that says:
“WARNING. DO NOT TOUCH. DANGEROUS.”
There is an app that makes braille e-books actually.
It does require a special type of ebook, admittedly.
https://blindmast.com/tech-tips-reading-ebooks-with-braille-display/
The device actually can read multiple e-book formats, including epub, DAISY, and BRF. I don’t think it can read PDF files though.
Three standard deviations huh?
So he’s got an orbital platform that lenses solar radiation down into an ultra-tight death beam…AND a backup?
Uhh… That text is probably referring to average human height, and the standard deviation from that height. So for men, about 5’9″, plus or minus about 3″, meaning ODS tops out around 6’6″.
I have no idea what you’re referring to.
I think the star trek aliens most likely to start bar fights are Nausicans, that is how Picard lost his heart after all
When it comes to media you tend to have to deal with three issues.
Facts vs agenda vs bias
these three elements will but heads, especially when facts conflict with agenda or bias, and yes bias and agenda can also butt heads.
and then these elements relate to media regulations, and to what degree are these regulations enforced given the same factors applying to those making the regulations and enforcing them.
and the making humans look dumb thing is going to be extremely relative, same as cultural differences or watching reaction videos online and realizing how often some references go over people’s heads, or ideas shown to people in other cultures don’t make sense or get interpreted very differently. The cultural context as well as the legal context among other situations and conditions greatly influence an outlook.
after all warning labels have a rule that the average consumer is to be regarded as though they are no smarter than a five year old, so warnings and instructions are supposed to be universally very simple.
-and even with that context without these you can still have people do things that you’d think would be common knowledge…like say having to inform an employee they aren’t allowed to unlock the door and let in a customer after closing…THIS actually came up where I work. It was after closing, we were about ready to go home, supervisor in the cash office with the safe and this new hire was talking to a complete stranger (we found out they didn’t even know this person…real squirrely looking and acting guy who had been sulking around the parkinlot area for the last eight hours), and they were about to unlock the doors and let this person inside to talk to them…had to be yelled at to not unlock the doors…this employee was surprisingly not fired over that but would be fired later for breaking multiple company rules (like accepting change and gifts from customers).
Now tell this story to someone in a different culture where business and relation with customers is drastically different or more casual and it sounds very different, but can also go the other way to a more dangerous and far less safe environment and this story becomes even scarier or (face palmy) than it was.
In the T.V. Tropes section on “shit Eating Grin”, I demand that there should be a picture of panel 5.
I get the distinct impression that Sydney thinks they’re “a thing”, and Frix thinks of her as a somewhat dangerous and unstable friend with benefits.
Actually, humans aren’t -always- the jack-of-all-trades species. One of my favorite old scifi books has the premise that it turned out that what humans had to offer the intergalactic community was medicine, we were better doctors than anyone else. So we became ‘Hospital Earth’ in the process of trying to enter the intergalactic community and prove our worth.
That seems… even less realistic. Humans are terrible at all kinds of health care. They also have terrible biology too though, so there’s that.
How do you figure humans have terrible biology?
We have an insane level of endurance compared to most species on Earth, an incredible ability to heal more than most higher level creatures on the planet, higher order intelligence and sapience than almost any creature on the planet, if not the absolute highest level, we’re the best tool-builders, we’re extremely tolerant against many forms of toxins that would kill most other animals, and yes, we are essentially jacks of all trades.
We might not be the fastest, or the strongest, or the best eyesight, or best hearing, or best other senses, or best healing, or live the longest, or the most adaptable (although we get around that by making our environment adapt to us better than any other creature on the planet), but we have a rather extreme range for most of these things compared to the vast majority of other animals. Most others who are better in one area tend to be because they specialize. Plus we progress as a species far faster than any other species which has to rely on natural evolution instead. Also we have the best hand-eye coordination on the entire planet. Humans are the only species able to throw with our level of sheer accuracy, speed, and power. We manage to domesticate other animals better than any other of the very few species that do, with far more variety. Our bones have an insanely high tensile strength compared to most other animals of our size, speed, and strength. We’re not biological extremophiles, but we’re able to live in most places on Earth somehow anyway, and you’ll be able to find humans in most places on the planet in SOME number, even if just seeking a challenge. Humans are incredibly good at temperature differentials (Amphibia’s a cartoon which is good at pointing this out)- we have a more efficient cooling system than almost any other mammal on the planet (which actually is part of the reason that we’re such good persistence hunters) – we can hunt down our prey for hours on end to the point that they sometimes just give up or die of exhaustion.
And yes, we’re actually amazingly good at all kinds of health care compared to other species. Show me any other animal on the planet that relies on more than natural healing in order to heal themselves or others of their species (or of other species). You can’t. They don’t exist. Hell, many other species, if they break a leg, they’re going to die. Humans – you can cut off the leg. They can keep surviving under many conditions. Same with many injuries.
And if nothing else, even if you take the idea that human biology is even VASTLY inferior to different alien biology, it makes sense that humans would be extremely good at health care compared to other species who are superior in other areas, if for no other reason than the more resistant you are to injury, the less you’ll need to focus on health care in the first place.
PS – I really do tend to love the ‘Humans are Amazing/Awesome/Terrifying’ reddits. Mainly because it tends to be annoying how so many sci fi examples show humans as just being the ‘minimum default species’ or ‘the nothing special species.’ Almost like people are embarrassed to be people. A really horrible self-image problem when we’re really, truly amazing, advanced, somewhat terrifyingly efficient and resilient creatures if you look at us from an outside viewpoint.
https://i.imgur.com/hINj1xf.png
that’s nice and all,
(better than most species physically in some areas, worse in others, compensate with a big brain and tool use eventually after so many set backs leading up to the modern era)
uh-huh, that’s nice and all but human biology still sucks, comparing it to other animals or pointing out medical tech doesn’t change the many flaws that with even better medical tech, gene modification, techno-organic implants, ect… could be vastly improved upon.
or that alien species advanced enough wouldn’t have done this. While the space orc stuff is a fun self reflection bit , it has the same feel as (Humanity, saviors of space) ego trip that is descended from stories that amounted to *white man goes to foreign land, is better at everything there than the locals* type of stories, only all inclusive to humanity over imaginary aliens.
I think you’re just having a negative self image of yourself, and by extension, the human species as a whole with the whole ‘we suck, everyone else is better than us’ image. It doesnt seem particularly realistic though for a planet with as much biodiversity as Earth has, where humans somehow become the apex predator at the top of other apex predators. Not to mention, it’s not particularly fun as a story for humans to just suck compared to everyone else.
“Humans go into space. Everyone else is better than them at everything. There’s nothing whatsoever useful about humans. Nothing special about us whatsoever. We are inferior at everything, plus everyone else is more of a jack of all trades than we are as well. We’re basically insignificant insects compared to everyone else. They might as well go back to Earth and die off because we suck. The end.”
See? Not particularly fun. Also not realistic given you could have said the same thing about humans trying to hunt cave bears, or mammoths, or any other species which was far stronger or faster or bigger than they were. We’re a species that took one of our early enemies and turned them into our best friends (canines) – largely because we both have pack animal mentalities, which formed a common bond for our social paring mindset. And back then, humans had very primitive weapons, primitive strategies, social structure, and only the ability to communicate rudimentary linguistic commands with each other, barely above that of a pack of wolves. By your metrics, taken from aliens to earth animals, humans should be extinct already. :)
Even when you want a challenge via a ‘hero’s journey’ for a species, in which the humans start out as weak and get strong, the hero still needs a chance to show they are special in some way unless you see humanity as needing to be completely dependent on the charity of others without being able to provide anything in return whatsoever of signficant, equivalent worth. If anything, the ‘jack of all trades biologically’ feature of humans, or the ‘humans are the best at social pairings/bondings’ feature is not only comparable to how we are vs most other species on this planet, it’s actually NOT very egotistical – at least not so much as the ‘humans are actually the strongest, fastest, bestest species in every individual area. It takes what on initial view looks like a minor advantage and shows how impressive that advantage can actually be.
