SandTrout wrote...
You are at least taking a constructive view, Toby, and I can understand your philosophy, even if I disagree.
I do hold natural principals to be more valid moral basis than much of the altruism that some attempt of force on others. No, they do not always result in violent confrontation. With separate, non-sapient species, it usually happens slowly, through famine. With populations within the same species, your idea of breeding-out the competition frequently occurs as well.
However, with separate sapient species, breeding-out the population is not an option (except for those devious Asari), and famine results in desperation, which results in violence. Out-breeding a competitor of another species only allows expansion by displacement or starvation, both of which are the most common causes of violent conflict(territory and resources).
In the Mass Effect context of Humans and Turians, even if they turians out-bred us, we would still have our territory to support our population. The turians, meanwhile, would be requiring more resources to provide for their population. In order to claim the needed resources, they would need to take territory from the humans. Humans would not willingly just hand over resources that they need to the turians, so the turians would need to result to the use of force.
I do not think that you expect species to enter into an agreement under which the most populous species can take resources and territory from those species with fewer individuals. The result would be the same, but it would be the people who's land is being taken by invaders that would be fighting.
I appreciate the tone of your discussion, and can only wish to echo it in my reply
To clarify, that eventual outbreeding I perceived (and would work toward) happening in a sufficiently 'equal rights' climate which allows for colonies, territories etc. to have multi-species populations and ownership
The situation would indeed be much more difficult when the situation is less directly about outbreeding and more a state of massive overpopulation which the galaxy's resources cannot sustain; I suppose my only response is that that would (even in the ME universe) be in long grass to the nth degree, in other words it would take a very long time for the population to reach that point. That and in my mind by that point, if we can work toward species-independant ownership of territories etc. (in other words, this territory belongs to its population rather than by the Turians or Humans), the issue of resources distribution would a drop in population which does not necessarily have to be broached down the species' lines
That may not be a very concrete solution to that long term problem, but I wouldn't contend that maintaining the species' dividing lines now so as to have a solution to a distant future issue seems if nothing else hasty. I would also like to point that that conscious species such as ours have enough cognitive plasticity so that in the long term biological viewpoints need not be the issue. In other words, our brains conscious or cognitive structure takes much more instruction in its development from cultural surrounding than it does from biological imperatives, so that species' division / reproductive insistence etc. are not permanent or necessary features of our mindset, they can and frequently are overridden
Retour en haut
but that is another point).
....tummy rubs and what ever else might be pushing it....
