Belligerent Aliens 

applies to the culture too "You people have spent ten millennia playing at soldiers while becoming ever more dedicated civilians. We've spent the last thousand years trying hard to stay civilian while refining the legacy of a won galactic war"

@Michael Bishop The klingons do have scientists, technicians etc. They just get treated with different amounts of respect depending on the time in history.

Could you please tell me in which book by Niven was that? I'd like to read it. thanks

That sounds like a wholy stupid civilisation. Not realising that machines designed shoot hot plasma at 10s to 100s thousands of kilometres can be weaponised. You dont need to be a genius to realise that. Just basic understanding of Newtons laws.

@Michael Bishop But they could only understand the intentions of individuals, not the whole race. It's like thinking all humans like to knit because they interrogated someone's grandmother.

It would also make a great metal album

Excellent reference

What I love the most about these series is the though process that is behind the discussion. In many other places where aliens are concerned I find implicit assumptions that are not addressed in any way; here in a truly scientific fashion many aspects of alien culture are though about, in a way that makes you think as well instead of giving clear answers

100% agreed. The biggest man in the room, with the most weapons, has the privilege of being able to dictate terms without much pushback, because his dominance is assured. It's "speak softly and carry a big stick." But if there are four other big guys in the room, all with different opinions, and they all have big sticks, eventually, if a decision is going to be made, there is a high likelihood someone is going to have to start swinging those sticks.

Indeed; and it’s supreme incompetence to believe otherwise. Just like anyone who doesn’t think violent self defense is viable.

The incompetent also use the taboo of violence as a weapon to be belligerent with out consequence.

Violence is the lest refuge of the incompetent, but noone knows exactly what they or anyone else is doing.

I read somewhere (I don't remember where I read it) that the line is supposed to mean that the competent either don't need to use violence or that they will realized that violence is the only answer and use it first. With only the incompetent using it last.

Do you want to make CGP Grey loose his mind? Every rule is #1, so you need infinite paper for infinite rules... :0

I would buy this.

Möbius scroll- every entry is equally first.

Or create a book like the Ferengi’s rules of acquisition 🤣. I’d pay money for that 😂

@@burbanpoison2494 absolutely underrated! xD

This was Larry Niven's presentation of the Kzinti error. Humans weren't peaceful because it was their nature. Humans were peaceful because they were so good at war that they had to give it up to preserve themselves.

The Tau are more internally insidious than especially belligerent... but that's the closest exception I can think of.

Of course the Mon-keigh would call us beligerant, while ignoring the irony of that statement. (Yeah I know hypocritical, but they're Eldar what do you expect?)

@@scoutobrien3406 They literally oppose the status quo of military supremacy in the galaxy as a fundamental tenant of their civilization. Per the use of the word "belligerent" in the video they fit the description. Belligerence is not necessarily an extreme prioritization of violence.

@@Pyxis10 This Mon-keigh couldn't hear their condescension over the galactic apocalypse caused by the fall of the Eldar from their golden age.

Also the Orks.

Being a war veteran isnt admirable or anything to brag about. America destabilized 2 countries and millions of lives were lost… for what exactly? Money, oil, expansionism, etc. American and ISAF vets should be ashamed. They were duped into fighting useless wars, and dying and killing others for nothing.

​@@bbbnuy3945 Thanks for being like a lot of parts of the internet, taking any nuance out of a topic and reduce it into an blatant oversimplification. Not saying you're totally wrong or anything, just that this comment is very fitting for the current Zeitgeist of the internet.

@@AGenericFool lol somebody removed my comment. thats cowardly and pathetic. god forbid someone call out the gross veteran worship, war mongering, and american exceptionalism.

​@@bbbnuy3945 We lost money, to the tune of trillions of dollars. We never got any oil out of Iraq or Afghanistan. Where were the tanker ships? Were we flying tanks of oil out on C130s? lmao. Unless you count protecting our Saudi allies and their oil fields from actual terrorists so they can continue to sell us oil. Expansion? What land did we claim? You should be ashamed of yourself for believing internet drivel. We had a good mission. Kill terrorists. Kill bad people who murder indiscriminately and use innocents for shields. Throw a violent oppressive regime out of power in Iraq, a regime that tortured/murdered/raped their own people and made any opposition permanently disappear. Stop the flow of opium from Afghanistan (the #1 producer on Earth, over 80% of the entire world's supply comes from there). Establish a democratic government with elections. Sure it all fell apart, but we had good intentions. There's nothing for veterans to be ashamed of. Politicians and leaders are the ones accountable for any wrong doing.

@@bbbnuy3945 You do you boo. I will do me..Semper Fi

To Serve Man... It's, It's... A Cookbook!

It might be nice to be kept as a pet to a more advanced specie if they have sufficient animal protection laws.

The ol scream and leap tactic. If i recall, it is either out right stated or heavily implied that as they failed in the successive Man-Kzin wars all the most aggressive members of their groups were weeded out in a kind of rapid forced natural selection and Kzinti that understood restraint began to be more prevalent which ironically makes them far more dangerous.

@@MNewton No, it's explicitly pointed out by Louis Wu in _Ringworld_ when they're talking about how the Puppeteers were breeding both humans and Kzinti to various ends.

SERVICE GARANTEES CITZENSHIP

Which is why governments love to create a monopoly on violence.

@@Arkantos117 Governments create a monopoly on violence to defend the wealth of the rich from the needs of the poor, force is used to maintain and enhance this contradiction.

@@kushluk777 That wouldn't explain removing the right to defend yourself with violence.

@@Arkantos117 It is why government are REQUIRED to create a monopoly on violence. Can't really be the 'one true authority' if you let your citizens ignore your edicts or make their own rules. Although, the recent creation of 'anarcho-tyranny' is interesting (that is, when citizens break your laws to achieve an end you agree with, you do not prosecute, but when they break laws to do something you disagree with, you throw the book and all of your manpower at them).

HOO SAIS WE FAYLD HYOOMIE!!! I'S KRUMP YA'S GOOD FOR DAT ONE!!!!

I don’t think we need a scientist or study to evaluate an obvious truth. The foresight to sacrifice some of today for tomorrow is an encapsulation of why humans aren’t still living in caves.

Absolutely socioeconomic status plays a major part. I found it supremely odd that “Childhood Adversity” was on that list.. and would that would think it to actually be be a barrier of success.

@@sidpomy Sometimes "obvious truths" are actually just confirmation bias. Delaying gratification is not why we got out of caves at all, that's just a narative with no factual basis in history.

@@anxez I’ll never understand people’s desire to be willfully ignorant. Agriculture itself is rooted in delayed gratification. The reason we wait for a trial by jury instead of rushing to revenge. Investing in our children. Pursuing an education that costs decades of time and effort before benefiting monetarily. I’m not saying delayed gratification is the only factor - but it is quite obviously an essential one. Anyone wanting to obfuscate that with some class-based argument is nothing more than a fool. And to be even more clear as I know how this will be taken, class is a huge factor in success as well, maybe the most important one. But that doesn’t invalidate the behaviors that created the success rich elite leech off of. And attacking or undermining such behaviors is the wrong way to address any societal problems you have with an intractable elite class.

@@sidpomy Agriculture is actually the thing I was referring to not being rooted in delayed gratification. That's simply a narrative. What it initially came from was overcollection. It was not food insecure people choosing to starve a little to grow food, it was actually happy and healthy people putting away their extra. And the same can be said of those kids: It's not that delayed gratification was some genetic edge that their parents had, its that being comfortable gave them the opportunity to consider the future. Even education and trials are only things that well off societies can participate in. The ability to delay gratification is enabled by prior comfort. And thus your simple 'common sense' analysis turned cause and effect on their head and got them completely backwards.

I think it's more likely that we are "the ancient aliens". We did everything that fits the bill. Stacking rocks in a triangular shape? Check. Making crop circles? Check. Probing other life forms? Double check, we even probe each other.

Well, do remember that we are in the first 1% of the Universe's Star making lifetime and the 1st 0.1% of the stellar age. We might as well be in the Precambrian era as far as interstellar life is concerned.

@@mvalthegamer2450 Are we? I thought we were in the last 90% of the universes life span if entropy and heat death is to be believed. Stars are not created anywhere near as much as they were a few billion years ago

@@ethanieldude1 Not even close. Isaac has already made a series of videos about this, look up Civilizations at the end of time series

Our existence suggests it isn't that rare. But it's still pretty rare. 99.999% of life in the universe is single cell and abundant.

Terra Invicta is a promising new game in development

@@HelloFellowHooman Looks nice! Looking forward to that now

Stellaris bro

Happy Arthurs day :)

Yautja - Predator series.

I am going to mention that previous to ww1 there wasnt a war of great powers for almost 100 years. Meaning that the great empires of the world managed to stop each other from war after the napoleonic wars. While war was more normal then and those empires were still having some minor wars, the dramatic reduction in level of violence started at the very least in the last two hundred years. So even while nationalistic views of the time previous to the world wars did consider violence a acceptable answer to insults in a geopolitical level, and acceptable in a lot of moments at more normal scales, the concept of reduction of violence being a priority is older, even if by not much.

@@joapercan6887 that's fair. I may he biased reading about recent events in history such as animal extinction not really being a consideration in the recent past, people would just kill them for fun with no regulation. Also pre internet wae crime was a pretty popular past time. The mai Lai massacre for example was a minor incident at the time but if it happened today it'd be international news and there would be violent riots about it. Literally American presidents were made popular for their prejudices. Not to undermine Andrew jackson but he was elected president for his many victories over the natives as a soldier, could you imagine that being a thing today? But many of these thoughts could be western ideology. I'm not sure if many russians or Chinese people feel that violating human rights are incorrect. I Literally don't know so I don't say this insultingly but would the average Chinese citizen publicly complain if china violently invaded Taiwan? I actually don't think so.

@@Artak091 I don't know what to tell you. From my understanding, depends on context, but i don't think that inclusion of all the evils of colonization would be completely valid. For example, while the actions of europeans killing thousands in other continents would'nt matter to other europeans, relatively minor incidents in war between european countries would have a similar level of dislike that what we would see in modern times. After all, is not like the concept of reduction of violence started everywhere about everything at the same time, it's something that advances slowly but constant. And yes, probably the chinese would'nt care about Taiwan, at least a considerable percentage, we are talking about a country that constantly promotes nationalism after all.

Peaceful? The White countries are falling apart after hosting the third world, becoming the third world. Governments are cracking down on many sorts of free speech or movement over a flu that has yet to be isolated.

@@dansmith1661 I am sorry but, you believe that Africa is in better condition than the European Union, that has inside the fourth, seventh and nineth bigger economies of the world?

Depending on the society, looking down on someone could be your culture's way of trying to improve them. For example, in Japan, if you start getting a bit too fat, most people will start commenting on it and trying to push you to lose weight. Do that for every aspect of one's life, and you could definitely have a society where looking down on someone is the right thing to do.

Plus, my understanding is that the Klingons that are seen most readily are the human equivalent of recon military vessels, special forces and border patrols. I can't imagine that doesn't bias the kinds of people who are encountered

Worf's arc made it pretty clear that the warrior image was propaganda for the young, stupid and forigners. In the time of TNG Klingon culture was much more like the mordern American oligarchy riddled with the corruption of cowards, using a mask of violence in order to manufacture consent.

@@cartermclaughlin2908 Consider how the image of the US military is presented and manipulated for people living in rural Afghanistan or Iraq. Or even China and Russia, as rivals. Both by friend and foe the image of a nation is often closer to a travel brochure or scathing criticism than a perfectly even handed assessment.