“(Humanity, saviors of space)”
Oh I never said humanity is always ‘saviors of space.’ That implies there’s genetic morality. Morality isnt genetic – it’s learned (and sometimes it’s subjective). Humans can be jerks as well – but it doesnt mean they’re any less impressive as jerks. Take Avatar for example – most of the humans are pretty awful, but they’re still a LOT better than the Na’Vi, despite being far smaller, far weaker, possessing far less endurance, and not being able to breathe in the planet’s atmosphere. But they’re still ‘better’ in a fight because of their ingenuity and technology. And honestly if not for some of the humans going to the side of the Na’Vi, they are also better at strategy and intelligence. Smart ‘evil’ humans in Avatar would have just nuked the Na’Vi from orbit and mopped up afterwards. But then the heroes (in this case, the Na’Vi would have likewise stood no chance, and that would not make for an interesting story). Or take Ender’s Game. Humanity isnt exactly nice there either (child soldiers and a rather neo-fascist regime), although they’re not evil either (their government is largely based around surviving the war with the Formics). The war with the Formics is based on a misunderstanding, started by the Formics, due to them not realizing that individual humans were sentient beings (since in their own society, the drones are not sentient, only the queens are).
But you HAVE to admit that, as a species, we’re very impressive because of our significant skill in multiple areas. I’m not conflating bio-advancement with morality necessarily, although if humanity is to be viewed as heroic, even for a fraction of that population, at least some humans should show heroic qualities.
“or that alien species advanced enough wouldn’t have done this.”
Well sure, if you make your fictional sci-fi world one where all aliens are all vastly superior in every single area to humans then humans will be inferior in every way. But that doesnt seem to mesh well with the idea of our already being an apex predator OF apex predators … on a planet where there’s already quite a few apex predators.
Take Babylon 5 for example. Humans are not the ‘best’ there either. They’re vastly inferior in technology to the Vorlon and the Mimbari. Physically weaker than the Minbari and Narn. Their main strengths are in two places.
1) They will not surrender if their species is at risk – literally will fight to the last person. Which apparently, in the Babylon 5 world, is not typical of most species. That was the whole point of ‘the Battle of the Line.’ Only the Narn and the Humans seem to do this. G’kar mentions this as humanity’s most admirable trait. To paraphrase G’kar: “When the humans no longer had ships to fight with, they fought with guns. When their guns failed, they fought with sticks. When their sticks were broken, they fought with their fists to their dying breath.” This was also evident in how Captain Sheridan was the only human to ever destroy a Minbari ship using an Earth ship, despite being hopelessly outmatched.
2) They seek to build communities with other species. Something that Delenn found to be the main strength of humanity, shown in the existence of Babylon 5. Basically, humans are the best diplomats.
“Of course it is. For the simple reason that no one else would ever build a place like this. Humans share one unique quality: They build communities. If the Narns or Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people. But everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift, and a terrible responsibility—one that cannot be abandoned.” – Delenn
Basically, according to Delenn of the Minbari, Humans are not warriors for the most part (Sheridan being a notable exception), but what they do tend to be are diplomats, and amazingly good ones. The idealistic reason why “Humans Are Special” and the reason why “Humans Are Leaders”: Humans are diplomats when compared to other races. They make friends easily, and have a talent for negotiations. Humans tend to favor the diplomatic approach, especially when compared to the “Proud Warrior Race”. Because humans have such a diplomatic talent, it’s the reason they invariably are part of “The Federation” if it exists. This preference for diplomacy over violence can also be one of the reasons why “Humans Are Good.”
This is also the main strength of humans in the Star Trek universe, as well as the Orwell universe, despite how other species tend to be stronger, or have psychic abilities, or shapeshifting abilities, or backup vital organs, or omnipotence, or all manner of other powers, and human technology is (at best) equal to some other major powers and vastly inferior to MANY others. Pitiable ol’ humans have no special physical abilities in comparison to most of the other races. But they’re amazing diplomats – some of the best in the quadrant, which is how they formed a federation spanning hundreds of worlds despite being centuries behind the Vulcans, the Klingons, the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Tholians, and even the Bajorans in the beginning. Heck, even a ‘cowboy diplomat’ (Spock’s description) like Kirk is still a diplomat when needed. Yknow, when he’s not banging every alien woman he comes across, which is sorta a type of diplomacy as well I guess. :)
So is it hubristic to say humans are special with an extraordinary biology? No… not really. It’s just a normal observation, and the only way you can get around it is to make up a fictional scenario where they are not. Because when you observe in real life, they most definitely are.
No, I have a massive ego, enough that I can see the inherit flaws in my physical form and their distinct limitations, as well as human history and observe the potential stepping stones and hurdles that would need to be crossed to survive in space,
and the idea isn’t that humans should be worse than EVERYONE,
its that all too common in sci-fi that humans are better than EVERYONE *when it matters*, having some drama or saying an alien is more advanced is fine and all, but when they fall into idiot antagonist territory it just feels like any old fairy tale where the giant mistakes a bird for a stone being thrown so it never comes down by the confident fool.
Which is the real crux, it is a rather common western trope to have a white guy go to some other place on Earth and be better than everyone there at their own culture,. Samurai, Native American hunter, African warrior, South Sea islands jungle explorer, ect…
it is one reason I didn’t like Avatar, it was litterally that trope. He goes there, its not his knowledge of humans and teaching the locals about humanity that helps him, it is him after a very short amount of time being more spiritual, connected, and figuring out how to tame the giant pteradactyle ect…that works in his favor.
Babylon 5 had this same issue, Humans could negotiate between the first ones when everyone else was basically just swept aside if they encountered them, humans outsmarted the Vorlons and Shadows and saw through Vorlon lies to actually kill one, ect…
Star Trek (first season) was literally just these old sea travel stories re-written for space adventures, and this aspect has permeated through the genre.
this is hard to explain properly but, power fantasy is one thing, and humanity having some edge or behavior that others don’t makes sense, just as every species should have something they have that others don’t have as well.
just all of this has the same root as the planet of hats trope (which is again descended from sea travel stories replacing islands with planets) and dumbing it all down so entire worlds have one culture, one language, and really just one phenotype (newer stuff has tried to not be so bland, within budget restrictions).
but again it is when humanity is just (better) in some innate way over everything out there that it rubs me the wrong way. Its not that humanity should be worse than everyone, just not automatically the destined future lords of space. It is overdone and well past the zeitgeist for that sort of story.
to add, I have a poor image of the rest of humanity perhaps after so many history, anthropology, and psychology courses as well as interacting with the public for such a long time.
