Posted by
Jon on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:10:43 PM
Here's a
good article today from
Thomas Sowell.
It got me thinking about something I've been wondering for a while: could our species ever have a meaningful trade relationship with wolves?
Here's how I got there. The reason that Capitalism works for the human species is that we consume even when we don't need to. Something like that is alluded to in the
Glenn & Helen Show's
Fat Kids and Beer episode. We are becoming a more obese nation because we simply are capable of consuming more. In fact, it is only the rich that are capable of eating specially prepared food that is so unhealthy that they are able to stay thin. If we weren't motivated to consume whatever we could, then lower prices would not increase demand; demand would only increase until a certain point and then we would say, "Enough!" on our own.
Wolves are like that. Wolves in captivity will never get fat because they will only eat until they are full and voluntarily stop. Dogs, as any dog owner knows, won't. Dogs are happy to eat and get fat until they fall over dead from a heart attack. Whether dogs learned this from us or we kindred spirits found each other because of this or living in a human's envrionment put the same pressures on dogs causing us both to evolve in the same way is irrelevant. At least today. What I wonder is this: can a pattern of consumption like a wolf's lead to a higher species? It's tempting to think, No, if it could we'd be like that, but that's not very satisfying. It could simply be chance that, on our planet, the selective pressures and gene lines were such that we evolved exactly the way we did. But can a wolf's style of "selfless" consumption lead to the degree of sharing found in a human society? Consider: if there's a food shortage, a human will have to pay twice as much for a meal, and so each human will consume half as much. This may be below subsistance, but we're all in it together because we all have to pay; if one goes we all go. We are all motivated to produce more food because no one wants to starve. But is the amount a wolf will eat and no more mere subsistance or is there some grace amount? I suspect it's a bit more. What would happen in a food shortage? Does the pack leader eat his full, then the next one, then the next one until the lowest standing member starves? I actually don't know.
So, here's where the aliens come in (from the title). Suppose such a (socialist) consumption pattern could lead to higher life forms. What would it look like with intelligence behind it? More importantly, could humans interact with it significantly? I suspect not. Ideally, yes, but if they had something we wanted or needed and they simply decided they would produce just so much and no more, simply because they didn't want any more of what we had to offer, certainly someone would get upset? Wouldn't there be an assumption that they were "hoarding" or "stockpiling" just to spite us? I suspect it would be couched in terms of "an act of war" and there could very well be war, with Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs and the other Populists leading the charge. After all, how many people does it take to start a war? Only one, if he's charasmatic enough.