@@cartermclaughlin2908 I wouldnt go that far - if anything, i would compare Klingons to various periods of Japan

@@mattjk5299 Also, soldiers in our own societies generally like to brag a bit and present strength whenever possible. Particularly when in the presence of a potential threat, which every alien species must be considered until evidence says otherwise. The humans who first met the Klingons had absolutely no idea of their history. They had previously overthrown and exterminated an alien race that had invaded and conquered them centuries before, and thus had no trust of aliens. They had resolved to never again be subjugated by aliens, and would conquer them first if necessary to protect the Klingon race and eventually empire. If you're honest about our own species, can you really blame them for treating humans as dangerous and potentially a threat to contend with?

Such short lifetimes though! I wonder if research has been done on why their life cycle is so short

Terra Invicta!

Would this be mostly males during rut, must, etc? The most consistantly belligerent creature in my woods... Is the Owl.

Yes though it implies alot of combat, though well predicted combat because this implies they don't generally need to pull new troops. It also means the society views freedom differently then us.

@Lawofimprobability maybe for a civilization that can put people on ice, technology or biology. You have the warrior cast sleeping except for training and battles.

only if you have very little technology as high technology implies an ease of quickly training up soldiers & lesser relevance of non-autonomous/semiautonomous fighting forces.

I think an advanced civ would just switch on the hegemonizing Von Neumann swarm. All your enemies are now easily recyclable paperclips....

I don't know, but considering it was Florida man, it wouldn't be hard to figure out it was something stupid.

The aliens were probably crocodylomorphs.

On the last paragraph I'd add the qualifier that provided the orders don't break a recognised law of warfare they should be followed. I think that if you acquiesce to (for example) killing children or participating in a genocide, even if following orders, you are morally culpable.

As said by a rating on a coast guard cutter... War is not something that any entity can really control in a meaningful sense, this has been proven time and again.

Agreed about the Moties.

roaches are not generally intelligent though. they can't make technology & so it's not a vary good comparison

And yet when we are long gone roaches will still be roaching

@@Cardan011 true dat

@@Cardan011 And their descendants will build spaceships and go gross out the Universe. :0

Humans are amazingly.good at holdimg.mutually.incompatible beliefs, I do agree.

so the Filters solution

@@virutech32 Is that what my idea is called? When you combine several solutions, it's the filters solution? Or did I misunderstand that?

Thus the "one answer" would be: the dice are loaded very heavily against the idea of a spreading interstellar civilization, for all these reasons...

@@kevincrady2831 The light barrier being unbreakable would do that by itself.

Then the debate that there is enough gold floating in space a single shipment will reduce gold from $3,000 per oz to $50 per kg. My two RPG shop over the years had many debates on .. break away civilizations. Which provoke, .. a.) " If we can't leave neither can you !" b.)" Well if you don't like American, then leave and go live somewhere else. !" c.) " We left centuries ago, and your government is now trying to collect .. back taxes ?"

@@krispalermo8133 "If we can't leave neither can you." I do not claim that it is impossible to leave the solar system, just difficult. FTL travel requires new physics, that we don't have at the moment, and starting interstellar travel with an FTL drive would be like going from hollowed out oak log boats directly to the cruise ships of today with no steps in between. I just believe that a more likely scenario would be: interplanetary travel and colonization for 100-200 years, then slower then light interstellar travel for maybe 500 to 1000 year with speeds increasing from 10% of light speed to maybe 50-75%, and FTL technology first after that time and technological development. I also expect FTL to involve quiet a lot of energy, like a significant fraction of the output of the sun. If FTL took less energy than that, we should probably have some clues on how to do it by now.