*want to lose faith in humanity? work retail for over a decade and a half*
that said, the idea that other planets wouldn’t be just as environmentally and biologically diverse is also ego. Planet of hats, forest moon of Endor stuff is done to keep story telling simple. It shouldn’t be taken as a basis of expectations of alien worlds.
and I never said humans aren’t impressive in their own rights, I mean largest genitalia to body ratio of any primate and the most complex color vision of any mammal, stamina as a pursuit predator, long life, long maturation, complex abstract thoughts, ect…
its just the justification for humans being better than fellow sapient life seems to fall under (we special here so we must be special everywhere), it has that stink of *we traveled here..what…how dare you think you are as good as us! watch as I do thing that was special back home, don’t care if you reasonably should be able to do the same thing*.
it is not a negative self image to say it is egotistical to declare yourselves better than everyone else. Heck a lot of these sci-fi have that chosen one bit as well where humans just catch up technologically in just a few years and then improve on the technology that these aliens took forever to build. Yes, each generation of humanity improves on the previous technology, even to the point we can’t call it a generational change anymore as it is progressing faster and faster and while I can and have imagined aliens that platued because their thought process doesn’t include abstract imagination of outcomes without precedence; it is a bit much to do this with species previously stated to be just like humans, or advanced as quickly, or quicker, or worse yet are so insanely far advanced humans shouldn’t be able to tell how it worked (which Star Gate did a lot of, humans not only fixing but improving on Asgard and Ancient technology).
it would be like having a Roman soldier get their lands on your laptop and in a few hours improve your internet connection speed and upgrade your memory to terabytes after tinkering with it using his Roman times outlook…
“*want to lose faith in humanity? work retail for over a decade and a half*”
I’m a lawyer who’s worked in the ADA’s office and corporate litigation before I retreated to IP law because I didn’t have to deal with people as much. I feel your pain regarding faith in humanity, Rhuen. :)
I just still think humanity as a whole is a pretty awesome biological and social achievement among the animals on Earth.
“the idea that other planets wouldn’t be just as environmentally and biologically diverse is also ego.”
It’s really not ego. It’s again observation based on what we’ve seen so far. The planets we’ve seen so far do tend to have a significant lack of environmental differentiation on the same planet, and obviously no real biodiversity to speak of, even on the planets which we theorize MIGHT be able to support life.
I think it’s odd to assume that, given how rare the conditions necessary for life seem to be, even in an unfathomably huge universe, the combination of factors needed to result in so much biodiversity seems like it would be rare, while a less robustly biodiverse planet would be more prevalent. We only really have our own planet to make assumptions from, but the history of our planet seems to lend towards the idea that mass extinction events are SHOCKINGLY common.
Even on this planet, the fact that there’s so much biodiversity is mind-boggling, considering how many mass extinction events have happened. There have been mass extinction events that wiped out 96% of all life on Earth, and each time life comes back with a vengeance for some reason. There have been five major mass extinction events on Earth so far (and two smaller possible ones)
1) The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction Event (440 million years ago) – 86% of all life on Earth ends
2) The Late Devonian Extinction Event (365 million years ago) – 75% of all life on Earth ends
3) The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event (252 million years ago) – 96% of all life on Earth ends
4) The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction Event (201.3 million years ago) – 80% of all life on Earth ends (including 99+% of all mammals)
5) The Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event (66 million years ago) – 76% of all life on Earth ends (most notably the dinosaurs)
Even with humanity alone, we’ve had a bottleneck period during which most of humanity was almost wiped out, called the Toba catastrophe event (about 75,000 years ago when a suupervolcanic erruption caused a 1000 year long ice age, during which only about 3,000-10,000 individual humans – or somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs of humans) were left alive.
We’re not even the only species of human that had evolved on the planet – we’re just the only ones that survived another bottleneck period. Homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus (stop laughing or I will send ninja squads after you), homo antecessor, homo heidelbergensis, homo floresiensis, homo rudolfensis, homo habilis, homo naledi, and the denisovans were all humans that simply did not survive.
So no, it’s not ego. It’s just a realization of the possibility that biodiversity might simply be a very rare thing, especially at our planet’s level. Largely because it’s a miracle that WE have so much biodiversity in the first place.
“Planet of hats, forest moon of Endor stuff is done to keep story telling simple. ”
This is true. But also partially based on observation of our own solar system’s other planets and moons, as well as our studies of extrasolar planets. Whatever is required to have a planet suitable for a biodiverse climate either is not that common, or if it is, we’ve been EXTREMELY unlucky in finding any evidence of it being common so far.
Admittedly, we havent been at it that long, but it’s not ego to say ‘from what we’ve seen so far, there is no evidence to prove the alternative’. I’m not saying that other planets are NOT possibly as biodiverse or more so, but on one hand, I have actual data, and on the other, I have guesses. Until the guesses have enough evidence behind it, I’m not going to assume the guesses are true. I won’t dismiss them, since the scientific method is about disproving hypotheses, not proving them. But I won’t consider the hypotheses to be fact. It’s often not even an educated guess – it’s just a hopeful guess with the thought process being ‘the universe is infinite, so in an infinite universe there HAS TO BE something better than us!’
“It shouldn’t be taken as a basis of expectations of alien worlds.”
True. But it’s a starting point to jump off from, with more foundation than hoping anything’s possible. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying it SEEMS like having a low self-worth to assume that we do not have anything special to offer to the universe if there’s a plethora of life out there. Or to just assume that our planet is not unusually bio-diverse until we’ve seen some sort of example to the contrary. Or at least examples of more than possible microbes elsewhere (which alone would be amazing for us – remember the hub bub about Mars years ago finding possible microbial life forms?).
I just happen to like the idea that humans ARE pretty special. Because we’re pretty special on this planet, even if some humans think humanity is a mistake. Even if there are a lot of people who are just awful. It doesn’t make the existence as humans less amazing, or what humans are able to do compared to any other species on this planet.
“its just the justification for humans being better than fellow sapient life seems to fall under (we special here so we must be special everywhere),”
It’s just as plausible to say we’re special period, because we’re special on Earth, as to say ‘we’re not special anywhere except on Earth. In fact, I’d argue that at least the ‘we’re special elsewhere as well’ has more merit based on our existing knowledge of how we ARE special on Earth. Could this be disproven? Sure. Has it been disproven? No.
And again, the idea of us being special ‘out there’ does not mean other alien species are not also special ‘out there.’ It’s not a zero sum game. We can both be special. Even in different areas.
“it has that stink of *we traveled here..what…how dare you think you are as good as us! watch as I do thing that was special back home, don’t care if you reasonably should be able to do the same thing*.”
That seems pretty haughty. I’m not sure why you have such a low opinion of humanity. Maybe you don’t, but it is being presented as if you do. Assuming that humanity would go out and act like a spoiled brat. :)
Maybe we’d be generally chill dudes and dudettes when we met another alien species instead? Have a mutually beneficial relationship with other alien species? Honestly I found it a bit odd when Dabbler described humans as having ‘a xenocidal streak’ considering what we’ve already seen of Cora and other alien species who ARE part of the greater galactic neighborhood.
We’ve seen Cora engage in ultra-violence, both on Fracture and on Earth (although her actions on Earth were to save Sydney)
We’ve seen the mentality of the space mercenaries (and I happen to adore Lapha and Garamm anyway).
We’ve seen that there are aliens that will, as a first response, EAT other sapient beings, while they are visiting this planet.
We’ve seen Cora and Dabbler’s opinion of the Alari.
We’ve seen SOME Alari’s opinion of other species (Sciona and Lorlana, at least, although both have a healthy respect for the pinnacle of humanity, the savior of sapience, the supreme goal for all to aspire towards, Deus, so at least they respect perfection, all praise Deus amen).
