Civil Rights For Aliens?

CoolBoys writes "Has anyone considered what would happen if first contact is made, and some alien (say, a Vulcan?) wants to stay on earth for a while. He has no acceptable passport, right? Does he even have any rights? What about rights for other sentient life forms (AI, perhaps?)"

Well, since it's not human...

Because it's not human, assuming we could easily overpower it, we'd kill it and dissect it, and take apart all of its technology. Then the other aliens on the mother ship would figure out that we're some kind of horrible parasite devouring all of the planet's atmosphere and natural resources, kill us all with some sort of genetically engineered microphage, and make first contact with the dolphins.

no need to worry about this...

we cannot appreciate sentient life as a species; "man shall have dominion over animals" as some bible tells us. We slaughter whales; dolphin death is a fall out from tuna farming.

so basically, we'll kill them and eat them, maybe entering them into a forced breeding or cloning programme so we have plenty of tasty novelty alien flesh.

the only animals we have ever empathised with, as a species, are apes and monkeys, because they look like us. if they don't look like us, we got no respect for them; they're food. we've essentially *got* alien culture on earth already and we treat it like shit.

just a vegetarian's tuppence, anyway. :-)

Re:What if...

What if they have a one-click patent! Or patented all the laws of physics, and demand 10 billion stellar credits as a licensing fee, or we forfiet our planet to make way for their interstellar bypass?

Re:Wow

I came in to say how interesting I thought this question is. He's putting the horse a few (hundred/thousand) years ahead of the cart, but it is a very good philisophical/moral question, whether it has any relavance to reality.
Obviously, it would not be a citizen of any country, and would not be a human. There are really no, non-human laws except something like cruelty to animals.
The other interesting thing is that since it is assumed that the two cultures that meet, are going to be at different development stages, one far more advanced than the other, are they going to have equal rights?
Suppose a being can memorize all of our world history, art and literature in one day, has the computing power of a PC in it's head, is 100 times stronger than humans, etc. Does this being deserve only one vote in a democracy or more?
As a matter of business fact, humans would become obsolete. Who would hire a human over this other being?
Let alone getting girls.

Specist Rights

Perhaps we as humans are to precise in our notion of what forms of life any included in our circle of respect. In historical times, anybody who was not part of your particular village or tribe was not consider equal. Even today the remenants of segragation are around, from deciding that other races and ethnicity of people were not equal. Perhaps the next boundry is for a concept of rights that does not force the holder of those rights to be human. Organizations like the Great Apes Project(http://www.greatapeproject.org/) are pushing for similar moral and legal protections for large primates. I see such issues moving to the forefront in the coming century as more people come to discover philosophical that is is very difficult to logicaly construct an idea of equality in which small infants, children, or possibly even fetuses are covered as being "human" or "close enough to human to be given basic rights and protections", yet not extend those same ideas to other living forms of high ability. Unless one accepts the religous view that our own species is "in gods image" or is more unique and special in other ways that reduce animals to having no rights at all. If humans are so special, then aliens should not have rights. If there is some level of reasoning, intellegence, emotion or whatever we decide the guidelines for recieving rights should be, then we should have to test that judgement against the abilities and knowledge of other species.

What about other humans?

I think that before asking ourselves if aliens have rights, we should be asking ourselves if humans that live in other countries have rights to. If so, why do we keep doing buisness with them? Shoulden't our government exercise more pressure on other governments so that human rights be better in other countries instead of turning a blind eye because it's very profitable for north american and european buisnesses to exploit cheap labor and an an autoritarian government is handy when workers try to form teamster organizations. Is it not a bit hypocritical to indirectly support an oppressive regime financially?

Ho but I'm sorry, this is not on topic. I wouldn't want to spoil this very important conversation about alien rights. I'd better watch more television cause I think I'm starting to think for myself or something.

It's more complicated than this...

Aaargh. Another minority. News at eleven: people with nothing to do are complaining about how you see very few aliens on television shows, and how there are no aliens on the various sports teams. Golf must be stopped, because it favours the majority of beings on this planet and their special bodies and upper arms. Why aren't there more giant sponge people with no visible brains involved in science? The oxygen based atmospehere is partial to only certain beings and discourages immigration from Zandorxis B. Thus the atmosphere must be equalized by adding poisonous gases to it.

PS: Does anyone know how this article actually made it on Slashdot?

Now go away or I shall taunt you with my supreme knowledge of pi

Not likely...

Well, if you've mentioned a Vulcan as your example, then there won't be any first contact, at least not on their part.

I know that the Federation has that pesky law, called the "Prime Directive", and I believe that the Vulcans have the same (I'm not sure about it though). As you probably know, one of the clauses of the directive is that you cannot come into contact with a civilization unless they have warp technology. We don't have it. So no vulcan will visit us any time soon.

As for other species, I'm sure that any concievable kind of aliens have been depicted in movies of all sorts. Movies which also explain pretty well what would happen in such scenarions. And if the predictions in the movies would come true, I'm a lot more concerned about OUR rights rather than the aliens (see Mars Attacks, Idependence Day, etc, etc).

