G'day one and all,
> I always wonder about the authors who think humans would be aggressive
May be not quite you meant, but existing and on-going paleoecology
studies are suggesting that we have encountered other sentinent species (the
other branches of the Homo tree) and we eradicated them and their cultures. OK
in a few years time the "they would've gone anyway" argument may be back in
full swing, but at present everything's pointing to we killed them or bred
them out (I wonder if Hitler would have had a slightly different view if he'd
realised that Caucasians are the only "race" known (so far) to have
Neanderthal genetic markers in their make-up?).
Cheers
Beth
Other sentient species? The only other "sentient" life I remember were the
Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis, and as the name suggests, they were the same
species as humans. I don't think there's any consensus on how the Neanderthals
disappeared. Some theorize it's warfare, some say it's disease or
assimilation, etc. I'm not sure about any other "sentient"
species... But it is known though, that pre-historic societies tended
to be extremely violent, all out of proportion to their numbers. So any kind
of inter-tribal warfare resulting in genocide is definitely possible.
But the "they would've gone anyways" argument does hold a lot of salt. For
example, the Neanderthals had relatively inefficient techniques of
preserving fire compared to Cro-Magnons. They might have simply failed
competing with others for hunting grounds, food, etc.
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Even the engineers are not *this* depraved. This must be the work of the Med.
students.
- A friend of mine
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> On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Beth Fulton wrote:
> May be not quite you meant, but existing and on-going paleoecology
OK in
> a few years time the "they would've gone anyway" argument may be back
> >I always wonder about the authors who think humans would be
Well, there are really only three choices: we are more, less, or equally as
aggressive as your alien species of choice. I rather expect that any
space-going race will be fairly aggressive, as otherwise they wouldn't
be in space.
I also am of the opinion that moderate-to-high aggressiveness is
probably optimal for survival. I've won a number of sword duels and chess
games simply by attacking hard enough that my opponent didn't have leisure to
attack me. Of course it doesn't always work--nothing does--but it works
a lot better than taking the turtle approach.
This came up in a discussion once, which was mainly concerned with indicting X
or Y ethnic group as the purveyors of all violence and evil.
Somebody brought up the point that from the paleo evidence so far
(sketchy, but OK) that the Cro-Magnon variant pretty much wiped out the
Neanderthals in Europe over a period of a few hundred years. When compared
to estimated migration rates & patterns, that's a pre-historic genocide
of
huge proportions. And there would be more Neanderthal gene-leftovers if
they had interbred. We're all violent chimps, when it comes down to it.
There are several ways that this has been approached in SF, and all have
succeeded and failed, to some degree. You've got 3 standard settings:
1) Humans encounter MUCH more aggressive races (Bugs, Kra'Vak - maybe?,
etc.)
2) Humans are no more or less aggressive than everybody else - no real
loonies (Star Wars, Star Trek, others) 3) Humans are violent psychopaths,
compared to the rest of the
peace-loving
galaxy (A.D. Foster's 'A Call To Arms' series, various short stories)
Personally, I like to have a variety - a few sociopaths, a lot of OK
races,
and a few scaredy-cats. Makes for more interesting interactions.
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
> Beth Fulton wrote:
(I wonder if Hitler would have had a slightly different view if
> he'd realised that Caucasians are the only "race" known (so far) to
He would have either denied it as a fraud of the Zionist Conspiracy, or gotten
Himmler to rationalize it into that whole Teutonic Ice Giant nonsense.
> Noah Doyle wrote:
> There are several ways that this has been approached in SF, and all
There was a B5 episode (season 5) where Dr.Franklin discovers that one race
wiped out another race that was developing on its home planet
simultaneously. Similar in part to the Cro magnon/neanderthal thing.
Except both races were very well developed and the operation s were conducted
in an organized fashion by the government.
> On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Jonathan Jarrard wrote:
> Beth Fulton wrote:
OK, I'm confused. Mixing "race" and Neanderthal in the same sentence is
confusing me. I guess I don't know what the "official" definition of "race"
is. I thought "race" was based on superficial characteristics like skin color
and other trivial things. I am genuinely confused. Could
anyone help with a definition from a good dictionary/textbook?
Thanks,
Pete
P.S. Private email may be preferable to clogging the mailgroup with this OT
post (much like mine, now that I think about it;)