We’ve seen the Fel.
We’ve seen the history of past archwizards in the galaxy and their gross practices.
Humanity doesnt seem to have more of a xenocidal or genocidal streak than any of them. If anything, we seem better because we at least recognize that there’s a problem with them doing this sort of stuff and, in the Grrlpower universe, even when we have supers who can potentially do the same or worse, they don’t seem to do that anyway – even the superhuman earth-based villains seem to restrain themselves SOMEWHAT from their worst impulses).
“it is not a negative self image to say it is egotistical to declare yourselves better than everyone else.”
It sorta is to completely dismiss even the possibility that it could be true though. It’s one thing to say ‘it’s egotistical to assume you’re the best’ But it’s another to say ‘you shouldn’t even entertain the possibility that you MIGHT be great compared to many other people.’ The latter seems to be saying ‘you should not think you’re great at all compared to anyone else, regardless of what you can do – heck they probably not only do it as well, but better.’ As if that latter belief should be the default assumption.
It just feels like a low confidence move and a self-defeating prophecy. Sure… you should never think your opponent is stupid, or weak. That’s just going to lead to underestimating the opposition. It’s why I don’t strawman people’s arguments – I try to steelman them instead. And I’m willing to accept that I -might- be wrong if the other side can persuade me. But I don’t go into an argument assuming that I’m wrong from the get-go. I might as well not argue at all if I feel that way. Better to go into the unknown with a positive, but cautious, attitude. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. But make sure you don’t just focus on the latter. There’s a former part as well to remember
Just like G’Kar says in ‘To Live and Die in Starlight’ – “We live for the one; we die for the one. Funny how you put all your emphasis on the latter part of that sentence, and ignore the former part. Is it not as worthy to live for the one?”
ie, we might be better, we might be worse. Why assume we’re worse? Isnt it just as good to assume we might be better? Or at least equal? Or maybe better in DIFFERENT areas, while they are better in other areas? That doesn’t seem to be ego. If anything, we’re at least basing it on what we already know about ourselves, so it has a little more basis than being down on ourselves. Thinking we’re definitely worse in all areas though – that does seem like a negative self image. To me, at least.
“Heck a lot of these sci-fi have that chosen one bit as well where humans just catch up technologically in just a few years and then improve on the technology that these aliens took forever to build”
Yeah, but often there’s a reason for us catching up. Usually by getting help from another species.
In Babylon 5 – we got help first from the Centauri, then the Minbari.
In Stargate – we took from the Goa’uld (who themselves never actually created anything), then were given things by the Tok’Ra (who also never created anything), then were given things by Asgard in thanks for our helping them with our ‘stupid weaponry and stupid tactics.’ Then got help from certain ex-members of the Ancients, who left technology for others to use, like Merlin. Plus we did engage in trade with other cultures as well. We didnt just instantly advance. The whole POINT of the Stargate program was to get new technology. And only the Goa’uld and the Ancients did not bother advancing during the thousands of years the Tau’ri were separated from the rest of the Stargate network. The Asgard, the Ashen, the Replicators, and the Tollan all advanced a LOT during that period. The Furlings probably would have too, had they not all died out. And remember, the Ashen were so advanced and superior in tactics that they DID beat Earth without us even realizing they’d beaten us.
“humans not only fixing but improving on Asgard and Ancient technology).”
I’m not really sure where you got that humans ever fixed asgard technology on their own. They always had help FROM the Asgard to fix their tech, and had instructions from Merlin to fix Ancient tech. It’s easier to fix tech when you have someone writing the instructions in simple to understand words (even if it’s still massively confusing to us and you need someone like Samantha Carter with additional help from the Tollan or To’Kra). And they NEVER improved on Ancient or Asgard tech on their own. The main improvement they made was with the naquada generator – which was from a trade of technology with another race of humans who were able to dumb down the tech enough for Earth to backwards engineer it. And they didnt even create naquadria – that was again discovered by different race, and the Tau’Ri just figured out how to stabilize it – all the heavy lifting had already been done though. With the asgard tech, the humans required hermiod’s help, or at least the AI of Hermiod.
“it would be like having a Roman soldier get their lands on your laptop and in a few hours improve your internet connection speed and upgrade your memory to terabytes after tinkering with it using his Roman times outlook…”
Actually I think there was something like that in Star Trek The Original Series, where an alien species, NOT humans, created and advanced their entire species based on a book about the roaring 20s left behind. Then Kirk’s away team accidentally leaves behind a communicator. And Kirk’s all concerned that that alien species will probably advance a LOT from that as well.
There’s also an Orville episode with a similar premise – the one with the planet where time moves a LOT faster and Isaac is left behind in order to explain things to them. At which point the alien species advanced beyond the Planetary Union by the next time they come around back into our timespace.
So there. Two examples of the aliens doing that. Not humans.
In Babylon 5, the ENTIRE time, humans are woefully behind the Minbari and the Vorlon. Earth Ships are barely a match for Centauri ships, and only one Earth captain has EVER beaten the Minbari in a battle – and that’s Sheridan.
Delenn : [Delenn’s fleet arrives after Earth Alliance attacks B5] “This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw or be destroyed!”
Earth Force Officer : “Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship.”
Delenn : “Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!”
https://youtu.be/DtNtw2HTFtA?t=23
Even in Star Trek, which is probably the most accurate to your assessment of ‘humans advancing while everyone else stands still, this is not exactly true either.
The Romulans advance at an equal level as the humans do. Possibly even faster since the humans hamstring themselves by not pursuing stealth technology, or even phasing technology, which is obviously NOT the same – it’s better. And yet humans don’t bother using it because humans are stupid apparently.
The Klingons advance as well, even though not as fast as humans do, but to be fair, humans are getting help from the Vulcans during this time, while Klingons don’t exactly value scientists unless it’s for war-based technology.
The Borg DEFINITELY advance during this time, a lot faster than humanity’s advancements, even though they don’t ever develop their own tech – but they definitely assimilate enough that they’re far more advanced by the time humanity comes across them in TNG than they were during the time of Captain Archer.
During this same time period, the Dominion basically goes from a few changelings on the run to conquering most of the entire Gamma quadrant.
The Ferengi do not advance much, if at all, but this is lampshaded by Nog in Deep Space Nine about how humans seemed to advance twice as fast as the Ferengi did in the same time period. Probably because humans actually made friends and alliances who were equal partners, instead of just business partners who the Ferengi had a history of regularly swindling. Nevertheless, Ferengi history does have some elements that are superior to human history.
To quote Quark to Cisco when he gets tired of Cisco’s sanctimonious ordering him around and utterly shuts down the mother f’ing Cisco:
Quark: “I think I figured out why Humans don’t like Ferengi.”
Sisko: “Not now, Quark.”
Quark: “The way I see it, Humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget.”
Sisko: “Quark, we don’t have time for this.”
Quark: “You’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you… we’re better.”
And Sisko had NOTHING to say in response. Especially when Quark mentioned slavery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5J_qn93Nkc
But the point is very often, it’s the ALIENS, not the humans, that advance incredibly quickly. When the humans advance, it’s usually slowly, and if they catch up or at least get within hitting range of the aliens, it’s usually because the aliens either are scavengers who don’t actually create anything on their own or innovate, or the aliens are resting on their laurels (sort of like a tortoise and the hare fable), or the aliens reach some sort of bottleneck point, like a great filter, which takes a LONG time to progress past, during which time the humans can start to catch up a little bit.
the problem with observing other planets for biodiversity is that we can’t yet, so sample size of 1 right now.
most planets and moons humanity can see are limited environments because they are dead worlds pretty much. When it comes to exo planets in the habitable zone we know they are there thanks to shadows against their suns, lots of math, and telescopes that can determine atmosphere conditions based on how light passes through them; but currently only even remotely reliably for very large exo planets as their suns outshine them.
until we actually get a nice close look at a planet in the habitable zone it is hard to say how diverse they can be relative to Earth.
