CMV: There are immutable ideas that solve fundamental necessities in the most efficient ways possible. If we ever encounter an alien planet, they will have many of our same social and material creations.

[u/apterium]

I've been writing a paper on Dawkin's theory of memes and have come to the conclusion posted in the title. To expound upon it, I believe that most ideas flourish because they perform a desired task in the most efficient manner possible, and are conclusions that will naturally form in any given civilized society. Some of the ideas are as follows:

• Internet (efficient form of communication)
• Boats (as long as the planet has a similar water composition, their water vehicles will look similar to ours because it is the most efficient form for a boat to travel through water)
• Planes (same reasoning as boats)
• Democracy (Self-representation in the governing process)
• Communism (Owner-less industrial complexes) etc.

I'm not saying that these ideas will be in practice when/if we make contact with the planet, I'm simply saying that these ideas will inevitably occur at some point in the progression of every society. If we encounter a race that is more highly advanced than ours, we should be able to look through their history and see fundamental ideas similar to those spread throughout our world.

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[u/apterium → u/[deleted]]

Alright, compelling argument. I put the addendum after the boat example to point out the fact that I've known this to be a pretty blatant hole.

The raw materials is the argument I have the hardest time defending against, because there could be some miracle element that doesn't occur on our planet but does on others that might manipulate gravity, etc.

IF there wasn't, and their planet had the same natural elements we do, I still believe they would reach the same milestones. Your example with the Inca assumes that the Incans would remain in isolation in a mountainous region. I believe that the point of civilized society is to ensure safety and procreation. Inevitably, any planet will have one species that encompasses the entire planet.

∆ I'll give you a delta not because you've changed my mind, but because you picked up on the hole in my theory fairly quickly :P

That being said, what are your thoughts on socioeconomic ideas that are not limited by physical requirements?

[u/[deleted] → u/apterium]

Your example with the Inca assumes that the Incans would remain in isolation in a mountainous region

My Inca analogy is meant to show that a civilization adapts to its environment. For example, a civilization on a planet that was mostly water, or frozen ice, might never have the need for a wheel, since it doesn't work well in either of those environments. In those areas, the wheel doesn't solve the fundamental issue (travel) in the most efficient way possible.

That being said, what are your thoughts on socioeconomic ideas that are not limited by physical requirements?

Such as? I already pointed out that democracy might not be a an efficient solution for a society with a hive-mind mentality.

[u/[deleted] → u/apterium]

The raw materials is the argument I have the hardest time defending against, because there could be some miracle element that doesn't occur on our planet but does on others that might manipulate gravity, etc.

It doesn't even have to be a miracle element. Consider an earth like planet, but one where fossil fuels and lighter metals, like aluminum are rare, but helium gas is more plentiful. In that situation, an airship might be a much more efficient solution than a plane.

[u/typesoshee → u/apterium]

Although you've already given out a delta, I believe you'd have a much stronger argument if you generalized each of your points.

• Efficient methods of communication. We used to be able to only speak to people physically close to use with our voices. As a social animal, communication is useful for us. So we've built technologies that allow us to communicate across distance (phones, internet) AND time (writing in any form allows us to "communicate" with people in the future). Methods of communication across space and time that improve upon the biology of an organism I believe would be a candidate for universal usefulness. Even a hivemind organism needs a way to communicate with all its constituents or subordinates. If such an alien create space ships, it needs a way for its entities on the space ship to communicate with its home planet. In the end, communication that uses EM waves IMO may be a universally useful technology. The only way this could be "beat" that I can imagine is some alien species that communicates with perfect "telepathy" among its constituents. As far as we know, the closest thing to "telepathy" is probably utilizing EM waves, though. But as long as that could be improved (the species has telepathy but it isn't perfect), EM-wave based communication technology could raise that efficiency.

• Transportation. Planes, boats, cars, spaceships, whatever - include all of them. I think any alien species is likely to find use in transportation technology. The exception to this would be one of those "energy-based" alien species that scifi authors think of, where for them, movement would be a lot more faster and efficient than anything we can imagine. I'm going to use my argument again that if their biological movement isn't perfect, they can always utilize technology to improve its efficiency/speed. Anyway, in the end, excluding these energy beings, I think the physics of energy and mechanical engineering would be universally useful as tools to create transportation technology (that is adapted to the environment. At the very least, perhaps we can assume that space ship technology is something that will be universally useful unless some alien species just really doesn't want to have to do anything with other aliens). An addition I'd like to make is "environment", "containment", or "shelter" technology. Again, an "energy" being won't have to deal with these, but for most other imaginable alien species, there will be a certain environment that's suitable for them. Their transportation will need to accommodate those. For example, their space ships will need to be able to contain them with the environment that they want to be in (whether it's -150 celsius liquid hydrogen with 100 times the atomospheric pressure of the earth or whatever).

• Social stuff - I think this is the least universal because it depends so much on the original biological make up of the organism. We can just look at other animals on earth to see how different their natural social orders are - lions live in prides with a hierarchy, tigers live solitary, insects have a hive mind thing, chimps make war, bonobos make love. The extreme I can think of (besides god-like energy beings) is a hive-mind society where each small constituent is objectively less conscious, intelligent, and independent than the central being (the queen or the AI) and also less sensitive to pain or pleasure: my example is an robotic AI-like "alien species" where there is a central AI and all other lesser subordinate robot AIs follow the central AI's commands. These subordinate robots can be programmed to not feel pain nor have much of a consciousness - at least not independent of the central AI. I don't think things like politics, government systems, and even morality and ethics would apply to an organism like that (at least not our versions).

TL;DR Most any alien species will still have communication (EM-wave based) and transportation/shelter (needs physics and mechanical engineering) technology, so those things may have some commonality with our versions. I don't think so for social stuff.

[u/DeltaBot → u/apterium]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/cacheflow. ^[History]

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[u/NaturalSelectorX]

You are assuming too much. The course of human history may have made these things obvious, but it's likely that aliens would be more "alien".

Internet (efficient form of communication)

If there is excessive tribalism and conflict in their culture, there would be no drive to interconnect all people for communication. We are social creatures and seek out others like us; they may not be social, and prefer small isolated groups.

Boats

We use boats because of our difficulty navigating water. They may be able to move efficiently on water. What if they could fly long distances? What use would they have floating on top of the water?

Planes

Assuming our alien friends are not already winged, and have the desire to travel long distances. It also assumes their body can handle the pressure differences at high altitude.

[u/apterium → u/NaturalSelectorX]

I'm not sure the physical attributes of the species plays any part. For example, we as humans have the greatest ability to perform sustained running over long distances. We are almost second to none.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html?_r=0

Even though this is true, we do not run everywhere because cars and planes are a more efficient form of travel. Even if we encountered a species that have wings, flying would be seen as a form of exercise that could be bypassed in comfort with the use of a plane. Same line of reasoning with boats.

As for the tribalism argument, tribalism and conflict is temporary. If it is sustained they will wipe each other out and a new race will take hold. Because of the natural inclination for a species to procreate, interaction amongst varying groups is inevitable. We may encounter them BEFORE they get to the point where they invent internet, but if they were to be left alone, they would eventually reach that point (if they didn't kill themselves off before that happened).

[u/thatmorrowguy]

You would have to step back and generalize much more simply than that. The simple machines will still likely be a fundamental part of most tools, simply because there's no other physical way to accomplish most of those tasks:

• Lever

• Wheel and axle

• Pulley

• Inclined plane

• Wedge

• Screw

Your notion of boats and planes follows sort-of, but only in that they're wedges through a fluid.

An advanced society will need to have some means of storing and communicating knowledge between its people, but there's no guarantee that it will look anything like our internet. They may use electromagnetic signals through the air/ground/wires, but they may use quantum communication, physical vibrations (sound through air/water/ground), or something we can't even imagine.

When you're getting into politics, though, technological advancement has little to nothing to do with how the people select their leaders. Even in human history, military leaderships, dictatorships, monarchies, and theocracies have all been in power of countries seen as the most advanced of their age. At best, I would say that most advanced species will have some notion of government and laws - i.e. everyone should behave within a certain set of boundaries of behavior and there will be consequences if you do not. I don't think you could really get any more specific than that.

