An... interesting hypothetical

[andreas3K]

If I'm hungry, I will eat. And if that means killing most of them and then farming the rest, then so be it. But hopefully I don't have to go that far.

 

[hittite]

EDIT: By the time the environment became contaminated beyond repair, it is plausible that life could have evolved to cope. Which would also support the reasoning behind there only being one form of carbon life.

Non-sufficient amounts to kill would not likely have established a driving evolutionary pressure and lethal amounts would have made the organism extinct. You'll notice that despite Arsenic being something like in the top 15 elements composing our bodies, we still don't have an organ specializing for dealing with it - and inorganic forms of it are particularly difficult for our metabolism to deal with.

What I'm questioning is the existance of a specialized organ. That requires significant and constant evolutionary pressure, organisms with it must have survived particularly well in comparison to carbon-based ones without it. But at the same time, I believe such concentrations would have been inherently lethal to the point of inducing extinction. Not to mention arsenic-based life-forms competing for space and resources being far, far more suited to the environment.

And yet supposedly, the carbon based life was the one to reach sapience - meaning it had sufficient energy available for the development of a brain.

I'm not buying that. Everything I know of biology and species development(which admittedly is restricted to basic university courses) just screams at me "this is not right."

As impressed as I am by the discussion you two are having, I have to point out that you're completely missing the point. I came up with this as a thought experiment, not to be plausible or even possible. I knew there were massive holes in the logic when I came up with it, but that's not the point. The point was to set up a situation in which a person has to choose between two abhorrent outcomes. Admittedly, I sort of failed at that, as a large portion of the above posts will attest.

 

[rubinigosa]

If they are as intelligent and friendly as you say I would have ask them if they would have any idea on what to do and maybe they would make it so that I can eat the fruits and live in harmony whit them.

 

[Talshere]

EDIT: By the time the environment became contaminated beyond repair, it is plausible that life could have evolved to cope. Which would also support the reasoning behind there only being one form of carbon life.

Non-sufficient amounts to kill would not likely have established a driving evolutionary pressure and lethal amounts would have made the organism extinct. You'll notice that despite Arsenic being something like in the top 15 elements composing our bodies, we still don't have an organ specializing for dealing with it - and inorganic forms of it are particularly difficult for our metabolism to deal with.

What I'm questioning is the existance of a specialized organ. That requires significant and constant evolutionary pressure, organisms with it must have survived particularly well in comparison to carbon-based ones without it. But at the same time, I believe such concentrations would have been inherently lethal to the point of inducing extinction. Not to mention arsenic-based life-forms competing for space and resources being far, far more suited to the environment.

And yet supposedly, the carbon based life was the one to reach sapience - meaning it had sufficient energy available for the development of a brain.

I'm not buying that. Everything I know of biology and species development(which admittedly is restricted to basic university courses) just screams at me "this is not right."

And yet, they just found the first arsenic based life form on earth. If you'd ask almost anyone if life could exist from arsenic 2 years ago. The answer would have been a unanimous no.

If organisms began to slowly encroach on the carbon environment, then animals who ate only small amounts could slowly build up a resistance, gradually eating more and more, which may later form into an organ.

I'm not saying that this scenario is probable. People were complaining that "why cant we just eat what they do?". In a hypothetical question the reason for is irrelevant. So I just proposed an not impossible scenario for the situation to occur.

 

[Coldie]

Non-sufficient amounts to kill would not likely have established a driving evolutionary pressure and lethal amounts would have made the organism extinct. You'll notice that despite Arsenic being something like in the top 15 elements composing our bodies, we still don't have an organ specializing for dealing with it - and inorganic forms of it are particularly difficult for our metabolism to deal with.

What I'm questioning is the existence of a specialized organ. That requires significant and constant evolutionary pressure, organisms with it must have survived particularly well in comparison to carbon-based ones without it. But at the same time, I believe such concentrations would have been inherently lethal to the point of inducing extinction. Not to mention arsenic-based life-forms competing for space and resources being far, far more suited to the environment.

And yet supposedly, the carbon based life was the one to reach sapience - meaning it had sufficient energy available for the development of a brain.

I'm not buying that. Everything I know of biology and species development(which admittedly is restricted to basic university courses) just screams at me "this is not right."

Both "flavors" of life-forms are Carbon-based. Arsenic is a substitute for Phosphorous, part of the power source ATP, not the Carbon super-structure. There are mechanisms the organism will use against As poisoning - and long-term low dosage As exposure may lead to resistance - but there is no way to control your dosage when every potential food source contains lethal amounts of toxin.

