[Luis Dias]

One should point out that the genetic frame of reference for morals is being superseeded by memetics in our current culture right now. There was this big war on planet earth where the struggle between these two reference points (genetics vs memetics) took place, and memetics actually kind of won.

The other side, the geneticists, or IOW, the nazis, did see evolution of the genes as something to die for and to kill for, that the ultimate objective of mankind was to bring upon itself the perfect homo sapiens gene pool (which of course was based on Arian genes and artificial selection against defective and abhorrent people), and that this would bring progress and happiness.

"Memeticists", that is, christians, jews and marxists actually see men in a "supernatural way", that is, it doesn't matter if you aren't all smart and haven't the "perfect genes", you are a human being and thus you are equal to the rest of us, equalitarianism was the basis of their morality. (We are all brothers, sons of the same god) And that the genes aren't the important thing in society, but ideas and "artificialnessness", that is, the ability to create an artificial world apart from the "natural" world.

In such a sense, BabyEaters were nazis, while humans played the part of "memeticists" here. One can always make the case that, even if one accepts moral relativism and the lack of absolute references that may help us dealing with this, that the "geneticists'" case is worse than the "memeticists", that is, that the latter do produce an increase of happiness and progress, since memes evolve much faster than genes.

Superhappies are the ultimate "genememeticists", in the sense that they have their own genes evolving as if they were memes.

[zookeeper]

I do see where you're coming from and that line of thinking does have some merit. You are assuming, however, that there is a chance that I (or some other human, doesn't matter who) could possibly find myself close and more compatible with an alien whose set of values were based on conditions completely alien to us. I suppose it's possible, but in the context of the story this thread is about, highly unlikely. The story was, after all, written in a way to make the alien cultures about as incompatible to our own as possible.
It's impossible to make a rule that makes 100% sense in every given situation.

Even the rule of preference utilitarianism? It's difficult to follow, but I've never heard of a situation in which any other rule would produce a "better" result, assuming that we'd solve the same situation twice by finding the right solution according to preference utilitarianism and the right solution according to any other rule and then comparing the results.

Of course, my own utilitarian view is probably slightly different than stock preference utilitarianism, but probably in this case it doesn't make a difference.

Since that is the case, in my opinion the safest thing to do is to have a strict inter species non-interference policy; let each species apply their own rules to their own and inside their own space. If they don't like the fact that earthlings frown on stuff like eating babies, don't come to Earth. If a human doesn't like babies getting eaten, then maybe that human should think twice before booking his next vacation at YummyBaby Prime.

Well, the issue is really more like "if a babyeater doesn't like to get eaten, then maybe that babyeater should think twice before being born", so the question is "safest for whom?". It's certainly not safest for the babyeater children, nor is there really any limits to the atrocities which could go on indefinitely if all species adopted a non-interference policy. Considering that, it doesn't really sound safe to me, except in terms of galactic politics and interplanetary warfare.

As for a religious cult that mutilates their own children, my reaction would depend on whose cult it is. If it's alien I'd consider it their internal matter. If it's human, then those people grew up on this planet and I will drop a human set of values on them like a ton of bricks.
That said, the story was written intentionally so no easy answers could be found. I'm not saying my solution makes sense. I just think that when no solution make sense at all, go with the safe thing. In this case that's non interference.

Well... I thought the solution was easy.

[666maslo666]

Just like babyeaters evolved to eat babies and supperhappies evolved to want everyone to be happy, humans (and also supperhappies and babyeaters, while we are at it) evolved mostly to want to force their morality on others. Supperhappies (and by proxy, humans) have an ability to force their morals on babyeaters in this story, and because that is what they evolved to do, they do it. You may argue about whether it is right or wrong, but there is no absolute moral standard that would prescribe that forcing your morality on babyeaters in this case is somehow "wrong".
Indeed, forcing your morality on others may be very beneficial from evolutionary standpoint, so it may really be one of the "constants" that should be mostly shared betweed different aliens. Natural selection still applies.

As for the Orcas eating whales in the ocean, there are quite a few reasons why this analogy does not reflect the story very well:

1. Orcas and whales are not intelligent, they cannot choose not to eat their prey, thus be blamed for their actions. We do not punish children, too, whatever is the crime they do. Babyeater adults are responsible for their actions by human and supperhapies standards.

