[General Battuta]

Read Mr. Yudkowsky's scenario, not because it is brilliant writing, but because the situation it presents is genuinely challenging and represents an aspect of first contact too little explored. What happens when we meet aliens that have evolved a moral system which is completely repulsive to us, a moral system so fundamentally different that their word for 'good' translates as 'babyeating'?

What happens when we meet aliens who see us the same way we see the Babyeaters?

Then tell me: what would you do, if you were the one aboard the Impossible Possible World, faced with the repulsive and yet internally consistent morality of the Babyeaters and the outraged ultimatums of the Superhappies?

What do you do with the human race?

[General Battuta]

If people are ****ing lazy I will summarize that **** for them.

personally i'm with the superhappies

[Enzo03]

Takes time to read something.  Sheesh I only saw this and opened it up 30 seconds ago, not counting the time it took to compose this message explaining it.

Just got to

Spoiler:

THIS VESSEL IS THE OPTIMISM OF THE CENTER OF THE VESSEL PERSON

YOU HAVE NOT KICKED US

THEREFORE YOU EAT BABIES

WHAT IS OURS IS YOURS, WHAT IS YOURS IS OURS

[General Battuta]

Oh I'm not saying people are taking too long, just that if people don't want to read all that I'll write a grumpy and sarcastic summary for them

[Enzo03]

Please do not

Spoiler:

HOORAY!

WE ARE SO GLAD TO MEET YOU!

THIS IS THE SHIP "PLAY GAMES FOR LOTS OF FUN"

(OPERATED BY CHARGED PARTICLE FINANCIAL FIRMS)

WE LOVE YOU AND WE WANT YOU TO BE SUPER HAPPY.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE SEX?

[Shivan Hunter]

mmm, babies

will comment when done

[qazwsx]

Siding with humanity here...

[General Battuta]

Siding with humanity here...

Well there are lots of ways to do that. Specifically which strategy?

Spoiler:

Alderson Bomb the meeting ground star, Alderson Bomb the adjacent system after lying, declare war on all the fools?

[Herra Tohtori]

Egh, well, here goes.

Spoiler:

To me, there seems to be a difference between maintaining normal biological functions (such as pain, both physiological and emotional) and in actions that purposely cause it.
I might be just rationalizing it, but even if we had a way to remove all sources of pain, embarrassment and romantic problems, choosing to leave it unused doesn't make a convincing analogy to subjecting surplus children to a horrific prolonged painful death.

As such, I don't think the Superhappies' response to human civilization (forced painkiller) was quite as appropriate as humanity's and superhappies' response to the Baby-eaters' behaviour patterns.

In short, it's about defending the liberties of individual human beings to have their person and personality as they wish, while defending the Baby-eater children's right to their lives. There was really no justification for the Superhappies to enforce a transition to the entire human species.


Ideal solution to me would be to try argue with Superhappies about individual's right to their original spectrum of feelings. Obviously, something should be done about the Baby-eaters' obvious societal problem - all their peacefulness and seemingly functioning society don't justify the horrible premature deaths of the majority of the species; perhaps a genophage would be the best option.

I would argue with Superhappies about whether pain and suffering are good things... obviously, not as such. But like with all things, contrast is required for things to be meaningful. One could argue that bland uniform level of happiness could be a good thing, but in reality it would just make it neutral. Peaks in happiness and pleasure would create times of comparably lower happiness, and human psyche would tend to interpret those times as boredom or even suffer withdrawal from the constant euphoria.

The way human psyche operates, strife and conflict can be powerful motivators; stick can work better than carrot, so if all strife, suffering and pain were removed, there could possibly be a significant reduction in productivity and creativity.

Removing those parts would stifle our developement as a person, and as a society.

Also, technically the Superhappies shouldn't have been able to feel bad about the Baby-eater actions - hadn't they disabled their ability to suffer? At most they would have encountered confusion (as a result of numbing their emotional range and reducing their growth). This I think is an internal inconsistency - if they had removed their ability to feel negative emotions, then I doubt their empathy about the Baby-eater children or human ability to suffer could have been sufficient to provoke such a strong response.

Additionally, the "compensations" by Superhappies were a bit weird. It seems like the whole point of the Baby-eaters' habits was that the victims of the habit were sentient, conscious beings. And I can see multiple problems about consuming the members of same species regardless of consciousness, especially for a species that uses DNA as the primary means of communication (which seemed a bit handwaved considering the limitations and vulnerability of such a thing in actuality). Prionic diseases tend to appear in cannibalistic species (the crystalline-based Baby-eaters likely didn't have this issue, but Superhappies likely would!).

If this would not allay them, then the solution in True Ending would be possible, but I would likely have gone with exploding the local star, severing each species' only known contact point to each other.


And if you want my personal assessment of both species, I would also prefer to hang out with Superhappies - except for their blanket forced alteration policy that they seemed to adopt. It made no sense; from a rational perspective, they should have acknowledged the right of individual humans to decide for themselves whether they wanted to be happified or not.

