Well of Souls Forums

Even if the (real or fictional) aliens adopt or copy new ways, it won't be technically "racism" or any "in-group" bias, because those are rooted in our instincts. The core of the problem is that "-isms" are never entirely objective due to how our brains work, and in a very specific way. An artifici...

I never claimed that aliens will be racist. Merely that they can become racist towards humans from either their own experiences or by copying native culture. This was in answer to the claim that calling alien behaviour racist would be invalid due to racism being rooted in human culture. If I am beig...

I mean that aliens may not even have the concept of racism, or that they could have a vastly different mechanism instead. Since we do not know what said alien biology is based on, or how they even perceive reality, such conclusions must be made by the author that invented them. Can you explain how ...

Racism is based on instincts. All human emotions are. That some people can overcome some of them is irrelevant. The same goes to the different biology of aliens. It doesn't matter. As long as they can perceive differences between human races and can make the decision to treat those unequally, they c...

Wonder how the power settings work, its an interesting notion that the bugs would be stomping around in all of that armor but he apparently doesnt need more than half power on a tiny little pistol. Maybe at higher power the beam is less focused so the penetration is diminished and that reduces the ...

There is a limited extent to which our concept of racism can be applied to non-human species. [...] The telepathic Loroi can interact telepathically to a small degree with some non-Loroi species, but there are ways they can communicate with other Loroi that they'll never be able to with non-Loroi. ...

How is racism a "very human concept"? As Demarquis laid out, it's a form of ingroup preference. With how natural selection works, ingroup preference is ubiquitous to nature. It doesn't even take much intellect. Bees and ants commit genocide as a greeting.

@Tamri Your language is very emotionally charged. That's where a value based definition gets you, as you have nothing to say about real world examples of people being racist on rational grounds. So I guess calling people idiots will have to do. Anyway, I think I made my point clear enough. There is ...

Mmm, I don't know, unwillingness to doing nonsense, for example? [...] A value judgment is the basis of our thinking, in itself it is not bad. It becomes bad when not used in moderation or for its intended purpose. My example was admittedly crude, but it did serve its purpose demonstrating that ali...

Only we still don't call people who don't like pit bulls racists. I understand that from the outside it may look like speculation, but all this terminology really only concerns people. Yes, which is why we do not call people that only hate one race of dogs racist. But are you denying personhood to ...

No. They can be racist in relation to their species, and not to humans. The very word "racism" refers to race, i.e. parts of the SPECIES. A man who despises dogs is a racist? Is the dolphin-hating man a chauvinist? This whole set of beliefs, norms and ideologies applies exclusively to PEOPLE. In re...

Again, a dud would be what, the same torpedo, but with a slightly reduced fuel load? That doesn't make any sense. A torpedo requires a reactor and a starship-class drive system, or it won't have the necessary acceleration. A dud torpedo wouldn't need any armor and could also do without effective ma...

Well, yes. Racism is a purely "intrahuman" term. It is mainly synthetic, in order to designate a special case of chauvinism, which partially refers to xenophobia as a biological aspect. It is inapplicable to any non-human species, because it is based on human social relations, and not on their real...

Unlikely. A small percentage of AM torpedoes gets close enough to do real damage. A kinetic torpedo would have no chance of hitting anything.
There may be a certain amount of torpedo duds per wave if those duds are cheaper and indistinguishable to the Loroi from the real ones.

Nuking will irradiate the surface and make resettlement efforts more difficult. Kinetic weaponry, or just plain old space rocks, are "clean" and also far cheaper. The large scale destruction of industry that such an orbital bombardment will cause surely makes it anything but clean. If you need to t...

Why would a universally inoffensive greeting be important for Trade? You are either adressing savages that aren't even spacefaring yet or a spacefaring species that knows not to put too much emphasis on body language during first contact. Plus the empire that has enough power to establish its own l...

Amateurs, you can get a bunch of games made for that money. Make it a competition of who can make the best Outsider themed video game. 5k for the winner, 2,5k for second 1k for third and 1,5k on rewards like game vouchers for other quality entries.

Well, then let me ask that question instead. Does standard Trade have any universal greeting pattern? Something that is as neutral as it gets, especially for a newly met species? Smiling can be interpreted as baring teeth, for example, and swinging appendages could be seen as a sign of aggression, ...

Well, the people who preemptively adopted the language of the Franks, i.e. the Romans, certainly weren't bothered by whether the barbarians were offended by Roman customs. If they got cross about it, the Romans were happy to answer in kind and get them about a cross.

Arioch wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:43 pm

If you look at photos of the crews of WWII US Navy combat vessels that saw a lot of action (like destroyers and cruisers), you won't see many fat sailors.

You didn't see many fat people in general back then. That wasn't specific to sailors.