Is Mercy and Compassion Really 'Advanced'?

I know it certainly is in the science fiction genre.

A typical story is some savage earthling meets up with an advanced alien race that tells him that.

It certainly is a staple in the Star Trek series. They have had several stories like that. Here is one example: Arena (Star Trek: The Original Series) - Wikipedia

But is mercy and kindness really an 'advance' trait? I know for example that the Roman Empire was known for its brutal efficiency. Frankly so was the US. In fact we installed this bloodthirsty dictator, Pinochet, in Chile because a dictatorship was judged to be more stable.

And while we're at, even if mercy/kindness isn't advanced per se, why do people assume it is (cf. Star Trek)? And where did that idea originate? And what would an advanced alien race think if they came here to enslave us, and we told them that?

 

It is advanced behaviour because to show mercy and kindness often means overcoming our primitive survival mechanisms. Whether it's a good advancement or not depends on a person's other ideas. Personally I believe it's better to die by being kind than live through being unkind, because I think kindness and love is the point of everything.

 

I think these are advanced traits within a species.

However, it's difficult for me to imagine a civilization so advanced where resources don't come at a premium. So basically if an advanced alien species were to come to Earth or we discovered a habitable planet with advanced life forms and went there, in either scenario, I think there would be an agenda and I think we would probably only get so far with these traits.

 

Compassion requires us to step into another's shoes and imagine what it must be like to experience reality from their perspective, and as far as I know humans are the only species on Earth that can do this (although it seems I remember an article about either Chimps or Bonobos where they'd share food during hard times or something.)

However, to generalize that mercy and compassion must be an advanced trait of any intelligent species seems like a form of anthropomorphism; alien means alien, totally outside any of our experiences, paradigms, instincts and so forth. But I don't know. I try, and fail, to imagine what an alien form of intelligence could be like. It is mind bending.

 

You bring up a good point. I think I had the OP in mind and was envisioning anthropomorphic aliens, as there is a tendency in sci-fi for them to be represented as such.

Perhaps there are aliens out there that have 5,000 year life spans, are hermaphrodites with like a week long gestation and like produce their food in their body or something. Maybe I could imagine something like that travelling the vast distances in space being merely inquisitive.

Based on the evidence of life on earth, which is really what we have to go on, it doesn't seem very probable.

 

Almost exclusively, the minds that have advanced the human race, both technologically and spiritually, are the minds of kind, caring people. Not monsters.

I hope we get to the point where everyone is super advanced, because people won't be making war, then. So I assume, since aliens in UFOs seem so super advanced, they are probably kind and compassionate.

 

not much point in so called civilization without them. personally i wouldn't call any social and constructed development without them civilization at all.

this is not a matter of advancement in any linear sense, as there is no such thing as such a linear advancement.
but it is really, there's not much point in humans even having brains if they refuse to see the advantages of living in an environment of universally mutual consideration.

 

I suggest actually studying the empirical evidence, because all the evidence indicates that those animals and people that don't pay it forward, die younger and reproduce less often. Even the laws of physics suggest that matter and energy appear out of nowhere, as if manna from heaven.

Genetic studies have revealed that our ancestors lived in small isolated groups and rarely traveled more than a few hundred miles in their lifetime. Risking your neck to save a drowning kid that wasn't yours, you were still very likely to be saving someone related to you. Game theory also expresses the simple idea that cooperation and compassion are more competitive than mindless Three Stooges bullshit.

Star Trek advanced the idea that compassion and mercy were advanced traits, because modern civilization is as thick as a fucking brick, and the idiots are encouraged by even their teachers to argue the definition of stupid and who is the best example. Primitive tribes frequently joke that civilized people act like the smallest children, with the simplest jokes going right over the heads, and flashing mischievous grins and guilty looks, even when they are good people who would never do anything wrong! Get over it already, everyone around is full of crap if you haven't noticed, making illegal to vote for Mickey Mouse in Maryland.