2. Whales can be argued to be less intelligent or aware than babyeaters babies. Indeed our judgement of killing depends on the degree of awareness of lifeform being killed. Nobody cares about plants, some gurus in India care about bugs, quite a few people care about animals or human fetuses, and most people care about other people not getting killed or tortured.

3. We do not posses an ability to stop them, humans and superhappies did. If we could stop the Orcas, quite a few humans would indeed choose to do it, IMHO. That was one of the points in the story, that humans can cope with what they consider wrong, when they do not have the means to change it.

4. There are humans that are born or develop a body drive for crimes, for example certain psychopaths, or pedophiles. Being forced by their bodies to do the bad thing does not automatically give them the right to do it, tough. Just like for Orcas or babyeaters.

[newman]

Well, the issue is really more like "if a babyeater doesn't like to get eaten, then maybe that babyeater should think twice before being born", so the question is "safest for whom?". It's certainly not safest for the babyeater children, nor is there really any limits to the atrocities which could go on indefinitely if all species adopted a non-interference policy. Considering that, it doesn't really sound safe to me, except in terms of galactic politics and interplanetary warfare.

Since when are babyeater children our problem or responsibility, when 5 minutes ago before the encounter we didn't even know about them? We should devote the resources of our entire civilization and sacrifice who knows how many in a war so we could stop the suffering of entities we just found out about?
Or should we assume that other civilizations will look primarily to their own interests and do the same? My choice, blow up the star where contact was made. Let everyone fend for themselves.
I honestly thing that humanity in general needs to learn that 1) it doesn't understand everything, and 2) not everything is humanity's business in the first place. Unless our own security is affected by an alien civilization, in which case it of course becomes our business.
Of course, this story offers some pretty extreme examples which tempt you to do something by force. The problem will quickly become defining the line on when it's justifiable to intervene or not. Who exactly made us the space ethics police and gave us the right to impose our values on others? I fear we won't have the wisdom to assume that role for a very long time, and we shouldn't try to in the mean time.

[Herra Tohtori]

As for the Orcas eating whales in the ocean, there are quite a few reasons why this analogy does not reflect the story very well:

1. Orcas and whales are not intelligent, they cannot choose not to eat their prey, thus be blamed for their actions. We do not punish children, too, whatever is the crime they do. Babyeater adults are responsible for their actions by human and supperhapies standards.

Orcas and whales in general are highly intelligent and are known to have developed habits such as favourite foods. There's for example one orca (CA 2) that is a known shark eater - she actively seeks and kills great whites and eats their liver, leaving the rest to the bottom feeders.

Whales (and especially toothed whales living in pods) have been known to develope cultural features in their vocalization and other habits, such as how they hunt, where they hunt and what they eat. Orcas most definitely can choose what they prefer to eat, but often in nature it's eat or die - prey of convenience vs. prey of preference. It's entirely possible that even if orcas and dolphins both have high level of intelligence, it has not developed quite so high as to allow them to figure out that the other is at same level of intelligence as well, nor the empathy required for the decision to seek other prey.

Oh and dophins are serial gangrapists and jerks and deserve to be eaten a bit

2. Whales can be argued to be less intelligent or aware than babyeaters babies. Indeed our judgement of killing depends on the degree of awareness of lifeform being killed. Nobody cares about plants, some gurus in India care about bugs, quite a few people care about animals or human fetuses, and most people care about other people not getting killed or tortured.

The argument about the level of cetacean intelligence is badly hampered by a lack of meaningful communication between humans and whales. The bottlenose dolphin passes several tests that measure awareness of one's self, abstract thinking, problem solving but something else than trial and error, and other things often associated with sentience (or sapience maybe?). But, since we don't have HK-47 to facilitate communications, hostilities have not been terminated yet.

Nevertheless, it can be clearly said that baby-eater children have meaningful avenues of communication available to them and the adult baby-eaters, which without a shed of doubt proves their sapience. The baby-eaters consciously ignore this prospect of their behaviour.

