Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!columbia!topaz!crash!bnw From: bnw@crash.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: What to do when the aliens arrive. Message-ID: <3368@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 03:33:39 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3368 Posted: Wed Aug 21 03:33:39 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 18:26:50 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 27 From:JWHITE%MAINE.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (Jim White) writes: >When the first creature from another planet first sets foot, >(tenticle, pod, or whatever it may 'set'), on Earth, if it is within >our power to do so, we should kill it and eat it. Not a good idea. If we landed someone on another planet and the local primitive-compared-to-us natives promptly made a meal of the astronaut, we would probably respond by conquering the planet, killing a fair number of natives in the process. We could be on the receiving end of that. I think your fears are unnecessarily bleak. Although Western society subjugated natives in four continents, we weren't as far above them as we would like to pretend. Any star-voyaging race that finds us will be further ahead of us than we are ahead of Cro-Magnon man. Moreover, I don't believe that it is possible for any society to reach the level of distant star exploration until it learns to behave itself in its own backyard. Star travelling peoples won't have fought a war in several generations. They aren't going to re-learn just for us. For some good books about the meeting of two radically different cultures, try H. Beam Piper's "Fuzzy" novels. They don't fall into any of the four categories you mentioned ("cuddly" would only fit a very shallow reading). /Bruce N. Wheelock/ arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnw