Also, if some people care so much about this crusade they’re willing to go against the rest of human society and risk a huge war, then logically they ought to have mounted a huge operation long ago to sweep the galaxy looking for morally unsuitable aliens. Killing or forcefully transforming any alien species that 1) they judge to be sufficiently intelligent and 2) whose behavior doesn’t conform to human morals.
Or they might realize there’s no real upper bound on the amount of suffering that might potentially be taking place somewhere out of sight. Especially if you give more weight to the suffering or death of more intelligent individuals. In which case they might want to make an alliance with the Baby Eaters to search the galaxy for cultures so alien that they would be abominations to both species. And only exterminate the Baby Eaters once the galaxy has been swept clean.
Put like that, it seems to me to be a really bad idea. But isn’t that what follows from the Pilot’s argument? If stopping the Baby Eating is so important they’re willing to risk the extermination of humanity for it. (And there’s no way they could be sure of the Baby Eaters’ potential in a species-wide war just from reading one badly translated and possibly censored alien library for a day. So they’re proposing going to war where they can’t be sure of victory.)
Also, if some people care so much about this crusade they’re willing to go against the rest of human society and risk a huge war, then logically they ought to have mounted a huge operation long ago to sweep the galaxy looking for morally unsuitable aliens. Killing or forcefully transforming any alien species that 1) they judge to be sufficiently intelligent and 2) whose behavior doesn’t conform to human morals.
Or they might realize there’s no real upper bound on the amount of suffering that might potentially be taking place somewhere out of sight. Especially if you give more weight to the suffering or death of more intelligent individuals. In which case they might want to make an alliance with the Baby Eaters to search the galaxy for cultures so alien that they would be abominations to both species. And only exterminate the Baby Eaters once the galaxy has been swept clean.
Put like that, it seems to me to be a really bad idea. But isn’t that what follows from the Pilot’s argument? If stopping the Baby Eating is so important they’re willing to risk the extermination of humanity for it. (And there’s no way they could be sure of the Baby Eaters’ potential in a species-wide war just from reading one badly translated and possibly censored alien library for a day. So they’re proposing going to war where they can’t be sure of victory.)