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We can make up for it by uplifting their species with our technology. I sincerely believe we should be doing this - it's a core premise of one of my favorite n

We can make up for it by uplifting their species with our technology. I sincerely believe we should be doing this - it's a core premise of one of my favorite novels: Sundiver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundiver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundiver

tomc1985 6y ago
Yet another way to dominate over the animal kingdom... lifting them up with tech increases their reliance on us, all while we reserve the right to take it away again
- codezero 6y ago
  A very reasonable point, but I guess in my mind it would not be a master slave relationship, we should uplift them into sentience and allow them to use that technology to choose their own path. Obviously there is a lot of hubris there, but as a now ... semi sentient species, I prefer this over being eaten, and I think animals might express the same sentiment, as long as they don't murder us all for our sins :)
  - athriren 6y ago
    humans are not yet beyond enslaving each other, which i do not feel bodes well for our treatment of an uplifted species; however, as concept fiction it allows exploration of ideas in interesting ways and i tend to like settings with “intelligent” animals. all impossibly anthropocentric obviously. is being made more human even “up” or a “lift”? maybe things are supposed to be as thingy as possible (in a platonic sense) and this whole conversation is like looking at a fish and criticizing it for not being arboreal.
    - codezero 6y ago
      When and if we are in the position to uplift species, it will be on their terms not ours (my opinion) and the exercise in doing so will uplift ourselves (metaphorically and literally - why would we help engineer higher consciousness in other animals and not ourselves? We haven't even begun to tap our own potential as a culture of living creatures on this planet) edit: in pockets we are above enslavement, but just barely, and I think we need to really grit through to the next stage of our humanity, but there are a lot of road blocks before that happens, and as is the general sense, it's a razor's edge between advancement and annihilation.

tomc1985 6y ago

Yet another way to dominate over the animal kingdom... lifting them up with tech increases their reliance on us, all while we reserve the right to take it away again

codezero 6y ago
A very reasonable point, but I guess in my mind it would not be a master slave relationship, we should uplift them into sentience and allow them to use that technology to choose their own path. Obviously there is a lot of hubris there, but as a now ... semi sentient species, I prefer this over being eaten, and I think animals might express the same sentiment, as long as they don't murder us all for our sins :)
- athriren 6y ago
  humans are not yet beyond enslaving each other, which i do not feel bodes well for our treatment of an uplifted species; however, as concept fiction it allows exploration of ideas in interesting ways and i tend to like settings with “intelligent” animals. all impossibly anthropocentric obviously. is being made more human even “up” or a “lift”? maybe things are supposed to be as thingy as possible (in a platonic sense) and this whole conversation is like looking at a fish and criticizing it for not being arboreal.
  - codezero 6y ago
    When and if we are in the position to uplift species, it will be on their terms not ours (my opinion) and the exercise in doing so will uplift ourselves (metaphorically and literally - why would we help engineer higher consciousness in other animals and not ourselves? We haven't even begun to tap our own potential as a culture of living creatures on this planet) edit: in pockets we are above enslavement, but just barely, and I think we need to really grit through to the next stage of our humanity, but there are a lot of road blocks before that happens, and as is the general sense, it's a razor's edge between advancement and annihilation.