By contrast, no one ever asked the Baby-eater children whether they would like not to be eaten, and despite the rationalization exercises by the adult society of Baby-eaters that perpetuated the habit, there was really no justification for it, especially after their rationality increased.

It was made fairly obvious that the children didn't want to be eaten, after all.

From literary perspective, it was an enjoyable and very readable short story. I liked it, but some things really pushed the threshold of my willing suspension of disbelief.

There you have it.

[General Battuta]

In short, it's about defending the liberties of individual human beings to have their person and personality as they wish, while defending the Baby-eater children's right to their lives. There was really no justification for the Superhappies to enforce a transition to the entire human species.

But (playing story advocate here) the Superhappies have perfect empathy. Any species they encounter which has the ability to remove suffering from itself, but which hasn't exercised that ability, is basically inflicting suffering on the Superhappies, and is therefore on the moral level of the Babyeaters (or so they'd contend.)

Ideal solution to me would be to try argue with Superhappies about individual's right to their original spectrum of feelings. Obviously, something should be done about the Baby-eaters' obvious societal problem - all their peacefulness and seemingly functioning society don't justify the horrible premature deaths of the majority of the species; perhaps a genophage would be the best option.

Yeah, but to the Superhappies aren't our problems just as horrible?

I would argue with Superhappies about whether pain and suffering are good things... obviously, not as such. But like with all things, contrast is required for things to be meaningful. One could argue that bland uniform level of happiness could be a good thing, but in reality it would just make it neutral. Peaks in happiness and pleasure would create times of comparably lower happiness, and human psyche would tend to interpret those times as boredom or even suffer withdrawal from the constant euphoria.

You say that with such certainty, but I doubt that can be substantiated empirically. There are people who are simply, dispositionally, more happy than others - they don't seem to acclimate or desensitize to happiness.

The notion that happiness is somehow a relative, gauge phenomenon rather than an absolute position, while a common item of folk psychology, doesn't strike me as trivially obvious.

(fwiw i felt pretty much the same way, except with respect to the last item)

[Suongadon]

A year after reading it the first time I'm still going with the superhappy proposal. Feels wrong to say that it is only because that option is barely less **** on balance than the other option/societies, but that's all I can come up with.

[StarSlayer]

Pop the star I guess.

[Luis Dias]

Great reading, thanks .


Well I think that the first step would be to agree to disagree, i.e., convince them that we shouldn't be killed just because we... ahhh don't want to use the spoiler tag.... we don't do that thing.

Then begin trade routes. Get the less morally psyched people to exchange things and to know each other.

Then kinda trying to make the point that perhaps their conscient whatevers are suffering, and suffering is supposedly bad, right?

And this is the point, really. If they do not acknowledge that their whatevers are suffering, either we could show them how that is indeed the case, or we could actually find out that no, they do not actually suffer for it.

The last case is the most interesting one. I'll stick with the former for a bit though, for it is easier.

If you can convince them that they are making their whatevers suffer while it is quite possible *not* to do so, ahem, our own example is evidence enough, then only a religious fanatism would prevent them to gradually change their ways. Another reason why religion is evil (hehe).

This "gradual" approach would be, I think, the one that would bring the least suffering for all involved.


Now for the "former" case, where the whatevers actually *do not suffer*. Now there we would reach a connundrum, for one could make the case that their own society is actually better than our own!! The reason? Well, if they didn't eat their babies, there would not have been enough food for anyone. So they have to eat them. If they chose only to get one baby, then the amount of consciousness that is enjoying life is a hundred times shorter in that short timespan than what would have been otherwise.

If one makes the case that it is "better" for more consciousnesses to enjoy life, then their life cycle is probably maximizing just that.


In such a case, I'd recommend to try to "get along" with them and deprive ourselves from getting too much contact with that kind of reality, just as we don't like to get in contact with other people's defecations and whatevers.

Idk, only my first thoughts on the issue.

[Luis Dias]

Oh **** I only now realised there's more than one page of that! I kept reading about "superhappies" and I was like wtf.

[Shivan Hunter]

lol ^

the Superhappies, for all their advancement, didn't seem to think things through. There is the fact that we develop from adversity, which is why their solution is wrong (what concept of individual liberty do they have? Obviously some given their reaction to the Babyeaters). There is the fact that our suffering inflicts suffering upon them through empathy. The simple solution there is to not communicate, or to communicate solely through simple text media.

Also, why didn't they nuke the star where they met? It's more reliable to destroy the entire network of course, but severing the one point of contact should work almost as well.

also DO NOT TAUNT SUPER HAPPY FUN BALL

[General Battuta]

lol ^

the Superhappies, for all their advancement, didn't seem to think things through. There is the fact that we develop from adversity, which is why their solution is wrong (what concept of individual liberty do they have? Obviously some given their reaction to the Babyeaters). There is the fact that our suffering inflicts suffering upon them through empathy. The simple solution there is to not communicate, or to communicate solely through simple text media.

