[ExI] are we not just one race, the human race?

[Lee Corbin]

Anne writes

> Lee wrote
> 
> > No, no meeting with aliens is required at all. We already look at other
> > mammals even on our own planet askance, as if they weren't fully human.
> > In fact, they're often treated as if, well, as if they were animals. :-)
> 
> Well, given some of the attitudes I've come across as of late, if humans
> did end up meeting intelligent aliens at any point, there would be groups
> of humans insisting that regardless of the fact that the aliens were perfectly
> happy the way they were, they ought to be coercively modified on the
> basis that they "don't know what they're missing" on account of not being
> human.  You know, because it's "compassionate" and all.  Blech.

Can you give any on-line type examples?  That attitude in the west
went out about a century ago at the time of Kipling and "the white
man's burden". (Of course, there are always small groups wanting
any kind of development that can be specified.)

If you mean religions wanting more converts, or Democrats wanting
more converts, that's quite another thing.  Some aliens will probably
want to convert us to some of their beliefs too. That's how memetics
works, and it's really not all bad.

> Seriously, I fear for any alien species that doesn't appear to act and
> think on average like your standard neurotypical human -- if I knew
> of any such species I would advise them to stay the heck away from
> Earth if they valued their freedom to self-determine at all.  

Seriously, I would fear for us, for humanity, if we don't better internalize
how evolution works. Chance are just as good that they'll be the relative
bad guys, rather than us.  Why is it always assumed that humans are
almost surely morally inferior to (hypothetical aliens)?

Lee