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| Re: Is that your best response? | |
| Posted By: scarab | Date: 3/7/10 3:57 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: Is that your best response? (Stephen L. (SoundEffect)) : I would make the explicit comparison that to the Covenant in general, humans : were not placed in any higher regard than ants. They weren't viewed as : equals and were probably barely acknowledged as sentient. That is so not a reason to like them. And... I recognize every Covenant species as sentient and worthy of respect. I believe that the Golden rule applies to them and any dealings that I would have with them. I do not believe for one second that the Covenant species are unable to recognize us as sentients. They do not mistake us for ants. They know we have are a technological species, they know our language, can converse with us, and know how we think. They know THAT we think. They understand us enough to trade insults and banter during battle. Some Elites have expressed admiration for us. The Covenant is a collection of sentients, they are used to meeting aliens and recognizing them as fellow sentients. Any highly intelligent, cooperative, social animal needs to have a theory of mind, the ability to know that another thinks and to guess what another is thinking. You could not have a successful social, technological, cooperative society without that ability. All the Covenant species, except perhaps the Hunters and Drones, fall into the intelligent, social, cooperative category. I think that everybody knows what I mean when I say intelligent and social. What I mean by cooperative is that they need to act cooperatively in order to get things done. Duh! But its more than just multiple pairs of hands engaged in a task. Its having the ability to negotiate with others. To understand their needs and motivations so that you can influence independent minds to get them to do what you want. (As opposed to an insect society where things are achieved by being of one mind.) Independent minds are minds that have their own agendas. You need to negotiate with them to get the most out of them. In order to do that you need to be able to know/guess how they tick. To know when to use the carrot and when to use the stick. To know what is the carrot for those individuals. The Covenant has politics and conniving and scheming between members of different species. That can only work if the species involved understand members of the other species. The members of the Covenant species need that ability in order to work together successfully. That ability would let them recognize that we were also like them. We really are not that alien to them. I can call someone a dog or a worm and I can treat them as less than human. But lets not make the mistake of thinking that I am genuinely unable to know the difference. I would be being mendacious, a bad person and shouldn't be 'understood' or excused for my poor behavior. The proper understanding of my behavior would be that I was being self serving and dishonest.
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