Either way, a group of Phosphorous-powered lifeforms thriving in a highly toxic environment and not dying out in a single generation? Either they are aliens themselves and are secretly replicating their own food and they have ways of dealing with As poisoning - or a Wizard did it. In which case you're better off eating him asking him to conjure you food. Eating the "natives" is out of the question. They will have increased toxicity no matter what organ or technology they use to filter As out of their bodies.

Unless it's magic, in which case, go see the Wizzard. He's likely to be completely insane (and will kill you), sadistically evil (and will torture and poison you), or a neutral scientist, researching the clash between two hostile biologies (will either kill or evacuate you to prevent contamination of the experiment).

And yet, they just found the first arsenic based life form on earth. If you'd ask almost anyone if life could exist from arsenic 2 years ago. The answer would have been a unanimous no.

Carbon-based. There is currently no known life based on anything other than Carbon. The bacteria they found substitute As for P in Adenosine TriPhosphate, the unit of cellular power. So they are Carbon-based, but "Arsenic-powered", if you will, as opposed to the "classic" ATP-powered.

 

[Mikester1290]

You don't have to eat a whole inhabitant, just slice an arm off. Or something.

Probably could make an arm last a week if you wanted. Also, hunt the fastest ones down first, leaving only the slow chubby ones behind to fend for themselves, you guys gotta think ahead on these things.

Another thing:- Wear a Predator suit, how cool would that be?

 

[EllEzDee]

So what are the natives eating?

Ok, i see where you're coming from, like "how are they surviving". Ok.

My thoughts are "what are they eating", as in, if i eat them, what are they going to taste of? You know, like corn fed chicken.

 

[Zacharine]

EDIT: By the time the environment became contaminated beyond repair, it is plausible that life could have evolved to cope. Which would also support the reasoning behind there only being one form of carbon life.

Non-sufficient amounts to kill would not likely have established a driving evolutionary pressure and lethal amounts would have made the organism extinct. You'll notice that despite Arsenic being something like in the top 15 elements composing our bodies, we still don't have an organ specializing for dealing with it - and inorganic forms of it are particularly difficult for our metabolism to deal with.

What I'm questioning is the existance of a specialized organ. That requires significant and constant evolutionary pressure, organisms with it must have survived particularly well in comparison to carbon-based ones without it. But at the same time, I believe such concentrations would have been inherently lethal to the point of inducing extinction. Not to mention arsenic-based life-forms competing for space and resources being far, far more suited to the environment.

And yet supposedly, the carbon based life was the one to reach sapience - meaning it had sufficient energy available for the development of a brain.

I'm not buying that. Everything I know of biology and species development(which admittedly is restricted to basic university courses) just screams at me "this is not right."

And yet, they just found the first arsenic based life form on earth.

Living in an arsenic lake. It wasn't living in an environment we would consider safe or healthy to carbon-based life.

What you are suggersting is the complete opposite of that and I would be more willing to accept it if we did find a non-carbon based life sharing an environment with carbon-based life. Or complex carbon-based life living as a significant population in extremely hostile and toxic-on-metabolism-level entivornment.

If organisms began to slowly encroach on the carbon environment, then animals who ate only small amounts could slowly build up a resistance, gradually eating more and more, which may later form into an organ.

And there would have to be a sustainable population in there, not only with resistance and later immunity to arsenic providing a significant advantage but they would also need the chance to actually survive. While being at a sufficient complexity that the resistance/imunity manifests as an organ instead of a metabolismic mutation.

So I just proposed an not impossible scenario for the situation to occur.

I get that. But I do not get how the scenario you propose is any _less_ impossible than 'magic of the OP commands it'. it is exactly the same problem, but only thinly veiled with scientific parlay.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

Nature has put me as the predator... I'll eat them

*supicious look* you are not alien, are you?

 

[hittite]

So what are the natives eating?

Ok, i see where you're coming from, like "how are they surviving". Ok.

My thoughts are "what are they eating", as in, if i eat them, what are they going to taste of? You know, like corn fed chicken.

You know, I'm kind of surprised you're the first to ask that.

In answer, I don't have a specific answer. I would say they are palatable, but have a vaguely unpleasant aftertaste.

 

[EllEzDee]

So you'

So what are the natives eating?

