Quote: Original post by dave j
William Shatner would burst with excitement. [wink]

Considering the rising amount of images of furies and tentacles popping up online, I would guess that quite a few people would burst with excitement XD

I'm not certain that there would be allot of racism. It all depends how well evolved their society is. If loads of them immigrates to the earth to find jobs, and are willing to work for half the salary of a human, then yes. But if they have an equally evolved society (or better), then I don't think there would be such a huge problem.

Allot of couples in inter species (not inter racial!) relationships would be targets for hate crimes just like gays, but that's not exactly racism.

Unlike most other racism, witch is financially based (we feel threatened on the job marked), racism against black people started with slavery, because of the Europeans had such a strong society (and army) compared to the Africans - We were trading with both the Asians and the Middle Easterns, so skin color couldn't be the only reason. But I believe that our world has moved on since then, and that no such thing could happen again on a global scale.

Therefore unless they're threatening us financially, I do not think that we would get any real racism.

Quote: Original post by szecs
I'm a racist, I'm only into human girls.

You mean you're a specist?

I'd say the odds are that the child would be some sort of monstrosity to both races as it would probably possess all sorts of crazy mutations.

I know this is all hypothetical to get the main issue, but, as a (hard) SF fan I feel I should add this slightly OT detail:

The chances that a truly alien species would be physiologically similar enough to allow sex, let alone reproduction, is next to nil (at least, as far biology is currently understood). There have been story devices to get around this, for example have them not be aliens but genetically modified humans, or a separate evolution of humans on a different world.

I'm not sure whether or not this makes any difference to the discussion (probably not), but I do know that I was always bothered by all those human-similar aliens in science fiction movies.

It also think that the simple fact of discovering intelligent aliens would have such a large impact on our social outlook, that the core question here is basically open to any possibility.

Sorry to get all science-y on a lighthearted question, but, like I said, I'm more of a hard SF fan...

Humans have hardwired "prejudice" response built in to different people than them, if they are close enough too us ie (just green skinned babes) then people probably can get over it and it wouldn't be any different than say an African American living in Japan.. but if say they had horns and forked tongue and spoke an octave lower than us and 3 eyes, there would be problems.. The "prejudice" response would invoke unreasoning fear and hate and it would probably lead to bad relationships..

Humans are not evolved enough to completely disregard this innate "prejudice" response, they usually socially justify it with some "rationalization" ie they are primitive peoples, lazy, untrustworthy, etc..

As for the aliens views, if they think enough like we do, they would probably think of Humans as how we think of primitive apes societies we study.. with a curious scientific fascination but you wouldn't want to sleep with one?

For Humans to be even remotely attractive to "space babes" we would have to evolve at least 2 levels of social evolution to say a level III society (ie Star Trek level, galactic level travel, etc..) before space babes will even give u the time :)

-ddn

Quote: Original post by VildNinja
Considering the rising amount of images of furies and tentacles popping up online, I would guess that quite a few people would burst with excitement XD

And an equal or maybe greater amount of people would be filled with rage. If we met a race of intelligent cuttlefish, and some of those cuttlefish attempted to court our women, how many would be outraged due to their distaste for tentacle hentai? [rolleyes] It'd be like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, where the aliens had to hide their physical appearance for a while because they looked too much like Judeo-Christian demons. Only with more Internet memes. I haven't actually read Childhood's End by the way.

Quote: Original post by laztrezort
The chances that a truly alien species would be physiologically similar enough to allow sex, let alone reproduction, is next to nil (at least, as far biology is currently understood). There have been story devices to get around this, for example have them not be aliens but genetically modified humans, or a separate evolution of humans on a different world.

I'm not sure whether or not this makes any difference to the discussion (probably not), but I do know that I was always bothered by all those human-similar aliens in science fiction movies.

Most media that explore inter-species relationships only present mere allegories of racial issues. They don't explore the fact that these are relationships with members of a separate species. And since the alien is mostly human-like, the implications are less pronounced.

Of course the chances reproduction is next to impossible, and in the slim chance that it is possible I'd expect the offspring to have some serious birth defects. [sad] I'm assuming for this discussion that the aliens are carbon-based enough that physical contact between an alien and a human won't harm or kill either one. Given the differences in physiology, sex between human and alien probably wouldn't be actual, functional sex anyway.

Are there any (hard(ish)) science fiction novels that explore these issues, by any chance?

Quote: Original post by owl
It'd be very interesting if the aliens happened to be 100 times more hot than the hottest human (according to our standards).

I for one welcome our new gorgeous overlords!

The likely scenario here, I imagine, would be that they also find us 100x less attractive.

Quote: Original post by issch

Quote: Original post by owl
It'd be very interesting if the aliens happened to be 100 times more hot than the hottest human (according to our standards).

I for one welcome our new gorgeous overlords!

The likely scenario here, I imagine, would be that they also find us 100x less attractive.

Exactly the reason why I'd find it interesting. Can you imagine the hatred that would cause among humans? heh

You people have already objectified the green skinned space babes, assuming it will be only humans that will reject the idea.

Considering a common definition of species is "a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring", then if by any impossible chance we can breed with them, then they are not even a difference species than us.

http://www.thesharkguys.com/lists/top-8-people-who-married-animals/

Done. :-)