Does aliens have rights?

I was watching an episode of Stargate SG-1. The episode was about a group of aliens that was stranded on their former home planet, which was being destroyed, and was rescued by the sg-1 team. Well, it turned out that the group of aliens were super intelligent and their technological level as well as scientific were centuries ahead of Earth's. While the stargate command tried to find a new home for this group of stranded aliens (their new homeworld was very far away and it had no stargate), certain elements of the US government wanted to turn them into slaves and make them give the government whatever technology they knew.Well, the episode created a damn good dilemma, I think. What if one day we encounter an alien race that is as intelligent, slightly less intelligent, or more intelligent than the human race? Do they have the same basic rights that all humans presumably have?Also, I realize that there are always 2 answers to everything: the idealistic answer and the realistic answer. Well, what do you think?

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For goodness's sake, please vote Democrat this November!

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Why? Bush is a right wing nutcase.

Do you really feel the need to post every trite thought that sparks in your brain?Moose

Close it if you want. The topic about panspermia kinda sparked this one along with some human rights issues that I've been involved with on campus. It's kinda related to the issues in the early days when only christians had rights and everybody else was there to serve the christians. I thought it'd be interesting to see how people view about non-human intelligence that might exist and what kind of rights religious people on this board thought they should and shouldn't have.Again, if you don't feel this topic is good enough, I don't mind seeing it closed.

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For goodness's sake, please vote Democrat this November!

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Why? Bush is a right wing nutcase.

Lam That depends. Are we on their dinner menu?

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"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place."

Those thoughts have popped up several times while watching the Stargate series.The episode where they gated to a planet where a group of Unas(sp) lived. Our government wanted to mine some Naquida(sp) (can't remember if that is the name of the stuff)Anyway, our group persisted that they were going to mine no matter what the locals wanted. Which made me think of the Native Americans when whites came to North American shores.Of course, I've noticed that many people still have the mind set even when it comes to other countries.I realize this is mixing my SciFi, but often I've thought we need something like the "Prime Directive" when dealing with other countries.

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

This seems like a perfectly legitimate topic to me. There is currently an on-going thread on video games. There have been two separate threads on whether a certain action movie is a good movie or not. Yet, only Lam's thread is trite enough to warrant a complaint? If you're looking for something to do, may I suggest you check out the crank-bombs submitted by "zetalimit"?

About 20 years ago, Analog (the science-fiction magazine) devoted its science article to this very question.As far as I know (and anyone who knows better can correct me) the laws are specifically written to protect humans as a species distinct from other species. My understanding is that since aliens would not be human, they would not be technically eligible for any of the rights, privileges, or protections afforded to humans beings.As a practical matter, if the aliens were a more advanced race there may not be much we could do to them anyway. But in the SG-1 scenario you spoke about, or in a hypothetical case where a future generation discovers a planet that is already inhabited by an intelligent race, albeit at a more primitive technological state, what rights would we give them? One would hope that the initial reaction would be to treat them as protected equals until the laws can be adjusted. But, seeing the history of European genocide exploration and the treatment of indigenous peoples, I'm not so optimistic about that. If there is money to be made, and political advantage to be gained, I suspect that it will be remarkably easy to "prove" that any indigenous aliens really aren't at the same level as humans.If one is to offer legal protections for sentient species, one wonders how to write the laws to do so. I suppose that the least problematic way of doing this would be to simply list each sentient species as "people" for legal purposes as they are discovered. But this leads to the possibility of listing or not listing them depending on political considerations.A general blanket protection to all sentient beings leads to problems with defining what is sentient. Unless we want to reduce the mentally disabled to the level of animals (which no one these days wants to do, I assume), the definition has to cover species. But what standards? Would technology be a good indication of sentience? What if we see a sentient species that is, for whatever reasons, doesn't or can't make use of technology? Language? Same question. Would a new law cover dolphins here on earth? (Any remember that David Brin series of books? The Uplift War, or something, I think.)I think most of us assume that there are degrees of sentience. Where are the cut-off for "personhood"? Would chimpanzees be covered in any legal definition of "sufficiently sentient species"? How about dogs? And so forth.This may now be off-topic, but this question can be turned around. What is it that humans are unique in the protections granted by law anyway? Is it because we are the only known sentient species, and that makes us special? Is it because God granted us the entire earth to exploit as we wish? Is it because morality is simply a reciprocal relationship, and we cannot expect that if we decide not to eat them or perform medical experiments on them we can't expect them to "appreciate" this kindness in a way that benefits us?What if a super advanced race discovers us, and decides that we are tasty, we make good experimental subjects, we are in the way of their housing developments, or they simply have an instinct for sadism toward other species? What moral claim can we make to justify our own well-treatment?

If we should meet another intellegent species, would we have rights?If we should meet another intellegent species that is significantly advanced beyond our stage, would they recognize those rights?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Like "Independence Day" or "V"?Of course the premise of "Stargate SG-1" is that a more advanced race enslaved the less advanced humans of our ancient times and replanted them on other planets to cultivate for hosts and slaves.Ideally we would hope for a meeting with a species like the Vulcans, but given our species own propensity towards taking advantage of the "less advanced", my guess would be that we would lose our rights as we know them anyway.(I like my movies!)
Short off topic anecdote concerning movies:
My daughter brought up the subject of Hitler (I don't remember why), but I commented that he was born in Austria. She said if he was born in Australia, why was he in Germany. I corrected her, but she said well it is the same thing. (Scarry isn't it? She's 23) I tried to explain the difference by location and she was giving me the deer-in-the-headlight look. I thought a moment and said, "OK, Austria - Sound of Music and Australia - Crocodile Dundee". The lights finally went on!Good thing we watch the same movies!

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A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.