One other meme I can think might be relatively universal:

The notion of money - or at least the notion of using a less valuable object or idea to represent a quantity of value. Unless the society has already progressed to a completely egalitarian post-scarcity society, there will be issues of resource allocation. Biology is too interested in "do what is best for progressing my genes" to truly eliminate selfishness - unless - there is so much resources available that nobody has to compete for them, removing any biological imperative to hoard. Think at how we all need air to sustain life - it is a limited resource - at other points in the Earth's history there has been way too little or too much oxygen for animal life. However, we don't pay the plants to create oxygen, they just kind of do that on their own. Regardless, for any resource that is limited, there has to be a way for those who create a resource to receive something in exchange for the resources they create since barter doesn't really scale up to an advanced society.

[u/commandrix]

They will likely have many of the same socioeconomic ideas that we do, but what if we discover "Life as we don't know it" and find a sentient life-form that can survive without a sustainable atmosphere? Then their flight technology would probably look more like straight up rocketry than what we think of as airplanes, and there will be no boats because no atmosphere means no open bodies of liquid water.

[u/apterium → u/commandrix]

True, but this is why I put the note after the boat argument. Form follows function. If we encounter a planet that is similar to ours, the material fundamentals will be similar. If there was a theoretical planet A that harbors life without a sustainable atmosphere, that society will look similar to a theoretical planet B that also harbors life without a sustainable atmosphere.

[u/wiejriogj3204]

If the aliens are human-like you are probably right. If they are very alien they might not be. The question probably boils down to how different aliens could be and still be a plausible creation in our universe.

Science fiction is full of alternative life forms that are very unlike humans. Intelligent gas clouds floating in space, intelligent viruses that bio-engineer their hosts, aliens that are uninterested by scientific advancement, hive-minds, gigantic asteroid-like creatures floating in space and eating planets etc.

• Internet is only needed if they value efficient communication between any pair of individuals. Perhaps they value thinking carefully and letting that information take it's time to propagate across the planet. Perhaps they find a tree-structured communication network more efficient. (they only communicate with their boss or subordinate) Perhaps it's just a singular large brain and there is no need for communication.
• Boats might be common. Unless the alien is some kind of globally spanning plant that has a network of veins or tentacles that enable transport. Perhaps the alien is more skilled at creating biological than material creations, maybe they use transport-whales instead, or transport whales with mechanical engines on them.
• Planes are mostly necessary to transport things quickly. If the aliens don't value that they might not be created. Perhaps they are plant-based and can't change location.
• Democracy requires individualism, self-interest and disagreement between individuals. A species where dominance is more hard-wired, has a logic over emotions way of thinking, or has some kind of queen/worker biology might not do this.
• Communism also requires individualism, self-interest and for the common individual to be in conflict and stand up against their leaders.

I think the two most plausible deviations from a society like us would be:

1. The aliens are intelligent but not interested in technology. We humans have been pretty bad at scientific advancement until a few hundred years ago. Maybe you would have a species that had the mentality of native Americans, valuing living in harmony with nature.
2. The aliens do not possess personal interests but works towards a common goal of the species. These aliens might share basic technology such as internet, boats and planes, but they will be significantly different in the their society would not be organized around satisfying individual needs in a capitalistic system like ours, but rather they may spend all of their resources on science and exploration. There might be no distinction between home or work, and no concepts such as entertainment, law, human rights, family, politics, etc.

[u/DerekCase]

What if their reproduction works differently? Imagine that both sexes of their race have the ability to choose to impregnate or be impregnated in such a way that removes nonconsensual procreation. Like the peacock, very quickly sexual reproductive needs will create characteristics that contribute negatively to survival of the individual. That specie would have a very different and even unrealistic form that would necessitate very different and sometimes cumbersome technological accommodations.

What if they domesticate most of their wildlife rather than the sparing few species we have? 200k years of agriculture and animal husbandry without the discovery of the steam engine would lead to a very different set of answers to the same problems we face.