However we can infer things based on physics, using the planet’s tilt, the stability of it rotation, and orbit changing distances and speed around its sun to determine what the planet’s possible average temperature ranges can be, if certain zones would have seasons, ect…
however without a closer look we won’t know things like soil richness, average rainfall, mountain ranges altering rainfall patterns, sea currents, salinity, exact composition of the atmosphere shifting potential weather patterns.
As its unlikely a terrestrial planet is very smooth, and so long as it is bigger than a moon (or not an artificial environment sustained by terraforming or some garden world for some tier 2.5 and above civilization), it stands to reason there will be variations across an Earth sized or a bit larger super Earth planet in this orbit. Thus various possible ecosystems, and so long as life has as much a drive to survive as Earth (again sample size of 1, but subset over the various environments and we do find life almost everywhere there is even a little bit of resources to consume…including each other), so not unreasonable to expect various adaptations for various environments if they are present resulting in biodiversity.
a lack of biodiversity may point to artificiality, although it would be funny to find an unnaturally stable world, mistake the locals for primitive and get an Organian situation. *AKA: you just met the Hippies of this species trying to live naturally and peacefully*.
“a lack of biodiversity may point to artificiality, although it would be funny to find an unnaturally stable world, mistake the locals for primitive and get an Organian situation. *AKA: you just met the Hippies of this species trying to live naturally and peacefully*.”
Stargate SG-1 did have a species like that I believe – the Nox – who were one of the ‘Alliance of Four Great Races’ along with the Alterans (ie, the Ancients), the Asgard, and the Furlings. The Nox were the ones who look like a very primitive species that doesn’t care about violence at all – not even defending themselves from the Goa’uld (much in the same way that the Organians refused to defend themselves from the Klingons in Star Trek TOS). They just had extremely advanced illusion-based technology and a bunch of other tech that made them at least on par with the Tollan, if not superior to the Tollan (according to the Tollan themselves).
Have you looked around at the world lately? Humans don’t even get along with each other. I find it a stretch to think they’d get along with alien species.
1) It depends on if they have things we want, and if we can get it through non-violent means. If we can get something via trade and diplomacy instead of war, we tend to go that route. Even on Earth among cultures which we don’t like. China and the US’s governments despise one another, but the US is the largest consumer of Chinese goods (especially with rare metals and electronics), and China is the largest consumer of US goods (especially in the entertainment industry and scientific research). European and the Middle East governments are not remotely ‘friends’ but they have very active trade relations. For that matter, Europe and Russia have a ton of trades as well, despite how NATO literally exists to counter Russian aggression towards Europe.
Humans will gladly trade rather than war. And definitely would rather use diplomacy than weapons. Even with people we don’t like, be they human or be they alien.
2) The more advanced the society gets, the more likely the population will have little tolerance for war instead of diplomacy and trade, unless there’s a massive propaganda machine in place.
3) Heck, Deus probably doesn’t like Sciona. And Sciona doesn’t like Deus. But they came to an arrangement that did not involve fighting, even though both were quite capable of fighting (Deus would have had the advantage because of Vale, clearly). Negotiation wound up winning out instead.
Countries around the world are currently becoming more homogeneous, monolithic, and authoritarian. The fundamental philosophical conflict is coming to a head, as it becomes less and less possible to believe that everyone fundamentally believes in the same underlying principles. Both sides are fighting for freedom, but to one, it means equality, and to the other, it means power.
“Countries around the world are currently becoming more homogeneous, monolithic, and authoritarian.”
I truly hate that I have to agree with you about at least the ‘monolithic’ and ‘authoritarian’ descriptions. :(
“The fundamental philosophical conflict is coming to a head, as it becomes less and less possible to believe that everyone fundamentally believes in the same underlying principles. ”
Once again, here is somewhere we can learn from the true visionary for the future, paragon of virtue and hope for all humanity, Deus (all praise Deus amen).
We just need to adopt his attitude about greed. Because even though you claim that ‘it becomes less and less possible to believe that everyone fundamentally believes in the same underlying principles’ – it might be possible for everyone to believe in the underlying principle of greed, and use that as a beneficial foundational structure instead of a negative one.
Lets face it, part of the reason the more advanced, nuclear-armed nations are hesitant to get into a hot war is not because of a fear of deaths, but because it will be bad for international trade and and making money via international business ventures. We simply rely on each other too much to make ‘hot war’ anything except a last option in all but the most extreme scenarios. It’s why Europe doesn’t say anything about Russia’s encroaching on the Ukraine, or why many countries don’t do anything about China’s horrific abuse of the Uyghurs (or their previously awful treatment of the 7-20 million Falun Gong practitioners – which like the Uyghurs is reported to allegedly include organ harvesting).
It’s because of money. It’s the same reason Hollywood tends to tiptoe around what the Chinese government wants in the movies (even if it includes things which in the U.S and Europe would be condemned as racist) – because they’re a huge audience market for movie companies.
“Both sides are fighting for freedom, but to one, it means equality, and to the other, it means power.”
I’m not sure what this last sentence is referring to. Could you explain?
The fundamental conflict is this: is it possible for everyone to be happy, to get what they want, to be successful? Or must there be losers for there to be winners?
Some people seem to believe that if they cannot sell themselves into slavery, or more specifically, cannot have slaves themselves, then they are not truly free. For them, freedom means the right to do anything they want, and nobody’s allowed to tell them no. It’s asymmetric. Some people get to be free, while others are their slaves. Ultimately, this philosophy leads to a single free man who owns everyone and everything. Only one person gets to be happy, and the rest suffer.
At the other end, nobody is truly free if anyone has power over anyone else. Everyone must be equal under the law for freedom to mean anything. This doesn’t require conformity — diversity is valuable. Everyone can be different, and even be better or worse in some respects, but their value as an individual and legal rights must all be equal for them to be free.
“Or must there be losers for there to be winners?”
It depends on your definition of losers.
If I give you $600 and you give me an Xbox Series X, am I the loser or the winner?
That’s $100 more than it is supposed to cost in the stores -so would that mean I’m a loser?
But it’s not available in any stores – so would that mean I’m a winner?
But you might have been able to get $700 or more from someone else if you waited – so are you a loser?
But you spend $500 to get it, so you made a $100 profit – so are you a winner?
Or are we both winners regardless of what we spent or sold, because we both wind up getting something we value more than what we’re giving to the other person? It’s possible to have a win-win scenario in capitalism, largely because it’s the main reason for wealth growth in a capitalist system. There’s no zero sum game there. It’s not like Monopoly where, by the end of the game, one person has all the money and property and everyone else has nothing.
“Some people seem to believe that if they cannot sell themselves into slavery”
Well if you’re selling YOURSELF into slavery, you’re engaging in a voluntary act, which means it’s not slavery in the first place. It’s a job.
“or more specifically, cannot have slaves themselves, then they are not truly free.”