[zookeeper]

Well, the issue is really more like "if a babyeater doesn't like to get eaten, then maybe that babyeater should think twice before being born", so the question is "safest for whom?". It's certainly not safest for the babyeater children, nor is there really any limits to the atrocities which could go on indefinitely if all species adopted a non-interference policy. Considering that, it doesn't really sound safe to me, except in terms of galactic politics and interplanetary warfare.

Since when are babyeater children our problem or responsibility, when 5 minutes ago before the encounter we didn't even know about them?

Uh... well, since "now", of course. If we didn't know about them 5 minutes ago then they couldn't have been our problem or responsibility.

We should devote the resources of our entire civilization and sacrifice who knows how many in a war so we could stop the suffering of entities we just found out about?

Well obviously if it's worth it (which is a question I addressed in the previous post), then yes.

Or should we assume that other civilizations will look primarily to their own interests and do the same?

No, not really, as that's just selfish and the interests of abstract entities (like civilizations) aren't of any moral concern anyway.

Who exactly made us the space ethics police and gave us the right to impose our values on others?

The same who made everyone an ethics police? Humans impose their values on other humans and babyeaters impose their values on other babyeaters. As I've said before and still haven't been convinced otherwise, if it's ok for a human to impose their values on another human then it must also be ok for a human to impose their values on a babyeater.

[Herra Tohtori]

Who exactly made us the space ethics police and gave us the right to impose our values on others?

The same who made everyone an ethics police? Humans impose their values on other humans and babyeaters impose their values on other babyeaters. As I've said before and still haven't been convinced otherwise, if it's ok for a human to impose their values on another human then it must also be ok for a human to impose their values on a babyeater.

Wars have started for less reason than that.

[zookeeper]

Who exactly made us the space ethics police and gave us the right to impose our values on others?

The same who made everyone an ethics police? Humans impose their values on other humans and babyeaters impose their values on other babyeaters. As I've said before and still haven't been convinced otherwise, if it's ok for a human to impose their values on another human then it must also be ok for a human to impose their values on a babyeater.

Wars have started for less reason than that.

Does not compute. Huh?

[Herra Tohtori]

Wars have started for less valid reasons than imposing one's values upon others.

And it's usually been the victors point of view that has been treated as the right one in the history.

[Ravenholme]

Yes, the babyeaters children are suffering, but that's their bad luck for being born into a nasty species. It's neither our right nor our responsibility to change that.

The Babyeater children are pretty much exactly analogous to human children. Are you really able to make a strong, unambiguous, doubtless statement that we can save human babies from being eaten even if they had the bad luck to be born into another culture, but we can't save human babies from being eaten if they had the bad luck to be born into another species?

I'm going to take the Banksian stand here, it's not our place or right to attempt to change a civilisation/culture utterly alien to ours (See: The Algebraist's Dwellers)

[General Battuta]

Yes, the babyeaters children are suffering, but that's their bad luck for being born into a nasty species. It's neither our right nor our responsibility to change that.

The Babyeater children are pretty much exactly analogous to human children. Are you really able to make a strong, unambiguous, doubtless statement that we can save human babies from being eaten even if they had the bad luck to be born into another culture, but we can't save human babies from being eaten if they had the bad luck to be born into another species?

I'm going to take the Banksian stand here, it's not our place or right to attempt to change a civilisation/culture utterly alien to ours (See: The Algebraist's Dwellers)

Unless you're the Culture and you don't like how they work

[Ravenholme]

Yes, the babyeaters children are suffering, but that's their bad luck for being born into a nasty species. It's neither our right nor our responsibility to change that.

The Babyeater children are pretty much exactly analogous to human children. Are you really able to make a strong, unambiguous, doubtless statement that we can save human babies from being eaten even if they had the bad luck to be born into another culture, but we can't save human babies from being eaten if they had the bad luck to be born into another species?

I'm going to take the Banksian stand here, it's not our place or right to attempt to change a civilisation/culture utterly alien to ours (See: The Algebraist's Dwellers)

Unless you're the Culture and you don't like how they work

To be fair, Contact mostly works on the Pan-Human diaspora, so they're just bringing their own people under control.

