Xenophile Ambiguity

[NoGodsNoMasters]

Am I a xenophobe?

I consider myself a xenophile when it comes to earthlings. But then I asked myself if I would really be receptive to a race of mushroom people. I don't think humans would initially, or ever, be xenophiles when it comes to non-humanoid alien races. You think racism is bad when people on earth have subtle differences? What would we think of talking space jelly?

I thought maybe it would because of an inability to relate to such a different type of species, but I think it is much more primitive of an instinct than that. I don't think Earth would have good relations with a species with whom they couldn't picture themselves mating (or at least trying).

Speaking of which, where are my token sexy blue or green aliens? No Asarians? Drell? Space elves?

 

[Delta21]

If anything, serious xenophobia would take care of any racism issues that still exist.
However, with a practicality in mind I doubt we'd want to appear undiplomatic. In fact, we'd outright lie about our xenophobia and trade with the aliens extensively.
Limitations would have to be enacted, such as:
no aliens allowed in human core sectors, indentured servants (basically slaves) for the outer sectors and limited power and professions for the mixed sectors that have human majority.

We'll be fine loving the aliens, as long as we do it far, far away from them, preferably doing all of the touching with an eleven foot pole.

 

[Oscot]

You think racism is bad when people on earth have subtle differences? What would we think of talking space jelly?

We'd think much better of them.
Racism evolved as a very sensible reaction to the fact that people from other tribes would tend to try and kill you and take your resources and lebensraum.
Therefore human beings are adapted to be racist to creatures that fall in the "uncanny valley" of dissimilarity. Creatures that look similar enough that they might steal your food and your women, but not similar enough that the adaptation would make you hate the members of your own tribe that you probably share genes with.

No-one feels racist towards a hippopotomus, even though the bastards kill a lot of people, because the water-horses are not similar enough to us to activate that response.

Giant space mushrooms would also fall into this category.

I mean, giant space mushrooms may well want to steal your food and your women, but it hasn't been a concern for mankind throughout evolutionary history, and thus hating giant space mushrooms hasn't been baked into our DNA like hating other humans has.

Speaking of which, where are my token sexy blue or green aliens? No Asarians? Drell? Space elves?

> not getting sexually excited by arthropods

You call yourself a xenophile?

 

[NoGodsNoMasters]

We'd think much better of them.
Racism evolved as a very sensible reaction to the fact that people from other tribes would tend to try and kill you and take your resources and lebensraum.
Therefore human beings are adapted to be racist to creatures that fall in the "uncanny valley" of dissimilarity. Creatures that look similar enough that they might steal your food and your women, but not similar enough that the adaptation would make you hate the members of your own tribe that you probably share genes with.

No-one feels racist towards a hippopotomus, even though the bastards kill a lot of people, because the water-horses are not similar enough to us to activate that response.

Giant space mushrooms would also fall into this category.

I mean, giant space mushrooms may well want to steal your food and your women, but it hasn't been a concern for mankind throughout evolutionary history, and thus hating giant space mushrooms hasn't been baked into our DNA like hating other humans has.


> not getting sexually excited by arthropods

You call yourself a xenophile?

No one feels racist towards a hippopotomus because while they might be a danger to man, they aren't a danger to mankind. I think our initial response to any being with intelligence will be fear. If we discover a species of beings outside of earth that is like us in intelligence but different in any other way we will nuke up.

 

[Jaol]

You think racism is bad when people on earth have subtle differences? What would we think of talking space jelly?

One interesting analogy for Xenos are Orangutans (literally "Person of the Forest" in Malay). The people who lived alongside them had widely different attitudes towards them. Some groups hunted them, treating them like any other animal. Others, regarded killing them as taboo. Some regarded them as basically friendly beings, others as bringers of bad luck.

That seems to me to be a reasonably good indication that humanity would probably be divided between Xenophiles and Xenophobes.