@@snowman8241 I like your reply and view regarding space travel. But my statement of, " If we can't leave neither can you." I should have added more detail. It was in regards to dealing with people who have no drive or are cowards that refuse to improve their own lives, and to feel better about their own cowardness they don't want you to do better yourself. I came from more or less a strong religious/ spiritual background. We have a very low tolerance for lairs and Bearing False Witness. Along with 17 years ago my small home town had to deal with cops from Chicago trained to point drawn firearms at people and just handcuff them without given reason other than .. running ID checks .. on them. Some people have been so socially condition not to question poor law enforcement behavior. They can't question or resist it, and neither should you. Most people are so dim witted they can't grasp World of Warcraft was base off of D&D and the HeMan cartoon was Conan with rayguns. I grew up table top wargaming and working word math problems for fun. So I'm not afraid of .. math. Due to social state politics and tax breaks for hiring non locals with housing vouchers. My home town was flooded with non natives that couldn't see or refuse to understand things outside of their old neighborhood echo chambers. Then we still have a bit of the old guard in their fifties still buying into the bull zhit from the " Satanic Panic," that dungeon & dragons is bad and most of those fools hate math & science classes. So if you were in your early thirties and want to cause rumors, get called racist, or any number of bull zhit problems. Just walk up to any of the older guys at the factory and ask them about the science behind the machines at the plant. Or WW II aircraft along with space flight to the Moons of Jupiter. I am barely smart enough to just pass a junior college level math class. What pizzes off people is that I show how to work out space travel with junior high school level math. They were never raised or taught to .. think .. agiven way. Over all if you are an American, I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiven this week.

@@krispalermo8133 Sorry about the misunderstanding. My original comment and my reply was based on my expectation that interstellar warfare will be regarded as too expensive, at least for any foreseeable future and maybe forever. But I agree with you that thinking is not fashionable in our time, and has not been that for a long time. And no, I don't live in USA. I live on the Scandinavian peninsula and my native tongue is a Scandinavian language. Hence my username, I live in an area close to the arctic circle. Snow is common every winter, and a green Christmas is just about unheard of.

@@snowman8241 Well, inregards to space warfare. The base travel speeds to reach orbit then to fly to the moon are traveling 3x fast than our current aircraft anti-tank ammo. So until we create a long list of deflector shield generators and structural integerity fields to hold the craft together under high speeds. Our current planetary commerce is measure in two to five week shipping delays and not measure in months let alone in years. Odd enough our government militaries best armor tanks and warships are tin foil paper boats without any radiation shielding. And anything from Star Wars/ Star Trek are just word math exercises. Thank you for your replies and I hope you have a good up coming holidays.

Noble Bright is a genre designation, just not a popular one in today's obsession with gloom, doom, and nihilism

@@commiedeer in movies yes, but reading manga's and online novels I have encountered tons of stuff fitting for this designation. And it is as bad as it sounds.

Was it Fred Saberhagen? Berserkers. AI drones, exploring the galaxy. And exterminating all threats.

I think if the speed of light/causality does prove to be an unbreakable limit, then civilizations would only send out crippled AI with very limited ability to adapt, mutate, or otherwise technologically threaten to replace the source civ/AI. That could explain the kinetically superior, but daftly incommunicative behavior reported of things like the "tic tac”.

@@NullHand Just because it would be wise to send out crippled AI like that doesn't mean there isn't some civilization out there with the audacity to send out a group that can do more. If over millions of years, an AI group has been travelling, setting up factories, mining and refining resources to create more AI, and continuing the cycle, parts of the Universe might be teeming with this civilization's AI. Maybe not in our galaxy, but somewhere. If you can build a robot that is capable of creating not just a duplicate of itself, but a robot that is better than itself in every way, then over millions of years there could be AI groups whose parents and grandparents are other AI, etc. What might eventually reach us could be so far removed from the original alien-made device that it is foreign even to them. Though their own civilization may long be extinct by that time, the AI would remain. The initial programming for expansion would have to be the only thing that needs to remain uncorrupted from generation to generation.

The movie " Predators," in the comics and novels, the one's that hunt humans for skull sport trophies are .. poachers .. are social/ political renegades.

...quite pungent indeed....

Or how the Aztecs who turned up with the Emperor to meet with the Spanish came unpreparef because no one attacked under those conditions in their culture - the Spanish attacked and took the Emperor hostage.

I FIND THE IDEA OF A INTELIGENT BUG OFFENSIVE

well cooperation doesn't need to be built on mutual compassion only the mutual understanding that if you try to smush them they & their allies are gunna show up with lasers, railguns, & RKM's with a great justification for all the other less bigoted aliens to stay out of the conflict as we smushed first unprovoked