Spozieracz OP t1_ja7prcj wrote
Reply to comment by AutoModerator in [WP] Tradition dictates that each sentient species is given one seat in the Galactic Parliament. When humanity made contact with the galactic community, it was decided that planet earth deserves to have four senators. by Spozieracz
Usually I don't like to explain my prompts so as not to suggest people too much but this time unfortunately I think I have to so that no one removes it for retired prompts rule :/.
So, of course, I don't mean that humanity has some special feature that makes them deserve more seats. What I meant was that it has been recognized that there are several intelligent species on earth. This can be developed in many ways:
-Maybe humans gaslighted aliens that chimpanzees are smart just to get more votes in parlament?
-Maybe there is a second civilization on the planet hidden from human eyes
-Maybe the criteria for assessing sentience used by the galactic community are radically different from human ones?
-Maybe we underestimated some animals?
-Maybe the aliens noticed that dogs sometimes wear funny clothes and drew the wrong conclusions?
God I hate myself for having to write this.
LonoRising t1_ja7xlq8 wrote
Maybe, unbeknownst to us, the galactic federation correctly identified that there are four distinct highly intelligent species on earth:
Octipodes, Jumping spiders, Brazil nuts, and Jeff (Jeff being unique in that he is the only one of his species, he’s not going extinct, there just always been one of him)
HaniiPuppy t1_ja9p413 wrote
Jeff is terrifying since he got those nuclear bombs.
SeaboarderCoast t1_ja7vr32 wrote
Maybe Humanity has created new sentient creatures / robots / whatever.
1 seat for Humanity
1 seat for Sentient Robots
1 seat for, idk, cat people or something
1 seat for the State of Florida
Spozieracz OP t1_ja7wmcs wrote
Also a good idea. However, it sadly reminds me that I still haven't received my genetically engineered catgirls.
SeaboarderCoast t1_ja7xkkl wrote
And Russia still hasn’t made a good enough case for ‘Russian’ being a different enough species from humans to get a separate congressional vote. It might just have to wait a little bit.
_i_am_a_dragon_ t1_jae6lpq wrote
Why not dragon girls?
Spozieracz OP t1_jaeah78 wrote
Now you are talking in my language!
SamuelVimesTrained t1_ja7sys1 wrote
>-Maybe we underestimated some animals?
No maybe about that.
People underestimate animals almost always.
MajinBlueZ t1_ja841me wrote
Huh. I assumed it was poking fun at how homogenous most alien races in fiction are, and that humans get multiple seats because they're the only one with multiple races (e.g. we get a seat for a white person, a black person, an Asian person and a Hispanic person).
Spozieracz OP t1_ja85z3t wrote
It was just my interpretation. Yours may be as valid as anyone else's. I encourage you to write if you have an idea.
rietstengel t1_ja7zxnn wrote
You mean Sapient species. All animals are sentient. Its humans that are Sapient. People confuse the 2 all the time, but the easy way to remember is that Humans are Homo sapiens and not Homo sentient
Spozieracz OP t1_ja88v4y wrote
Yeah, you are probably right. I'm not exactly as fluent as I'd like to be.
jmwills t1_ja88tz8 wrote
if high school Latin serves that should be Homo sentiens, as in "feeling man" (as opposed to Homo sapiens, "discerning man").
TimReineke t1_jabew3n wrote
Sapient/sentient is my Berenstain Bears. I could swear their definitions have flipped since college in the mid-2000s.
yuligan t1_ja846j5 wrote
There are technically 4 human senators in the galactic senate, but they're in the senate the same way Puerto Rico technically has seats in the US senate. The 4 humans are only there because the other aliens senators demanded comic relief, but the galactic senate is a large building and everyone needs a human laughingstock in sight.
PM_ME_shaved_leg t1_ja8l818 wrote
This would be a good prompt in /r/humansarespaceorcs too
VacuumInTheHead t1_jacspxw wrote
I'm pretty sure the word you meant is sapient, not sentient. There are around 1 million sentient species on Earth
Spozieracz OP t1_jactv0e wrote
i cant even define any of these two words
VacuumInTheHead t1_jacvaz6 wrote
Spozieracz OP t1_jacxczb wrote
It's not so simple. Dozens of philosophers have tried to do this since the dawn of history. How are we supposed to define inner experiences if we don't even have a way to tell that the people we talk to have them identical to ours.
VacuumInTheHead t1_jad0djh wrote
Make assumptions, humans are pretty fucking good at that. If that isn't good enough then design studies, run experiments, attempt to extrapolate unobtainable data. If you find that to be lacking, just define the words more succinctly to incorporate the obersved traits of other species.
I think, however, that the words are already succinct. We can classify many species according to the definitions of the two words. Of course, jamming 1 million species into a dichotomy is mcfucking stupid. We can use more words, create new words, or eliminate the species that don't fit (which is what we do, historically) (I took a break from writing this for reasons and now I don't know where it was going. This was not intended to be rude or anything; I'm not sure if it could even be interpreted as such. I just thought it would be fun to write)
Spozieracz OP t1_jad43n4 wrote
Well, we don't define species by words but by holotypes.
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