 

[Cruxador]

No one feels racist towards a hippopotomus because while they might be a danger to man, they aren't a danger to mankind.

They're dangers to individual men though. People definitely shun hippopotami in social situations.

 

[Daetrin]

I wish I could find my references for this, but outgroup threat response is most extreme to people who vary from you only slightly, and far less extreme to people who vary from you a lot.

 

[Dregonoid]

Racism is subtle based on genetics and fear. It takes tolerance and putting oneself out there to get over it. Little kids are inherently racist (social experiments in the 80s) and many other bad characteristics. It takes years to alter those perspectives, with varying degrees of success. Fear would be the generally reaction. The people loving aliens wouldn't love them because they actually do (although very very few might) but instead to get at their fellow humans. (in whatever way/for whatever reason)

[that moment you realize your full of your own human bs because how could you comprehend another species and especially humanities response to them]

 

[Exemplar Voss]

No one feels racist towards a hippopotomus

Speak for yourself. Hippopotomi are disgusting creatures unfit for anything. And grossly misnamed, which fan the flames of my hatred forever. They are not water horses of any description, not kelpies, sirens, seaponies or anything like them at all. They're gross and disgusting blob creatures that are a mockery of sensible sea-based equines and everything cute.

They can all die in a blaze of the unrestrained use of excessive explosions.
Shoo-be-doo.

 

[shadowrook]

I imagine there'd be a spectrum of responses when we encounter alien life. Assuming we have some similarities and theyre not evil, it's likely we would move more towards the tolerant side as we got used to each other.

 

[Cruxador]

Assuming ... theyre not evil

Well I mean, we're comparing them to hippos here.

 

[Daetrin]

The most likely problem with actual alien intelligences is that they'll have a Blue and Orange morality. They'll be perfectly comprehensible...until we run into the idea that they don't have friends, only varying degrees of loyalty (thank you, CJ Cherryh).

 

[Red_warning]

Neutrality, e.i no choice at all, would indicate no special love or hate for aliens, I think that's a rather sensible standpoint. The 5 grade scale represents both extremes and everything in between, so not very ambiguous at all imo. I also think that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to look at earth and our values today and say that people wouldn't appreciate an alien migration wave (and I agree, we probably wouldn't), because our context will be entirely different from the human society we'll find in Stellaris.
They are technologically immensely ahead of us, they supposedly live in a united world (depends on your RP a bit), but most importantly they will know other aliens through intergalactic politics which kinda will make people not freak out so much if they see aliens, because they've read about it or maybe even personally encountered alien life before. But really, this is just a bunch of hypotheticals. Humanity could go United Federation of Planets or full Imperium of Man.

Come to think of it, District 9 touches this topic quite a bit.

 

[Oscot]

No one feels racist towards a hippopotomus because while they might be a danger to man, they aren't a danger to mankind.

No-one is racist because of species existential risk.
The Klan doesn't hate black people because they think they're going to exterminate the human race (err... I think). I can't claim to have read enough KKK material to know precisely why they do hate black people, but I would be extremely surprised if "They're going to wipe out mankind and leave the Earth as a ball of radioactive slag" is one of the reasons.

If you hate someone because you think they're going to nuke you off the face of the planet, that's Russophobia a legitimate security concern against their leadership, not racist hatred against the whole of mushroomkind.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Speaking of which, where are my token sexy blue or green aliens? No Asarians? Drell? Space elves?

That's xenophilia of a very different sort.

The Klan doesn't hate black people because they think they're going to exterminate the human race (err... I think). I can't claim to have read enough KKK material to know precisely why they do hate black people, but I would be extremely surprised if "They're going to wipe out mankind and leave the Earth as a ball of radioactive slag" is one of the reasons.

During the 1950s it was argued, and not just by Klan members, that the black Civil Rights leaders were agents of the Kremlin and that their demand for the vote was a Soviet plot to destroy western civilisation. This was a genuine fear that a lot of (admittedly hella racist) people held.

