OT- Anyone read Old man's war?

[Randallw]

I have to be honest PES, I can't reaslly answer a question about emotions. I am autistic and don't feel emotions like normal people apparently. When I say I have love for all humans I really mean I feel a logical protectiveness. It is logical that I want all humanity to survive. Although I don't see any basis in reality for discrimination, I also don't feel much care for other humans. If you met me in person you might get the feeling I am a bit "alien" as I fail to respond emotionally.

Part of my argument comes from my own reactions. Since I feel no interest in other people it makes sense to me that "aliens" even further removed from human emotions would care even less. Maybe care is not the right word.

You make some interesting arguments, but I am not equipped to discuss that sort of thing. I find many emotional responses to logically make little sense.

ps. Let me go off on a tangent. You know the scene in Blade Runner where they run the test to see if the person is a replicant by asking what they would do if they found a turtle lying on it's shell. It seems to me, why do anything. It makes no difference to me what happens to some animal I find, unless of course I'm hungry. To quote Terry Pratchett "There's good eating on those"

yeah, I tend to detour a lot when I write. Made it hard for me to answer exams .

edit: Actually, if it helps I'll open up a bit more. I do feel some emotions, unfortunately they are related to another condition I have. Annoyance and Paranoia. Perhaps they are somehow responsible for the resolutions I come up with. I sometimes think I'm a Klingon inside the body of a Vulcan

[narf poit chez BOOM]

The simple fact is, though, that your responce is based on the same Us vs. Them responce.

You are argueing that since aliens aren't 'Us' they are the dangerous 'Them'.

And logically, we would likely have a very large area of space to expand into. And by the time we fill that up, it's quite likely we would have found other ways to expand.

Like turning vaccuum energy into matter.

[Randallw]

I guess you're right Narf. To be honest I'm getting tired of this. I'm glad we can discuss things without falling to bickering.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I wasn't looking for a right or wrong answer. How you answered is just what I was looking for. That is me, that is who I am. I don't want to know that you walked across the grass. I want to know why you didn't use the sidewalk. Put another way I don't want to know why you chose right from wrong, good from evil, up from down. I want to know why you didn't choose.

[Glyn]

What I want to known is why they didn't build the sidewalk in the correct place!



If you were placed in a room with 100 other potential hostile people would you. Would you start to kill everyone you met or would you try to make an alliance first. (Each would be armed with different tech level of weapons and armor. Being the last to join the group you would have the most primitive forms of each.)


When humans expands into space, it would be to our best interest to make allies. Link our continued existence with their continued existence.

If we try to go it alone then we would be a threat to every race out there. It would be in their best interest for each of them to commit a small force and together wipe us out.



"We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." by Benjamin Franklin




Yes I read the book. Very good! The sequel "Ghost Brigade"(?) is just as good!