Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

AutoModerator t1_ja7ntdv wrote

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

Spozieracz OP t1_ja7prcj wrote

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.

60

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)

44

HaniiPuppy t1_ja9p413 wrote

Jeff is terrifying since he got those nuclear bombs.

8

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

41

Spozieracz OP t1_ja7wmcs wrote

Also a good idea. However, it sadly reminds me that I still haven't received my genetically engineered catgirls.

19

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.

11

SamuelVimesTrained t1_ja7sys1 wrote

>-Maybe we underestimated some animals?

No maybe about that.
People underestimate animals almost always.

28

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).

16

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.

12

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

12

Spozieracz OP t1_ja88v4y wrote

Yeah, you are probably right. I'm not exactly as fluent as I'd like to be.

5

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").

4

TimReineke t1_jabew3n wrote

Sapient/sentient is my Berenstain Bears. I could swear their definitions have flipped since college in the mid-2000s.

4

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.

5

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

1

Spozieracz OP t1_jactv0e wrote

i cant even define any of these two words

1

VacuumInTheHead t1_jacvaz6 wrote

Google

1

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.

2

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)

1

Spozieracz OP t1_jad43n4 wrote

Well, we don't define species by words but by holotypes.

2

Dirty-Soul t1_ja8b6ot wrote

"You were right." Said the alien to his colleague.

"Of course I was right. I wanted a hundred 'senators' from this planet, but given the circumstances, I'm willing to settle for four. We can breed them up if we want more." Came the reply.

"Oh we definitely want more." The first enthusiastically responded. "They've worked wonders for morale around here. They're so upbeat and affectionate. What was their species called again?"

"They don't have a species name, but one of the nonsentient vocaloid species on their homeworld calls them: 'dog.'"

6

thoughtsthoughtof t1_ja8lxwq wrote

Humans are able to feel things though alien definition might vary maybe non human and just vocal rather than vocaloid Dogs can attack other ones etc

2

YALBO t1_ja8ej3z wrote

Humans, dolphins, mice and...?

5

MorganWick t1_jaa6hln wrote

Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

3

thoughtsthoughtof t1_ja8lco3 wrote

Almost all animals count as sentient but some could represent others etc all can feel things and depends if you take sapient has wise or appearing wise how you define it

2

xwhy t1_ja9tyd1 wrote

Without creating another prompt (Unless it's wanted), the flip side would be Earth gets 0 senators because humans already gave representation

1

Bwizz245 t1_jaaktt5 wrote

Ok wait hold up. One seat for an entire species??

1