If aliens want a teaspoon of our ocean water; do they ethically need to ask for it?
We have vast oceans that stretch for miles and miles. Surely, a teaspoon of water is ok to take without asking us right? Afterall, humans don’t own the universe, and what makes that the Earth’s water and not the universe’s water? Right.
At least in my ethics. Ethics is largely subjective. In my ethics, they’d also feel a desire to look into how dysfunctional some of our situations are, and how many species are liable to go extinct, and whether they might (with their presumably very advanced technology) be able to help us out in a few ways.
At least, I like to imagine space aliens, who would do that. But for an example of subjective ethics, the Federation in Star Trek would bar themselves from doing that, because of their Prime Directive. (Well, maybe not if someone like JJ Abrams were writing the script . . .) To me it comes down to impact.
Property literally does not matter, since Humans do not own the planet.
The question is solely, what the removal has on the local and global ecosystem.
A spoonful of water will have little effect on much of anything, but removing the whole ocean would pretty much destroy all life on earth. Although protocol says that permission should be asked before removing anything from the Earth it is extremely unlikely that any alien race would ask, especially if they wanted to remain unidentified. Another question we should be asking yourselves is whether and why they would want to take a single teaspoon of seawater is beyond me. One more question is why they would want the water? If they have the technology to find and visit ||Earth I would have thought they would have encountered many planets containing water and some with water made up in the same way as our seawater. The aliens would give us gifts to kill us all off then they would take what they wanted no questions asked. Just like we gave blankets contaminated with smallpox to native Americans. We never asked the ethics of removing rocks from the moon, and we took much more than a teaspoonful. This question seems to assume that aliens have more ethics than humans.
Afterall, humans don’t own the universe, and what makes that the Earth’s water and not the universe’s water?
I don’t even think humans own the Earth and ever will. This question does not have a simple answer. Now my brain is scrambled thinking of our first encounter revolving around a request for a resource. If aliens had the technology to reach Earth through the vastness of space then they would have the power to take whatever they damn well please.
At least in my ethics. Ethics is largely subjective. In my ethics, they’d also feel a desire to look into how dysfunctional some of our situations are, and how many species are liable to go extinct, and whether they might (with their presumably very advanced technology) be able to help us out in a few ways.
At least, I like to imagine space aliens, who would do that. But for an example of subjective ethics, the Federation in Star Trek would bar themselves from doing that, because of their Prime Directive. (Well, maybe not if someone like JJ Abrams were writing the script . . .) To me it comes down to impact.
Property literally does not matter, since Humans do not own the planet.
The question is solely, what the removal has on the local and global ecosystem.
A spoonful of water will have little effect on much of anything, but removing the whole ocean would pretty much destroy all life on earth. Although protocol says that permission should be asked before removing anything from the Earth it is extremely unlikely that any alien race would ask, especially if they wanted to remain unidentified. Another question we should be asking yourselves is whether and why they would want to take a single teaspoon of seawater is beyond me. One more question is why they would want the water? If they have the technology to find and visit ||Earth I would have thought they would have encountered many planets containing water and some with water made up in the same way as our seawater. The aliens would give us gifts to kill us all off then they would take what they wanted no questions asked. Just like we gave blankets contaminated with smallpox to native Americans. We never asked the ethics of removing rocks from the moon, and we took much more than a teaspoonful. This question seems to assume that aliens have more ethics than humans.
Afterall, humans don’t own the universe, and what makes that the Earth’s water and not the universe’s water?
I don’t even think humans own the Earth and ever will. This question does not have a simple answer. Now my brain is scrambled thinking of our first encounter revolving around a request for a resource. If aliens had the technology to reach Earth through the vastness of space then they would have the power to take whatever they damn well please.