Mostly, obviously, like any other state they carry out some interferences (Hello SC)

[newman]

Well, all I have left to say on this subject is that making grand scale decisions on another race's way of life without full understanding of who they are and how they came about to their way of life (which doesn't threaten us, by the way) is a colossally bad idea. At the risk of sounding overly pragmatic, doing so when it doesn't threaten us, while risking our own people and resources in a grand scale war that would be required, with no tangible benefits to humanity in sight would also be pretty dumb. So, babyeater children became our concern the moment we became aware of their existence? So you're telling me that we basically have the right to tell any race we ever come across in the universe what to do with their children and how to live? Jeez, what a jerk civilization, hope I never meet it. Oh wait, part of it. Damn..
Some things simply aren't our business. Yes, we can talk amongst ourselves how weird/reprehensible/downright evil someone's customs are in our eyes, but even with years of comprehensive study it would probably be premature to say we really understand a whole another race that evolved on such a different set of conditions that their values are totally alien to us. Thinking we're the ones who hold the key to absolute rightness and have the right to impose this on every civilization in the universe we're able to is nothing short of arrogant to the extreme.
Thinking things through, not acting immediately on things that upset, and generally not meddling in things one doesn't understand is the mark of a wise man.
Jumping in and trying to fix every problem you just learned about without fully understanding it is the mark of a blundering fool who will just make things worse. Our own history has shown this repeatedly on an international level. I suspect the effects would be exponentially more dramatic on a species to species scale.

[666maslo666]

The problem is the story did not sufficiently specified what would the Superhappies do to the human race. I dont think ending the involuntary pain (and they spoke of involuntary pain, hence the injured child example) is bad, but pain is an important thing in the organism, it warns us that something is wrong, and MOTIVATES us to fix it. But if they proposed some alternative way of how to substitute the pain function, I would not be against it.
As for fixing embarassment and romantic struggles.. 1. how would they do it?
2. struggle is important part of what makes romances so pleasant in the end. Hell, struggle is an important part of what makes any human accomplishment so pleasant in the end..

I think it can be argued with the superhappies that some of the things they propose would in net effect probably DECREASE human happiness, so it will go against their goal.

Other than that, I am with superhappies - transhumanism, when done right, could be the best thing that happens to human race.

[Mikes]

I think it can be argued with the superhappies that some of the things they propose would in net effect probably DECREASE human happiness, so it will go against their goal.

Only in the short term, before the modification, right? After the modification there would be no unhappiness anymore.

Don t think it would sound too convincing to a "Superhappy". The contrary... they propably see our capacity to suffer as the problem to be adressed, rather than their own role in stimulating  that capacity.

[General Battuta]

we need more threads like this

[Scotty]

Yes.  The last one I remember that came close to this one was the teleportation thread.

[Ravenholme]

The problem is the story did not sufficiently specified what would the Superhappies do to the human race. I dont think ending the involuntary pain (and they spoke of involuntary pain, hence the injured child example) is bad, but pain is an important thing in the organism, it warns us that something is wrong, and MOTIVATES us to fix it. But if they proposed some alternative way of how to substitute the pain function, I would not be against it.
As for fixing embarassment and romantic struggles.. 1. how would they do it?
2. struggle is important part of what makes romances so pleasant in the end. Hell, struggle is an important part of what makes any human accomplishment so pleasant in the end..

I think it can be argued with the superhappies that some of the things they propose would in net effect probably DECREASE human happiness, so it will go against their goal.

Other than that, I am with superhappies - transhumanism, when done right, could be the best thing that happens to human race.

Yes, transhumanism, with the caveat that it's something we choose ourselves and not something that an alien species with little to no knowledge of us chooses for us.

Transhumanism is very probably the future of humanity, albeit distant future, but I'm fairly certain we wouldn't get rid of our capacity for pain/suffering. For one, it offers an excellent part of the learning process (Children touching hot things soon learn not to because PAIN! The full spread of our abilities to feel/sense things offer a critical part of our learning/development and have a genuine use in our psychology/capacity for interaction with the world. It's a feedback system for our interaction with the environment, even if some of that environment is people doing unto others.)