re philosophy quest how boldly in article apr hemlock cray com bobo thejester cray com bob kierski writes there are a number of philosophical questions that i would like to ask if we encounter a life form during our space exploration how do we determine if we should capture it imprison it and then discect it analog sf magazine did an article on a similar subject quite a few years ago the question was if an alien spacecraft landed in washington d c what was the proper organization to deal with it the state department alien ambassadors the defense department alien invaders the immigration and naturalization service illegal aliens the department of the interior new non human species etc it was very much a question of our perception of the aliens not of anything intrinsic in their nature the bibliography for the article cited a philosophical paper the name and author of which i sadly forget i believe the author was italian on what constitutes a legal and or moral person i e a being entitled to the rights normally accorded to a person the paper was quite interesting as i recall if we encounter a civilization that is suffering economicly will we expend resources from earth to help them i think you d have to be very careful here if the answer is yes the human track record on helping those poor underpriveleged cultures does underpriveleged mean not having enough priveleges is terrible the usual result is the destruction or radical reorganization of the culture this may not always be wrong but that s the way to bet with all of the deseases we currently have that are deadly and undetectable what will be done to ensure that more new deadly deseases aren t brought back or that our deseases don t destroy life elsewhere have a day bobo doug loss loss husky bloomu edu
