It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: starwarsisreal
Now imagine if that person isn't human but completely different from us. It would be far more easy for us to enslave and justify genocide against them. In fact during the colonization of the Americas many of the natives were simply called "stone age savages" or "heathens" and it's still going on even today.
originally posted by: Argyll
a reply to: starwarsisreal
Considering it is highly unlikely that we have the capabilities (currently) of arriving on the doorstep of an advanced alien species, the more likely scenario is that they arrive here.....if that were to be the case, then I strongly doubt that our racism towards them is really going to be an issue.
originally posted by: Punisher75
originally posted by: starwarsisreal
Now imagine if that person isn't human but completely different from us. It would be far more easy for us to enslave and justify genocide against them. In fact during the colonization of the Americas many of the natives were simply called "stone age savages" or "heathens" and it's still going on even today.
I think that if we were to run into intelligent life from some other planet it would be most likely they coming to us. As such it would be they calling us the stone age savages, as they take our land enslave and genocide us all to oblivion.
We all have such hopes that folks from someplace other than here, are loving caring people, but at least 50% of alien abduction stories that I have read about and heard about don't sound real uplifting, what with the anal probing and all.
originally posted by: Answer
Unfortunately, they'll probably have about as much empathy for us as we do for lab rats.
originally posted by: Punisher75
originally posted by: Answer
Unfortunately, they'll probably have about as much empathy for us as we do for lab rats.
If we are lucky, they will think about us that way.
Lab Rats at least have Peta to think about them right? What if they don't have such a group as Peta?
originally posted by: starwarsisreal
Now I know a lot of people are saying about the good things about Extraterrestrial contact, here is the question would we accept them as equals or would we discriminate against them?
Ever since the dawn of man, it is our nature to exclude those who are different from a particular group. For example, not too long ago in the US people were forced to use separate facilities just because of their skin color.
Now imagine if that person isn't human but completely different from us. It would be far more easy for us to enslave and justify genocide against them. In fact during the colonization of the Americas many of the natives were simply called "stone age savages" or "heathens" and it's still going on even today.
So far some movies like Avatar covers that scenario but other forms of media covers that as well. For example, in many Star Wars expanded universe media it covers the racism of the Empire against non human species.
originally posted by: Skid Mark
This thread made me think of a show I used to watch. Have you ever heard of Alien Nation? If not, check it out. You can watch episodes and movies here.. It's a good show, or at least I thought it was, and deals with the question raised in this thread perfectly.
“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe