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Have the aliens landed?; Have the little green men made contact, or is it a figment of our imagination?
Topic Started: Mar 12 2010, 02:42 PM (5,490 Views)
Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

Depends how they've developed. A more tribal culture or a very cosmopolitan metropolic one would negotiate differently.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

if aliens existed they would be as different socially as they would be physically , so an embassy would have a lot of challenges
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T.Neo
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Would they be, though? What really "drives" society, emotions, etc?

Maybe a large portion of it is evolutionary, and subject to wild diversity. But they will undoubtedly share traits with us as well; certain emotions, like fear, make evolutionary sense; so does gratification.

Their ancestors could probably have different social structures to us; we lived in male-dominated family groups (and to an extent, still do. It just isn't that important anymore). Maybe their ancestors were pack or group livers; living and hunting/gathering (and probably breeding) in groups, without any cohesive social hierarchy. Perhaps they were solitary, or even semi-euosocial.

I don't think society will be that affected by history like that though. Their political systems will probably have significant differences to ours, but if you have any sort of civilisation, let alone one that can traverse interstellar space, you'll need some sort of leadership center somewhat reminiscent of a government.

And if such a leadership center exists, it can surely interact with other leadership centers.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

you do no societies can function without leaders, conventionall war, hunting for sport, ownership or money ?
the aborigines of australia had a society similar to that before european settlement, a treaty couldn't be formed because there was no ruler of absolutly any of the tribes

aliens could be even more radiclly different
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T.Neo
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you do no societies can function without leaders, conventionall war, hunting for sport, ownership or money ?


Yeah, but they aren't civilisations, and they definitely aren't spacefaring civilisations.

And what does hunting for sport have to do with society? It's completely irrelevant here.

Building starships and surviving and living in a tribe are two radically different things, and they have radically different leadership requirements.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Ànraich
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T.Neo
Mar 23 2010, 02:57 PM
Would they be, though? What really "drives" society, emotions, etc?

Maybe a large portion of it is evolutionary, and subject to wild diversity. But they will undoubtedly share traits with us as well; certain emotions, like fear, make evolutionary sense; so does gratification.

Their ancestors could probably have different social structures to us; we lived in male-dominated family groups (and to an extent, still do. It just isn't that important anymore). Maybe their ancestors were pack or group livers; living and hunting/gathering (and probably breeding) in groups, without any cohesive social hierarchy. Perhaps they were solitary, or even semi-euosocial.

I don't think society will be that affected by history like that though. Their political systems will probably have significant differences to ours, but if you have any sort of civilisation, let alone one that can traverse interstellar space, you'll need some sort of leadership center somewhat reminiscent of a government.

And if such a leadership center exists, it can surely interact with other leadership centers.
In my Priapus Prime project (which I will update soon) the sophonts are more communal than humans. Children are raised by the community (in modern times they basically go to a boarding school but before that your standard village had several nurseries) and socialism comes a little more naturally to these beings than it does to humans. Culturally there is much emphasis on sharing, communal farming, and openness in every culture on their planet.
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"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

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And what does hunting for sport have to do with society?

The same thing as playing sports for sport. If anybody can look at a football game (American or real football) and not say that it has an impact on society, then they're not looking at its influence. The same goes for any kind of recreational activity. Granted, it may have more influences in some insular societies than others, but it does not exist in a vacuum.
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

T neo,

the aborigines can not be classified as not civilised because there society is radicaly different from ours, they're not a bunch of savages and they had an incredibly complex society that was sustainable, peaceful and able to accomadate many more people to live in australia than the european societies that conquered and killed off the majority of thaem could
and as for their intelligence, they may not have invented guns or engines, but thats because they didn't need them, they lived on a continent were there wasn't conquest and capitilism, nor did they have the mathematics( or the numbers) or metal working,etc needed to invent, because they just didn't need it and it would have been pointless in their society
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lamna
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You're incorrect there, unless they were magical they could not get a population as high as one with agriculture and proper medicine.

I understand that round Victoria their was an civilization of sorts once, but they mostly lived in pre-state societies.
It's not that they didn't need those tools, but that they could not make them the way they lived. The Aborigines weren't going to become space faring unless they settled down and started farming.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

sorry lamna but in the majority of australia agriculture would fail if it didn't spread over distances larger than some small countries such as belgium as it does now
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

plus im not saying they had more people than in england im saying they could have more people in australia.

and im not saying aborigines would become spacefaring, im saying aliens could and probably would be more radicly different from us
Edited by seascorpion, Mar 25 2010, 03:49 AM.
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

and isn't this off topic?
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Seascorpion, out of curiousity, why did you do so many posts in a row?

In the west we have a phrase. "Going against the grain", though it might just be American, or Kentuckistany, I don't know. It comes from how our saws work. The way our saw's teeth cut the wood is by cutting into the grain, doing the opposite is stupid and contrary, thus the phrase.

Then you get to east where the opposite is true. That's how their saws are made, to pacifically cut against the grain and work as well as ours do.

Just because something is drastically different doesn't mean it won't work. Ants get a lot done, but they don't have a real leader. The aliens could be more similar to that.
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T.Neo
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the aborigines can not be classified as not civilised because there society is radicaly different from ours, they're not a bunch of savages and they had an incredibly complex society that was sustainable, peaceful and able to accomadate many more people to live in australia than the european societies that conquered and killed off the majority of thaem could


I never said they were savages. I said they did not form a civilisation; of which numerous ones have existed during history, most of which could be regarded as "savage" in some way or another, which makes your point moot.

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and as for their intelligence, they may not have invented guns or engines, but thats because they didn't need them, they lived on a continent were there wasn't conquest and capitilism, nor did they have the mathematics( or the numbers) or metal working,etc needed to invent, because they just didn't need it and it would have been pointless in their society


Again not the point. If you don't need "engines ang guns and mathamatics" you won't build interstellar starships. I'm talking about the societies that do build such devices, or at least societies that form civilisations.

And I don't have anything, anything at all against native australians and I very much respect their lifestyle, but it is rather annoying when you speak of them as some sort of idyllic terran na'vi that have a society superior to all others on the planet.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

Im not saying aborigines would have spaceships!
im saying alien society could be radiccaly different from ours , meaning communication/deals etc could be difficult, i used the example of aborigines because no deal was ever made with them (except in victoria) because the majority had no formal leaders who had the authority to make a deal.
Edited by seascorpion, Mar 26 2010, 04:11 PM.
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