Hope this answers your question. :)

nothing in common

The question sort of assumes that the aliens are our peers, like in the Star Trek universe where most of the aliens are humanoid, and are at a level of technological development similar to ours. Under that assumption, I guess it makes sense to worry about whether they can own property, vote on juries, blah blah blah.

But first off, they're not likely to be interested in juries and real estate. Look at our own planet. We can't even be sure whether dolphins, whales, and elephants are intelligent. Darn, I hate how the dolphins just refuse to use the #2 pencil properly in order to take an IQ test!

Also, the universe is billions of years old, and the evolution of intelligence is likely to happen at vastly different points in time. Any aliens who land on earth are likely to be hundreds of millions of years more advanced than us, so it won't really matter to them what our laws say.

The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

this remembers me of a joke

An alien couple enters an human house at breakfast. They engage in a conversation.
-And how do you reproduce on your planet ? asks the man.
The aliens show them, and they get a little alien two minutes later
-Now you show us, the aliens ask.
The humans think fuck it, they're not even humans, let's do it. They do it, and the aliens say :
-Funny, on our planet, that's how we make coffee

Re:ITS NOT A LAME QUESTION

Its not a lame question. Its actually rather interesting. Who else would put such a fascinating question on the main page of their site? Its this kind of thinking that leads me to come to Slashdot in the first place. Its thinking outside the box. I know that this kind of subject matter makes some people uncomfortable, but one day humanity will have to consider issues like these, and maybe sooner than you think.

I think that there wouldn't be much of a problem with the law if (or should I say when) an alien comes to earth. Its pretty safe to assume that any alien who comes here will be much more advanced than us (not just technologically, but intellectually, morally, and spiritually). Most of us would pretty much intuitively recognize that fact. It would then be obvious that we couldn't possibly ask this higher being to conform to our backwards laws and customs.

In fact, I think we would have to be grateful that any aliens would want to have anything to do with us, after they witness the violence we've done to each other, and to our planet.

Re:What if...

It's a virtual certainty that would happen. Even among humans alone (forget aliens!) there's a pretty big lack of consensus. Just 150 years ago (not evan an eyeblink compared to interstellar travel time), you could buy and sell other people in USA. 60 years ago, you could be put to death for being a Jew in Germany. In present day USA, you're required to pay a percentage of your income to the federal government (unthinkable 100 years ago).

If humans themselves don't consistently hold to much in the way of core values, then there's no chance that Joe Alien will happen to have compatable values with you.

So in order to avoid the problems that this will cause, just remember that if someone approaches with open gunports, they are hostile.

---

What if...

What if there's something they consider a basic right, which we consider immoral? Or vice-versa?
--
Patrick Doyle

Re:no need to worry about this...

Post or moderate? Ah, my first experience with the dilemma.

the only animals we have ever empathised with, as a species, are apes and monkeys

Methinks you have forgotten about DOGS which most folks in non war-torn areas of the world resist eating, find valuable as companions, and generally adopt as members of the family. Of course I suspect dog ownership is relatively low in geek circles, as many of us reserve our capacity for close interpersonal relationships for blazingly fast hardware and right hands.

Then there is a minority of humans (unfortunately not enough of a minority) who have a thoroughly masochistic attachment to CATS even though these miserable creatures treat them and everything else with disdain.

Oh, and my own non-right-hand companion has a wicked preference for BIRDS, especially her PARROT which is much more sophisticated about the words it says than non-parrot-owning people might generally suspect. I am quite certain that there are people, possibly including myself, whom DH would kill before allowing so much as a feather to be ruffled on Polly's head.

OTOH many of us regard whole vast segments of our own species whose skin pigmentation, religion, geographic location, language, accent, or choice in pets to be, er, dogmeat.

I think that there will be people who form "fellow-feeling" for aliens or AI with little difficult and rally for their inclusiveness, just as there will be those who think the guy next door is trash because he drives a pickup truck instead of a Mercedes. Our ideas of who "belongs" are very diverse and influenced more by our upbringing and culture than by any uniform idea of who is and isn't "human."

Re:no need to worry about this...

Human #1: Hey, Mr. Alien. Jesus died for your sins. Just believe, and you won't go to Hell after you die!

Human #2: Hey, Mr. Alien. If you meditate and are real peaceful-like, you will reach Nirvanah.

Human #3: Hey, Mr. Alien. Can I come to your planet and talk with the ghosts and sprits and animal-spirits on your planet?

Alien Support Robot Gortinator 6000: Warning! Native life guidance psychoses Galactic catalog numbers 787, 1316, and 78. Recommend immediate termination of entire planet.

Alien: Make it so.

Human #4: Is Xenu still alive?

Alien: It's Xemu. And no, he isn't. Gort, with all due haste, please.

Sure there is rights for them.

As far as the United States goes, we have set up right's for people that ARE U.S. Citizens, and those who aren't. Heck, we even refer to non-US citizens as aliens. So I dont see the difference if theyre from a different planet. We dont have text saying the rights of every different race or ethnic backround outlined. Although technically we should treat them as just non-americans, I have a strange feeling that we wouldnt, considering sometimes we cant even treat Americans like non-Americans sometimes. \