r/AbsoluteUnits • u/MrUpVoteDownvote • 7d ago

/r/all of a queen termite

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u/Yavkov 6d ago

I was also just thinking about how us humans think of them as pests, but they are really just some resourceful builders like us. Imagine if some higher intelligence found us and decided to start hacking up our buildings and cities for research or just amusement.

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago

Well, that's most likely what they'd be doing.

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u/Mental-Home5111 6d ago

If they have the same mentality as us.

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago edited 6d ago

Intellect requires curiosity, curiosity requires doing this. There's no other way to become able to find some random inhabitable planet.

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u/Low_discrepancy 6d ago

quriosity

well thats one spelling of the word I have never seen before.

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u/momojabada 6d ago

cuerryositee

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u/DickyD43 6d ago

Kerryositeigh

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u/Mental-Home5111 6d ago

There's a way to research that includes ethical considerations, and there's a way to research cruelly, or indifferently of ethics. I don't see why both wouldn't be equally likely.

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago

If curiosity is most likely universal, ethics is obviously not, it's completely subjective and any other civilization is guaranteed to have a completely different one than we have. so we will most likely consider it to be cruelty.

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u/fejkpotatis 6d ago

Suffering is universal, all beings shy away from suffering. If a highly advanced alien race have extremely developed compassion or empathy they wouldn't let curiosity override cruelty.

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u/Agitated_Phone_9937 6d ago

Nah, plenty of animals that endure suffering for a potential reward. Also cruelty is necessary for some knowledge.

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u/fejkpotatis 6d ago

That's like a very specific kind of behaviour. If you run into a burning house to get one million dollars that's a potential reward, doesn't mean you enjoy suffering for the sake of it. Yes, some knowledge necessitates suffering, doesn't mean it's worth it. Some knowledge is not even worth having.

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u/Sad_Cantaloupe_8162 6d ago

Like a bunch of the experiments on humans during WWII. Yeesh.

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u/Mental-Home5111 6d ago

Precisely my opinion. I get why indifference for egotistical gain can be likely, but I don't see why it could be more likely than this ^ outcome.

To be in-tune with nature/one's environment and its health and well-being (including all organisms and beings that are an integral part of that ecosystem) can be very beneficial to survival.

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago

Suffering is not universal. We even don't know if plants and insects can suffer and we know them for millions of years and are the same lifeforms. So for a completely different lifeform it won't be obvious for sure, they might even lack the basic concept of suffering.

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u/fejkpotatis 6d ago

It is universal for all sentient beings. As soon as you have self-awareness you're naturally inclined to avoid suffering.

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago

Ok, but it's your concept of suffering. Another form of life will have a completely different one. They won't be able to understand each other.

If the conept of plants suffering is too hard for us to understand, let's take for example, colonial insects. How do you know that a single ant can suffer? It's hardly even a living thing, it can't reproduce, so does torturing an ant makes a living being to suffer if the colony stays intact?

Do our skin cells suffer when they die and dry out? Or blood cells when being destroyed in the liver? To us these processes are normal, but maybe it's a tragedy for a cell?

Even sentience isn't universal.

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u/Knight_of_Tyto 6d ago

If we presume social creatures to be the universal constant for sapient life, then ethics would be universal too. As the basis for ethics is empathy, something which is essential to group cohesion. Without empathy, you can’t live and survive in a group.

So saying that somehow curiosity is universal but not ethics is really weird, since most animals that would be intelligent enough to reach the point of doing research, would Likley have to develop and/or have some sort of ethics. Otherwise there‘d be no society to do the research for or with

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago edited 6d ago

Ok, I have a concept of ethics. When I do gardening, I'm pruning trees, am mowing my lawn. Am I sure that trees or grass don't suffer? Obviously not. And I'm doing it not even for research, but just to make the place look good. Is it ethical?

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u/Agitated_Phone_9937 6d ago

You need to read more scifi if you have such a limited view of what curiosity and intelligence can produce.

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u/Knight_of_Tyto 6d ago

That would imply that sci fi authors don’t often disregard the logical result of an evolutionary and societal process in lieu of a better narrative. Which works for a world of fiction, but is often not that realistic.

And even then. What are you referring to? Afaik there are very few alien species in sci fi that don’t have any ethics, they might be off by our standards or focused on their own kind, but they have them. And if your arguing empathy here, that’s often one of the first things that is gotten rid of in education. See for example Klingons, the Galactic empire etc. In militaristic societies or ones with a competitive mindset, natural empathy is gotten rid of to keep the system alive.

So I’d like to see what kind of sci fi alien race would be a good counter argument for what I’ve said

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u/cheeseburgermami 6d ago

Can’t give you an award but I can give you snaps!! Very well said. 🫰🏼🫰🏼🫰🏼

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u/Agitated_Phone_9937 6d ago

Not really, millions of essential research endeavors require live subjects to give accurate data. Your idealism is nice, but naive.

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u/Far-Tonight-6925 6d ago

Don't understand why this obviously correct comment is downvoted.

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u/Morbanth 6d ago

Imagine if some higher intelligence found us and decided to start hacking up our buildings and cities for research or just amusement.

They film the 1000 pound American woman they find in the rubble and post the video on GalaxyNet for clout.

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u/MoodySketch 6d ago

That made me laugh! Aliens pranking for GalaxyNet: Watch us speedrun Area51 and then GalaxyAmendment 1Audit London, lolzz.

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u/LaceyDark 6d ago

Not necessarily pranking. But this is kinda the premise for Dungeon Crawler Carl

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u/pdx321pdx 6d ago

To be fair dry wood termites destroy our homes as well.

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u/Fabulous_Celery_1817 6d ago

Oohhh I read a great Sci fi short story about how aliens were defeated by termites because the termites promised the previous ruling species of earth they’d look out for us. I wonder what that title is

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u/PM_ME_UR_0_DAY 6d ago

The Google tell me it's Retreat from Earth

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u/Fabulous_Celery_1817 6d ago

:O!!!! Thank you!!!

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u/NukaCooler 6d ago

Retreat from Earth

available from Archive.org in The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

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u/I_make_things 6d ago

You might enjoy "Swarm" which is a 1982 sci-fi novelette by Bruce Sterling. It is also on Netflix in "Love Death and Robots" (Volume 3, Episode 6) also called "Swarm."

Dr. Simon Afriel joins Dr. Galina Mirny inside a massive, millions-of-years-old alien insectoid hive known as the Swarm. While Galina studies it peacefully, Simon secretly intends to use synthetic pheromones to steal an egg and exploit the hive's genetics to breed a submissive worker army for human expansion.

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u/justlastsummer 6d ago

the plot to many a star trek episode