[ExI] Humans are a uniquely dangerous species

[William Flynn Wallace]

like us, but not us.  bill k

Interesting thought.  I have no doubt that we can re-create them not too
long into the future.  What would be the point of that?  Are we really that
lonely?  We already have over 7 billion people that are like us but not
us.  Do we want intelligent pets?  Why create something that will have
enough intelligence to know that it is inferior to us, or is that the point?

  I have wondered about the preoccupation with aliens in fiction.  As I am
a sci-fi fan I think I can conclude that most of the aliens we meet in
novels are like us but dangerous.  Wiping our planet clean of humans and
the like.  I argue that we can call the present time the Age of
Xenophobia.  So we really don't want what we think we want, esp. if they
speak a different language, have a different religion, and so on.
Interesting that we think we can tolerate those things in aliens but not in
our fellow humans.

bill w

On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 10:58 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Were other humans the first victims of the sixth mass extinction?
> November 21, 2019
>
> <
> https://theconversation.com/were-other-humans-the-first-victims-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction-126638
> >
>
> Quotes:
> Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is
> just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters
> adapted to Europe’s cold steppes. The related Denisovans inhabited
> Asia, while the more primitive Homo erectus lived in Indonesia, and
> Homo rhodesiensis in central Africa.
>
> Several short, small-brained species survived alongside them: Homo
> naledi in South Africa, Homo luzonensis in the Philippines, Homo
> floresiensis (“hobbits”) in Indonesia, and the mysterious Red Deer
> Cave People in China. Given how quickly we’re discovering new species,
> more are likely waiting to be found.
>
> By 10,000 years ago, they were all gone.
> ----
> Today we look up at the stars and wonder if we’re alone in the
> universe. In fantasy and science fiction, we wonder what it might be
> like to meet other intelligent species, like us, but not us. It’s
> profoundly sad to think that we once did, and now, because of it,
> they’re gone.
> ---------------------
>
> BillK
>
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>
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