Going to be insufferable and point out that to answer that we'd have to know what the alien's culture and conception of morality was like
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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They understand morality only as a concept. They have something different.
An appreciation for consent
I'll try some:
1.) Rules are contingent on how much money you have
2.) Everything should be decided by luck.
3.) Propery must be protected at all costs.
4.) Preforming any sort of labor is disgraceful.
5.) The most qualified people are people you've known the longest.
6.) Deception is the most efficient way to gain capital, second only to luck.
I'd say they first question our intelligence before jumping to speculation about our morals. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity might be an universal concept.
No one said anything about malice. Also, if they are observing us chances are their intelligence exceeds our own. So I don't think they would question it, as the same when I observe an ant or a dog. I might scoff and say it's stupid but not in a sense that I truly am remarking on their actual intelect.
Hmmh, I was more loosely applying that to the issue at hand. Not saying capitalism is inherently malicious... But that it comes with downsides. Like precluding collective progress for individual gain. And being inherently unfair. And that an external observer might not necessarily attribute that to morals. But maybe think we just can't do any better. Probably because of intelligence or psychology/human nature. That'd be far more likely and prevent any further discussion. I.e. we could strive for fairness, but be intellectually unfit to do it.
And I forgot the word for it, but there is a difference between how something is supposed to be and how it actually is. Maybe humans know/like other morals, but for some reason they don't apply. That'd be hard to judge. On the other hand you certainly can tell things about people by how they act...
I think it'd be like one of the Star Trek TNG episodes where Q tests their moral judgement and concludes humanity is not ready yet. I think they did a good job picturing this. Q sets arbitrary and incomprehensible standards and benchmarks. At least from human perspective. And that's because an alien is very different. And we can't understand the reasoning of a higher intelligence. So either way, a higher intelligence alien will likely attribute something unintelligible to us.
That or the alien will simply scour all life from the planet and then strip mine it for resources. They don’t even have to be more intelligent than us. Suppose they were roughly equivalent to human intelligence but had an insect-like eusocial behaviour with a billion year old culture. They could be far more advanced than us simply due to the availability of time.