On Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 4:45:45 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

Your argument depends upon what YOU assume "their" goal is. What do you
THINK would happen to a civilization (or an individual) if all their
problems were taken care of for them?

"Any man who thinks he can be happy andÂ*prosperous by letting the
government take care of him had better take a closer look at
the American Indian." -- Anon.

This may be a good point, but I'm not making assumptions about their _goal_..
Rather, since individual human beings have rights, and no natural creature is
fundamentally superior to a human being in the way that human beings are
superior to beasts by virtue of having a bit more technology or being a bit
smarter, the ordinary obligations of being a witness to an emergency where one
has the power to intervene without risk to oneself apply.

For little things, non-interference to permit a culture to develop normally may
be reasonable.

The Holocaust was not a little thing.

In general, though, although I am in disagreement with you, I have not been
inclined to argue the point. It seems to me that for some reason, you want the
Universe to be so organized as to demand a certain kind of thinking from people
- and you have just seized on advanced aliens, instead of the traditional God of
the Christian religion, as a means to the same goal.

Thus, your position appears to me to be based on so many, and such profound,
false assumptions that meaningful discussion is almost impossible.

John Savard