Someone who says they are not free because they are not allowed to take away another person’s freedom (or life) at their own whim doesn’t understand the concept of freedom and liberty. Liberty involves having the freedom to do things which do not require anyone else’s forced labor. You cannot have liberty yourself by intentionally removing another person’s liberty without due process.- one for you, and one for the person you’re enslaving. It’s literally ‘requiring someone else’s forced labor’ in the most direct, literal sense.
People who argue that are just…. really dumb people. Or evil. Or both.
“Ultimately, this philosophy leads to a single free man who owns everyone and everything. Only one person gets to be happy, and the rest suffer.”
Correct – that makes the word ‘freedom’ meaningless. Terms like ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are more universal concepts. A universal concept cannot be limited to only one person.
“Everyone must be equal under the law for freedom to mean anything.”
Just so long as you understand that ‘equal under the law’ does not mean ‘everyone winds up getting the same thing in the end. Equality is not the same as equity. It should just mean everyone is subject to the same rules, not that everyone is guaranteed the same results. Your mileage may vary.
“This doesn’t require conformity — diversity is valuable.”
This is true. Diversity is definitely valuable. But so is some conformity – at least the conformity of everyone agreeing to a common foundation of law. It’s a delicate balance between order and chaos to have a functional but FREE society.
“Everyone can be different, and even be better or worse in some respects, but their value as an individual and legal rights must all be equal for them to be free.”
I agree completely about this and how you worded that sentence is perfect.
The ability to construct a win-win transaction under capitalism does not make all transactions under capitalism win-win. A critical system on which lives and the future depend is best measured by its failures, rather than its successes.
And while there are people who base their position of the necessity of losers on the basis of zero-sum economics, there are still others who hold the same position without that basis — they measure their own happiness not by what they have, but by what others do not. They demand there be someone to look down upon, someone who is denied what they have. Other people have explained this idea better than I have: “a freedom from domination and a freedom to dominate.” Abraham Lincoln quite eloquently addressed the topic in a speech:
And that would be why I think a substantial portion of the human race is either really dumb, evil, or both. Because their actions suggest that they subscribe to such a philosophy, even if they aren’t conscious of it.
Pure, unrestrained capitalism absolutely is like Monopoly. If everything is for sale, and money can be used to buy power, which can be used to acquire more money, then that is absolutely the end result. There must be some constraints on capitalism to keep it working for the good of all. We cannot blindly rely on the invisible hand. And I think you agree, considering your prior mention of support for antitrust laws.
Here’s a thought experiment for you: Imagine a world in which there are people who can enslave others at will. They can just pick you out of a crowd and declare you their slave. Is anyone free in such a world? Are the people who have yet to be declared slaves really any more free than those who are nominally slaves? Or are they all slaves who have simply yet to be given orders for the day?
Yeah, humans have a MUCH longer track record in the war of actively fighting injuries and disease than any other species on this planet, and that experience shows. I suppose you MIGHT be able to argue that one dog licking another’s wound might count, but it’s still no comparison. Extending that war metaphor much farther than I should, that’s like a raw boot on the first day of camp compared to a ten-year combat veteran.
I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a reason that, of all the species on the planet, ONLY humans are vets.
Veterans? Or veterinarians?
Yes. :)
Do I really need to elaborate on the contradiction here?
Humans consider most of the planets they are aware of to be uninhabitable. They have numerous weaknesses, and minor injuries tend to be fatal if untreated. As for medical care, many injuries have permanent consequences even when treated. Most health care is about suppressing the body’s natural responses to illness or injury, and waiting for things to get better on their own.
Humanity’s primary notable qualities are hubris and self-deception.
Agreed,
maybe I am reading Pander’s explinations wrong or they are reading mine and others wrong.
But my outlook is: These simplified storytelling elements make nice self reflections, but if we wanted to be realistic are extremely unlikely as the stories, especially the older ones are reader power fantasies above all else, and other species likely would have had many of the same struggles humanity did to get where they are.
and their’s seems to be: What? No! These works of fiction would totally work out that way in real life, because humanity is better than all life on Earth so of course humanity must be better than all life in the universe. You’d have to hate yourself to think otherwise.
at least that is my take on the conversations so far.
“maybe I am reading Pander’s explinations wrong or they are reading mine and others wrong.”
Yes i think you are reading it wrong, because you’re sort of… picking and choosing which is realistic and which is not. You can’t say ‘we want to be realistic, so we must assume that humans being special is a power fantasy compared to aliens’ because:
1) We have not yet met aliens to compare ourselves to
2) We can only compare ourselves so far to other species on Earth. And as far as that’s concerned, we ARE pretty damned special, biologically, psychologically, and socially speaking, advancement-wise.
So in one part of the sentence, you say this is not realistic. In the other part of the same sentence, you want to forego the things that, in real life, make humans special in order to say that we would not be special in a galactic sense as well. There’s nothing to base that upon though. It feels like just being negative because you don’t want to be proven wrong if it turns out to not be true.
I’d prefer to find out that I might be wrong in the future, if that still leave the possibility that I might be right, and when I have to compare if I might be right vs if I might be wrong, based on what I already know about human biology… the existing evidence SO FAR tilts towards me being right about humans being a biological marvel of efficiency and resiliency.
That’s not ego. That’s just pragmatism based on observation of what actually is real.
“What? No! These works of fiction would totally work out that way in real life, because humanity is better than all life on Earth so of course humanity must be better than all life in the universe. You’d have to hate yourself to think otherwise.”
Cmon now, don’t strawman the argument. That was not what was being said at all. It was never stated that ‘humanity therefore is better than all life in the universe.’ In fact, in NO examples, fictional or otherwise, was anything even coming close to anyone saying that. You’re just stating something which is easier to argue against.
Or maybe you’re just reading it that way. But you’re reading it that way, then you reading it completely wrong. Humanity being better than other life on Earth isnt a guarantee that we’d be equally advantageous elsewhere. After all, humans, like any alien, would have adapted to be pretty advanced on their home planet anyway. But humans DO have a track record of surviving in areas that are NOT hospitable to them. Or even surviving in areas downright deadly to them. Often for no good reason beyond ‘because we can, screw you, no one can tell me what to do, I’ll do what I want, I’ll live on that ice flow, I’ll live in that space station for 2 years. I’ll live in that submarine for months at a time.’ That does lend some weight to the idea that we could be resilient elsewhere as well. If for no other reason than we are pretty stubborn and extremely inventive.
When you completely seem to dismiss this possibility, yes, it does make it seem like you don’t think very highly of your species. Possibly because you don’t want to risk being wrong. That way, if you are wrong, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s a very ‘I’ll probably fail, so I’ll just assume I will fail so I won’t be disappointed when I do’ mindset, at least to me.
Even though you don’t have any actual evidence which should lead to you thinking humanity does NOT have any advantages, while you DO have at least some evidence that humanity DOES have advantages. Both are guesses, but the guesses in favor of humanity being ‘humanity f yeah’ seems to be based a little more on science and a little less on conjecture than ‘humanity sucks.’
