If it’s acceptable for humans to exploit other animals for food, clothing, labor, entertainment or experiments because we’re more intelligent than them, would it be equally acceptable for a superintelligent alien race with 10x the mental capacity as humans to do the same to us?

  • theplanlessman@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think it would be up to us to decide if it is acceptable or not. We don’t ask the cow if they think it’s okay that we take their milk, their skin, their meat. Likewise, I doubt a more advanced alien species would bother asking for our permission if they decided they had a use for us.

    On a more philosophical point though, there’s also the matter of sentience. As far as we’re aware the animals we use for food, labour, etc. don’t have the mental capacity to really understand the situation they find themselves in. They can’t process and understand the fact that they are being used. As we are a species that can, the chances that we’d let another species, even one more advanced than us, exploit us without resisting are probably pretty low.

    • i_love_FFT@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’d say: look at populist leaders… It’s easy to exploit people without them realizing it.