 

[Meneye]

I mean, giant space mushrooms may well want to steal your food and your women, but it hasn't been a concern for mankind throughout evolutionary history, and thus hating giant space mushrooms hasn't been baked into our DNA like hating other humans has.

Those damn Space Mushrooms, stealing our food and women.

 

[aitaituo]

We'd think much better of them.
Racism evolved as a very sensible reaction to the fact that people from other tribes would tend to try and kill you and take your resources and lebensraum.

Racism is subtle based on genetics and fear. It takes tolerance and putting oneself out there to get over it. Little kids are inherently racist (social experiments in the 80s) and many other bad characteristics. It takes years to alter those perspectives, with varying degrees of success. Fear would be the generally reaction. The people loving aliens wouldn't love them because they actually do (although very very few might) but instead to get at their fellow humans. (in whatever way/for whatever reason)

The idea that there is a genetic basis to racism is rejected in academia. Xenophobia, the instinctive fear of potentially dangerous strangers, and more generally in-group out-group social behaviors, do appear to have a significant biological basis, however.

This distinction is very important. Because you need to think in global and historical terms, not just 1850's-1970's Virginia, when you are looking for specific evidence of general human behaviors. By limiting the discussion to weird starting points, you end at even weirder points.

 

[Oscot]

During the 1950s it was argued, and not just by Klan members, that the black Civil Rights leaders were agents of the Kremlin and that their demand for the vote was a Soviet plot to destroy western civilisation. This was a genuine fear that a lot of (admittedly hella racist) people held.

Well I would say
A) The fall of western civilization is not equivalent to the destruction of the human race, so that's still not hatred born of species existential risk, and
B) Hating someone because you think they're a dirty commie spy isn't racism. I watched Bridge of Spies on a flight recently, and plenty of 1950s 'Murricans were able to find it in their hearts to hate Rudolf Abel despite the fact that he was probably more white than they were.

Now I'll admit that there could probably be a lot of post-rationalisation going on in your example; going back into deep time we have
1) People from other tribes tended to kill you and steal your land 200,000 years ago on the African veldt, therefore
2) The people who were distrustful of other tribes tended to be the ones who survived, so
3) This is evolution in action, and the human race evolved to not like people who looked like they were from different tribes, and
4) Fast-forward to 1950s America, and from 1-3 some people don't like differently-coloured people, so
5) They're very willing to believe that they're commie spies out of confirmation bias, and
6) Then they double back on themselves and claim the only reason they don't like them is because they're commie spies

So I guess my point is that the above thought process with regards to mushroom men from outer space falls over at (1), because no mushroom man ever tried to kill your great-great-great^1,000-grandfather, so your under-the-hood reptilian brain isn't sending you subconscious signals to distrust the friendly 'shroom who's offering you space candy.

However, if the friendly 'shroom who's offering you space candy also has a fleet of nuclear warships parked in orbit, you may be inclined to distrust him for wholly different and rather substantially better reasons that have nothing to do with the 1-6 process at all. But if it's not the 1-6 process, then it's not racism.

 

[EddieTheLion]

No-one feels racist towards a hippopotomus, even though the bastards kill a lot of people, because the water-horses are not similar enough to us to activate that response.

Hippos are terrifying and evil, I am 100% in favor of hippo genocide.

(no, I'm not arguing in favor of murdering intelligent aliens. Just hippos. Death to all hippos)

 

[Knotz]

Speak for yourself. Hippopotomi are disgusting creatures unfit for anything. And grossly misnamed, which fan the flames of my hatred forever. They are not water horses of any description, not kelpies, sirens, seaponies or anything like them at all. They're gross and disgusting blob creatures that are a mockery of sensible sea-based equines and everything cute.

They can all die in a blaze of the unrestrained use of excessive explosions.
Shoo-be-doo.

Next time you take a shower a water horse will be waiting for you racist.