“When you completely seem to dismiss this possibility, yes, it does make it seem like you don’t think very highly of your species. Possibly because you don’t want to risk being wrong. That way, if you are wrong, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s a very ‘I’ll probably fail, so I’ll just assume I will fail so I won’t be disappointed when I do’ mindset, at least to me.”
this is a total misunderstanding of my meaning and honestly comes across as incredibly egotistical to think that just because someone doesn’t assume they will have the biggest and best dick in the room that they therefor must have a poor self image.
that is how that comes across. I am not saying humans will be the worst and have clarified that several times. I am saying it is egotistical to assume you will be the best, and find the very notion of not considering it a rational possibility that humans will find themselves among legions of paper doll men a sign of poor self image to be downright insulting.
humans can still be frick yeah without being Super Man Supremo, or even assuming or considering that they will be over all that exists.
some humility before the universe is in order, and no this does not mean you should believe humanity will suck more than everyone else out there. It just means it is a tad delusional to march into the room thinking if you don’t believe you are the best then you must believe you are the worst. Everyone *usually* is better than someone else nearby at something; this is why cooperation is a key factor to success and not being captain awesome apex man jack of and master of all trades.
Your logic comes across as “Humans are the biggest fish in pond Earth, so they must be comparatively large fish across all ponds”. On one hand, that’s likely true — if you’re comparing humanity with all living species in the universe, they’re probably pretty exceptional. The problem then is the switch from comparing humanity with all other species, to comparing humanity to all other dominant species — the biggest fish in every other pond. In that case, it’s statistically likely than humanity is pretty average.
thank you, that is what I was trying to get across.
the reference point of 1 is Earth, and alien life that is also space faring would be compared to humans. This is how we get things like the grabby aliens and dark forest hypotheses because the only comparison we have is human beings as being the technologically dominant species. Outside of pride here is no reason to assume that because humans are dominant on Earth that they’d fill this same role when meeting other species who were the apex or dominant species of their planet.
while as I’ve stated it is possible to meet small sapient beings, and maybe even frail ones (due to living many generation in luxory) it is equally possible to meet physically the same abilities wise as humans or pick and choose traits, and even stronger and managed to have high intelligence and large strong bodies. Even with the other cases we don’t know, for all humanity knows they could meet some frail species but they walk around in mech-suits as contact suits to compensate for other environments, negating the space orcs concept entirely. Heck even in sci-fi we have seen this done both ways, small aliens in human sized mechs or using robot suits, and humans using mech suits to walk among giant aliens safely.
but yeah, thinking being the big fish in one pond means you will be the big fish in any other is a rather prideful outlook.
“Humans consider most of the planets they are aware of to be uninhabitable.”
And yet we still would probably try to colonize those planets ANYWAY.
Look at ‘The Expanse.’ Which is pretty ‘hard’ science fiction on the Mohs scale of science fiction. The humans colonize places like Mars, the Moon, Ceres, other moons, and many other planets that are not ‘habitable.’ But humans are like ‘screw that, we’ll colonize them anyway and MAKE them habitable enough.’
Heck, look at Earth. Antarctica is not exactly habitable, but bam, we say ‘screw that, we’ll put McMurdo Station there with about 1300 people. Basically a small freaking city. Because screw mother nature telling us where we can survive!’ Humans will try to colonize the moon. Even though there’s no frigging atmosphere. They do so in most forms of fiction – Star Trek, The Expanse, even Stargate SG-1, even when they’re closer to current levels of tech in RL. Humans will try to colonize the bottom of the sea. Why? WHY NOT! We’ll do research on how to terraform Mars so we can live there. We’ll do research on how to create floating freaking cities in Venus’s atmosphere to live there. We’ll look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and think ‘hey these places might be places we can live too.’
“They have numerous weaknesses, and minor injuries tend to be fatal if untreated.”
Compared to most animals, our injuries really do NOT kill us very often. Plus we tend to know to try to treat it, which is a lot more than most other creatures on this planet. And even when we don’t treat it, we often can survive long enough to get to a point where we CAN treat it. A horse breaks its leg, it’s not LIKELY to heal unless the fracture is a very clean break. They tend to go into shock. Humans can survive a broken leg WITHOUT going into shock. Sometimes even where it’s BADLY broken. And often it will still manage to heal. And if it doesnt heal and you have to remove the leg, as Peggy can attest to, you can still be incredibly productive. Unlike a horse. There are very few higher level mammals that can do that. Dogs and wolves can. Cats sometimes can. But most higher level animals? Nope. Sure, we can die from infection from untreated injuries. But we also have a VERY strong immune response to deal with infection, even if we aren’t treated with antibiotics, so long as we can at least clean the wound so it doesnt keep getting reinfected. Seriously, the human immune response is ridiculously overpowered compared to most animals. We have redundancy after redundancy built into our immune system. It’s literally one of the most advanced biological systems in the entire animal kingdom, next to the human brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXfEK8G8CUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSypUV6QUNw
“As for medical care, many injuries have permanent consequences even when treated. Most health care is about suppressing the body’s natural responses to illness or injury, and waiting for things to get better on their own.'”
The fact that we can survive things so long that we can live long enough to HAVE permanent consequences is itself a testament to how good our biological response to injury is, actually. Most other animals when faced with the same trauma simply die. They don’t have long term consequences because you can’t have long term consequences once you’re DEAD.
“Humanity’s primary notable qualities are hubris and self-deception.”
See, this is why it feels like a low self-image. What one sees as hubris, another sees as having an optimistic take on your own capabilities. And while humans can engage in self-deception, they are also quite capable of engaging in self-REFLECTION as well. Most of our history of philosophy and religion is a delicate balancing act between self-deception and self-reflection.
Plus a little self-deception can sometimes be helpful to long term survival, especially if you believe in mind over matter. As well as to create a kinder civilization. Humans need fantasies in order to be human, after all.
Or to quote the Hogfather:
“I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT ARE NOT TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnaQXJmpwM4
Do not confuse the health care system with actual health care
As Pander pointed out, hyu-mons are able to treat almost any injury that would be fatal to almost any other species, and are able to extend that ability to help those species
There’s also the fact that what we’re good at seems easy and obvious to us, while it may be opaque to another species. This is true even among humans – someone talented at math thinks it’s easy and logical and obvious, and can’t understand why someone else would struggle with it. Because of this, assuming we ever encounter intelligent allien life, whatever it is we’re better at will probably feel like “Huh? But that’s…so obvious, so easy! How have you -not- advanced in that area?” And we’ll probably be similarly but oppositely shocked at how crazy advanced something of theirs is.
I had a friend who mentioned something like this to me when I started a law office, after the ADA but before specializing in IP Law. Because I consider a lot of the things I do as a lawyer to be easy or obvious, so when I was coming up with what I should charge a client, I was going to charge a lot less than I should. My friend (who was an attorney with a pretty well established firm) told me not to think that way. What seems easy to me is likely not easy for others, and if I undervalued my services, the client would assume my services were of inferior quality and competence. Plus I only thought it was easy because I was schooled for several years in the skills and knowledge base needed to practice law competently. Most people are not, as one can tell by just spending a few hours in a small claims court or watching a few episodes of Judge Judy or People’s Court. :) It’s also why you should always get a retainer whenever possible, or at least get paid as soon after the case is over, before the client starts thinking ‘hey, I could have done that – that’s not worth this amount of money’ – even though they would NOT have been able to do it, and would have likely lost the case because they don’t know 90% of what goes into a lawsuit or (in my case later on) filing or arguing a patent or trademark or copyright, even if they try to just ‘google it.’
I similarly regularly get reminded of it in pricing my art commissions…though in my case it’s complicated by the fact that most people draw as kids, and don’t understand the sheer amount of practice and learning between a kid’s stick figure and decent character art, and on top of that, they tend to think of it as you ‘having fun’ instead of it being your job. So essentially, sometimes you’re going into it with the customer already thinking like your hypothetical post-case client ^_^()
So how long has it been and how much longer to catch up from the very beginning when Sydney was introduced as a Corporal. She just became a Private, I don’t think they give promotions that quickly.