Ok, i see where you're coming from, like "how are they surviving". Ok.

My thoughts are "what are they eating", as in, if i eat them, what are they going to taste of? You know, like corn fed chicken.

You know, I'm kind of surprised you're the first to ask that.

In answer, I don't have a specific answer. I would say they are palatable, but have a vaguely unpleasant aftertaste.

So you're saying i'm starving to death on some crazy island, and i'm forced to murder and eat the locals, only to find they taste like dirty gym socks? Thanks, but no thanks. Unless of course there's some kind of space-juice on this island that i can wash the taste away with.

In all seriousness, i couldn't kill to sustain my own life. But then, why am i happy with the mass slaughter of defenseless animals who, as your empathetical statement goes, "[are] intelligent, friendly, and peaceful. They have done you no wrong." That's what i'd love the answer to.

 

[shwnbob]

I'd eat them for awhile. Maybe at night while their asleep so they don't expect it's me. I'll sneak into their houses and eat them, maybe even leave behind the bones to freak out the rest of the natives. Then, after awhile, when they figure out that it is me and come looking for me in the woods I'll set traps all over and kill them off, one by one, and eat those bodies. So yeah... I think I'll be good.

 

[Unesh52]

I'd eat them. I'd eat them all. I mean, if I ever got off the planet and maybe managed to come back, I guess I'd give my life over to them, but I'd eat them to stay alive.

EDIT: By "give my life," I mean I'd beg forgiveness and do what I could to benefit their kind.

 

[PrimoThePro]

Tell them of my plight, and hope they either, say, supply me with condemned criminals to eat, or help me find another way to get food.

Interesting. I like love these hypotheticals. I think I would do what Jedamethis says. If that is impossible, then I think I would choose death.

 

[sagacious]

Neither, eat the ones that die naturally.

Over a whole planet, surely there would be enough ones dying to feed you.

Actually, scratch that. This prompt makes no sense, If the natives are edible, then presumably they are made of the same stuff as the stuff they are eating is made of. So if you eat the stuff they are eating, you will get the same nutrition as they get. Basically you just cut out the middle-man.

That is, of course, unless the intelligent natives pull their nutrients straight from the ground.
which seems unlikely. Why would a stationary being have any need of sentient intelligence?

this is getting too complex.

 

[hittite]

So you'

So what are the natives eating?

Ok, i see where you're coming from, like "how are they surviving". Ok.

My thoughts are "what are they eating", as in, if i eat them, what are they going to taste of? You know, like corn fed chicken.

You know, I'm kind of surprised you're the first to ask that.

In answer, I don't have a specific answer. I would say they are palatable, but have a vaguely unpleasant aftertaste.

So you're saying i'm starving to death on some crazy island, and i'm forced to murder and eat the locals, only to find they taste like dirty gym socks? Thanks, but no thanks. Unless of course there's some kind of space-juice on this island that i can wash the taste away with.

In all seriousness, i couldn't kill to sustain my own life. But then, why am i happy with the mass slaughter of defenseless animals who, as your empathetical statement goes, "[are] intelligent, friendly, and peaceful. They have done you no wrong." That's what i'd love the answer to.

Ah, I guess I was a little ambiguous there. By 'intelligent', I meant that they have human level intelligence.

And I meant for the flavor to be more 'bland but filling' than 'dirty gym sock.'

 

[Gudrests]

So what are the natives eating?

Alien planet. Alien biology is, by definition, alien. They can eat the native plant and animal life just fine, since it's their home planet. It's only incompatible with you because you aint from around there.

Besides, that's not the point. The point is what you would do.

Declare myself god and demand sacrifices....and ya know...experiment with some food...it might work with some sauce...everything tastes good with sauce

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Disscuss the situation with natives.

See what they think, work something out.

 

[Teh_Lemon]

It depends on how much we could learn from each other. If neither of our existences are benificial to either of us in any way, shape, or form, I wouldn't bother. Naturally, however, the fact that we're aliens to each other is enough to satisfy a curiosity of mine- so I'd ask for their dead.

 

[Lord Legion]

I would probably feed off the dead caused in the wake of all the smallpox, bubonic plague, flu, and cold epidemics let loose in the moment of contact...if they are as intelligent as we are and have a global infrastructure, not much will be left of their civilization. I'd probably die myself from some horrific otherworldly disease.

congratulations, you reeeaally pissed off the jedi with this hypothetical quandry.