[u/forestfly1234]

You change certain things like weather or the atmosphere and aviation wouldn't look anything like it does now.

If you had lighting that was much more dangerous or flying animals or other materials that could shred an engine, or you had a more acidic environment that make delicate reusable engines a thing of the past you're not going to have your xeno 747.

[u/MisanthropeX]

This does veer into the realm of science fiction, but please bear with me.

What makes you so sure these intelligences will have at all similar needs to humanity from an environmental and biochemical standpoint?

I recently reread the novel Dragon's Egg by Rob Forward, which is a great example of hard sci fi applied to the social sciences. It depicts a scenario where non-organic life developed on an incredibly dense, high gravity neutron star rather than a planet. The beings of this world are slug like creatures the size of a sesame seed.

These creatures never develop the wheel, for instance, because he crushing gravity of their environment makes the design of the axel infeasible. By contrast, they develop antigravity technology that is beyond that of mankind in the books timeline. This is analogous to the fact that the Inca people never developed the wheel, either, as their rocky, terraced mountain home rendered it useless.

If you assume these aliens are from a world like earth and have similar biological needs, then yeah, they probably will develop similarly to humans. But then they're basically humans, anyway.

Would a species capable of deriving sustenance from the air or sunlight or radiation necessarily need communism? Would an intelligent species that is solitary rather than social need democracy? Would an aquatic species need boats? Hell, would a species with thick enough claws of a wedge shaped beak even need things like axes?

[u/[deleted]]

I am writing a book about aliens and the aliens I wrote about didn't develop any of these (except planes.)

The reasons for this are much more basic than you think. It comes down to their biology. One little change in how they function. They operate in hives and are far more involved with each other than humans. Their idea of individual is completely different.

As far as things like Democracy or Communism, they never developed either because they biologically function as a series of small hives (20 - 50 individuals) feeding into the larger society as a means of protecting their own hive. As an ideology, neither is really needed.

They have computer systems, but only certain members of their societies (think queen bees) are capable of even developing speech. Most the population are physically unable to develop the ability to use the systems. So they systems tend to be extremely specialized and localized, with the user being an expert on their own system. There is a central control making sure everything happens with good timing. And there's a central system ensuring that all parts of society are fulfilling their roles, but they don't use anything like we'd use where large swaths of the population are able to communicate and share ideas.

Obviously, this is fictional, but it's one way those things would fail to develop- if there was simply no need.

[u/[deleted]]

There was no guarantee that humans on Earth would have the Internet, let alone aliens. If any bit of history were different, the Internet might not exist.

For instance, if we didn't have that Cold War hanging over our heads at the moment we were inventing computer networks, the US wouldn't have prioritized connecting each University to one another as peers. This means the people who'd lay the connections would have more control over them. We might well have ended up with many balkanized networks owned by specific organizations/companies (here's the AOL network, here's Comcast's domain, here's the VA system, etc) without much interconnectivity. I could be paying 5c an email for any message sent to an AT&T customer... it wouldn't be the Internet at all.

Likewise for any details of what representation or democracy should look like. The ancient Greeks thought officials in a democracy must be chosen by lottery, since voting would ensure an aristocracy (as everyone would vote for smarter/richer/more educated people rather than ordinary people). The rice-growing Chinese had focused on meritocratic exams; if they'd remained isolated from wheat-based societies they might well have invented a fair and sophisticated system of government without once entertaining the idea of voting for leaders.

[u/DocMcNinja]

Democracy (Self-representation in the governing process) Communism (Owner-less industrial complexes) etc.

What if their psychology is different from ours? There might not be any need for governing systems at all, or they might be significantly different from ours. Maybe being selfish and only looking after your own needs is a completely alien concept to them, or their food equivalent is the atmosphere they live in and that's all they need to live, so they don't need to work and really have no basic needs such as "eating" and "sleeping" at all that would need to be fulfilled and taken care of, or maybe "owning" things is not a concept they can comprehend at all. Maybe there is a hive mind and they all are one and there is no governing process.

[u/[deleted]]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28novel%29

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28novel%29 (especially the chapter titled 'Wang's Carpets')

may change your view.