She had to pass boot camp, first,
“Speak for yourself, John!”
At first I wondered why Frix has his face-time panel set that far below his normal height. Then I noticed that it is about the same height as the average human female’s chest. I also think he gets a kick out of driving up to someone and saying “Hey, my eyes are down here.”
I am not sure what you call the device. A bot? A mobile remote? I am sure Sydney would name it ‘The Botmobile’.
“Remote presence” or “telepresence” robots. That style is basically an iPad on a stick on a Segway, which lets someone video conference and drive their iPad body around.
I feel bad for Frix. So, Sydney makes sure that none of the guys blab about intimate stuff, but Sydney just insta-blabs to half the universe right away. Do men deserve no relationship confidentiality?
I understood all of those words, and even the individual sentences, but can’t connect anything you’re saying to events in the comic. This page, or any previous page. What are you talking about?
Sydney asked Cora about the crewmembers telling others about any sex she may have with them. Cora said they were good guys, and aren’t like that. She was safe to do what she wanted.
She then claimed Frix as hers, without even talking to him about it. Also she told others that he was her ‘space boyfriend’ and such. His consent should have been requested before stating such things.
Even if we decide that these characters feel a certain way about what conversational topics or details are public information, consent matters. Sydney has not considered such a thing important. She’s also claimed Frix as hers, then ignored him and went after Leon. Like, where was any of this conversation with anyone?
(realized I said one thing twice that’s my bad)
Not to forget: one of the first things she does when she gets back, is walk into Leon’s office and declare they are now boyfriend and girlfriend without caring about his response!
And to top it over even bader, when she finds out he is now with Kronachrome, she talks to her about sharing him, as though, again, his opinion doesn’t matter, and then throws her fucking boot at his head when he shows signs of possibly enjoying the idea of a threesome?
Yes Sydney was admittedly being a pretty horrible person to Leon, plus very hypocritical.
She did apologize for her hypocrisy and how she behaved towards him the next day, at least, if I recall correctly.
So… while it doesn’t excuse her behavior, at least she didn’t double down on it as if she was in the right.
It’s worth reiterating that human culture is very prudish in this setting. Most aliens in the Grrl Power universe are pretty open about sex.
It’s entirely possible Frix wouldn’t consider it a problem at all, or at most a ‘Oh, you should have waited a bit to tell him Sydney’
It Probably wont be the “snowflake” types that go out into space.
If he’s welcoming him to the family now just wait until Sydney tells her dad that Frix is both Scottie AND Bones on Cora’s ship.
Yep. Humans, the “Hold my beer, watch this.” species.
Also, I see where she gets it from.
I firmly believe that he has no such sense, just wanted to say that line.
I don’t care how big he is, if he hurts my baby girl. That’s not to say if he breaks her heart. relationships end, I mean physically hurts her. then he’s in trouble.
This page is again showing why don’t like Junior
Sydney’s dad looks suspiciously like a large eyed, older Starlord.
Does earlier somewhere explain why Sydney dont war of the worlds that Space station?
Same reason you don’t usually catch something from your dog, only times ten. Pathogens actually have to be adapted to the species they attack, crossing species boundaries isn’t usually successful. (Often particularly lethal when it is, but it usually isn’t.) Have you ever picked up a rock, and thought, “Man, I hope I don’t catch this lichen!”?
That, and the species at that space station have really, really advanced medicine. And the environmental control system probably is very proactive about keeping the air sterile and pure.
And she’s also not the first hyu-mon to go there
Huh, get a 3000 dollar fursuit, or one of those telepresense segways frix is using to wander a convention with a virtual avatar pretending to be an alien who’s stuck in quarantine, but still attending the con…..
Sydney didn’t war of the worlds that station for the same reason any of the other aliens including Cora (who like Sydney is of human descent) don’t WOTW each other by visiting the station and/or Earth: pathogens don’t easily change species. A virus co-opts your cells to make more of themselves by using their RNA/DNA to use your RNA/DNA-reading/translation equipment. No DNA/RNA (or different translation) and that virus can’t work the way it’s supposed to (but may do damage in a different way). Also, it’s likely to work both ways. If you can WOTW thém, they’re’s a pretty good chance they might WOTW you too if you’re unlucky.
(Edit 1) that was a reply to Francoinblanco, and (edit 2) “there’s a pretty …”
However, that mostly applies only to viral infections. Yeast or microbial infections are an entirely different ball of wax, so to speak.
Carton of eggs: Caution contains eggs.
Are eggs on Earth poisonous? Explosive? No.
I still think construction fails trump signs.
Or packets of airplane peanuts: Caution, may contain nuts
Not sure which is the bigger problem: that they had to put a warning label on the packets, or that it may contain the advertised nuts
But…. peanuts are legumes, not nuts.
So, the warning is actually a lie?
Peanuts are often processed in plants along with other goods. Cross contamination can happen.
I once bought a bottle of choccy sauce that read “may contain anchovies,” for that very same reason.
Actually, no, it was a warning for those with a peanut allergy (as though being handed a bag of peanuts wasn’t warning enough, guess too many sued so the companies had to put the warning on to prevent scammers from trying to make money. and no, not saying everyone with an allergy is a scammer, just the ones who deliberately do something like spill boiling coffee on their lap and then sue for several billion dollars)
Got a bottle of wine with a warning that it was possibly produced with the aid of milk and traces may remain
Milk? Who makes wine with the aid of milk?
Milk? Who makes wine with the aid of milk?
Read the full story at ( https://winemakerschoicewinedoctor.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-does-my-wine-contain-milk-products.html ).
CAUTION: You may lose the desire to drink wine.
Was never really a wine-drinker (only drank Chardon {not Chardonnay}, and only on birthday and Christmas slash new years… until they stopped making it this or last year), and only bought a bottle of non-alcoholic aussie wine because ‘needed’ it for a cocktail and it was easier to get it from local supermarket (which can’t sell alcohol due to local liquor licensing monopoly)
Do you have Cliff’s notes on that article?
Just researched “Cliff’s Notes” as never heard of them before, so no.
OTOH, apart from the egg-white chemistry with tannins of which I was totally iggerant, the rest jelled with what I’d heard elsewhere.
Yeah, have heard of egg’s being used in wine, never milk
The infamous McDonalds coffee lawsuit was not by somebody seeking to make a quick buck.
It was about McDonalds serving its coffee only barely short of actually boiling in a flimsy cup, the first because customers complained about cold coffee and the second because it was cheaper.
When a 79 year old woman spilled that coffee in her lap it caused 3rd degree burns, had her hospitalised for over a week and required skin grafting to heal the injury.
The jury agreed that McDonalds had acted irresponsibly and awarded the victim more than she had asked for (basically she wanted the medical bill to be taken care of).
While it is popular to use this as an example of why tort law reform is necessary, the facts in this case are that a woman was seriously injured by a beverage that had no business being handed to her at that high a temperature.
(p.s. the equally infamous ‘dog in the microwave’ never happened either, but it is a sad state of affairs that it is believable that it /might/ have.)
Wasn’t referring to that case, and never heard of any ‘dog in a microwave’
What was “the other case”?
Can’t recall specifics, just that it was not an elderly woman
It’s like mentioning how not everyone involved in a ‘fender-bender’ actually sustain whiplash and being required to list a specific case of fraud
brief