I AM SUPER HAPPY FUN BALL I WILL SPEAK IN METAPHOR

Imagine that the man who lives next door to you tortures a kitten every day. He came from a country where they used to have to torture thirty kittens every day, mind, so torturing only one is an improvement. His society has written reams of poetry and beautiful art about the sad and painful necessity of torturing kittens. It is part of their soul.

But nonetheless, although he doesn't have to torture the kitten any more - he can take medication to prevent it - he explains that circumstances conspire to make it happen every day, and that it is simply part of his identity.

Now, you don't have to ever see this man, and you can't really hear the yowls of his kitten. But now that you've met him, and read all his books, you know he's over there, torturing that kitten. And you really could force him to take his medication...

That's how the Superhappies feel about humanity, only more so. Is cutting off all contact somehow a solution? Does the man have a cultural right to torture his kitten?

[StarSlayer]

lol ^

the Superhappies, for all their advancement, didn't seem to think things through. There is the fact that we develop from adversity, which is why their solution is wrong (what concept of individual liberty do they have? Obviously some given their reaction to the Babyeaters). There is the fact that our suffering inflicts suffering upon them through empathy. The simple solution there is to not communicate, or to communicate solely through simple text media.

Also, why didn't they nuke the star where they met? It's more reliable to destroy the entire network of course, but severing the one point of contact should work almost as well.

also DO NOT TAUNT SUPER HAPPY FUN BALL

The crew still felt the Superhappy intervention with the Babyeaters was necessary.  Instead they decided that popping Hyugens was a better option since it disconnected humanity from the Superhappies while still keeping the starlines open to the Babyeaters.

[PsychoLandlord]

Just finished it, great read.

I probably wont be quite as in-depth as many other responses

Spoiler:

After giving it some thought, I would adopt a Humanity first resolution. I wouldn't be terribly interested in dealing with the Babyeaters, because no matter how repulsive they may be, they have every right to live the way they do. Infringing on the beliefs of an Alien species is no different from infringing on the beliefs of a Human group, and and If thats going to be a center point of my argument then I might as well hold my response to that standard. Besides, I believe the story made it clear that the Babyeaters would have difficulty fighting back against Humanity, and with the creation of the Alderson Weapon (which, with a little research, can surely be made to operate remotely) then simply pushing the Babyeaters out of sight and coming down on them hard if they DO try anything doesn't seem to be too out there. Ignorance is often considered bliss for a reason, despite the hypocrisy I feel while typing that.

Now, the Superhappies... here is where it gets tricky. I don't like them. Their beliefs, their wanton disregard for the facets of other life, these things disgust and infuriate me. Whether this is the fault of their empathic nature, inexperience, or simple Hubris is irrelevant.  They have established themselves as oppressors and foes, no matter the intention or end result. This does not sit well with me.

Truthfully, if I were humanity, I would want to fight them. Wipe them out. This would be tricky, for reasons stated in the story, and if the conflict dragged on, it would become impossible. I'm sure that even the Alderson Weapon would only work once. With all that taken into consideration, destroying the star and denying them passage seems to be the only real answer, though I truly do wish for an Imperium style crusade against these creatures. However, as much as I would hate to halt Humanity's galactic progression in one direction, I'm sure there are other Alderson lines that can be used. Of course, this doesn't preclude future encounters with the Superhappies in the style of the Shivans, and if both species continue to persist, then they will meet again. And when that time comes, chances are the Superhappies will be quite a ways above us on the Kardashav scale. It truly is a sticky situation, in the long term.

I would like to add that I am not trying to come across as Xenophobic, but these species truly are incapable of interacting with us, it seems. The chances of Humanity maintaining positive relations with the Babyeaters are simply too slim, and well, I just dont like the Superhappies

It didn't really bother with a literary analysis, just the basic "what if" question.

[Luis Dias]

Spoiler:

And he lived happily ever after.

Brilliant ending.

About the question that GB posed, well the story is kinda like directed in an inevitable way. I would make the same choice commander made, it's the most rational, the most ethical, and the best, really, for mankind. The only "low point" about it is that you are not in control of your own destiny, it's a matter of a deal. I'm not swayed by the "We are Humans FORAVAH!", nor am I swayed by the moral relativistic argument of "if they don't hurt us it's all fine and dandy".

And in practice, with all that 2% per hour (goddam!), they would reach earth in a relative small time anyway.

[Luis Dias]

The crew still felt the Superhappy intervention with the Babyeaters was necessary.  Instead they decided that popping Hyugens was a better option since it disconnected humanity from the Superhappies while still keeping the starlines open to the Babyeaters.

They did not! They just toyed with the idea of having all this fuss "over with". And then commander reminded them of the holocaust.