Humans are the weirdest aliens?

hey sorry to interrupt but can you guys move the bodyweird stuff to a different thread?

i bet aliens might actually be surprised at our limited mobility, though

 

I still love the idea, no idea where it's from (tumblr probably) of the alien gameshow "Is It a Dog?" mostly because we're not even that good at telling. We can get it most of the time, yeah, but there are still cases like the one where a guy took a muddy fox into the vet to get cleaned up, or someone took a bear cub to a dog shelter thinking it was a lost puppy, or flashback to that one time at a campsite I made kissy noises at a timberwolf for fifteen minutes because I thought it was one of the camp's dogs. If the species with a symbiotic relationship with dogs can't always tell, what chance to aliens have?

 

I have personally gone outside at night, seen an animal trotting down the opposite side of the street, and made dog calling noises. Instead of stopping, it sped up to get away from me, and that was when I realized it was a coyote.

 

alien: what do you mean that isn't a dog? It's knee height, furry, has the tail, and is on a bloody leash. That's definitely a dog!

game show host: sorry mate. it's a cat.

 

Aliens: at least humans can't go up vertical walls
Humans: Are you sure about that.

 

I was sure that was going to be this video

 

Conclusion: Humans can go up vertical surfaces in a variety of ways and walls are not enough to contain them.

 

Suggestion: Human neuroplasticity is really weird.

Like, our brain can rewire considerable amounts of its function, either if brain tissue itself is damaged (and not immediately lethal) or if you lose a major body part or sensory input. Blind people use the bit usually used for visual processing for auditory purposes and depending on how the aliens are build (say, if they got ganglia instead of a 'brain') that might be deeply unsettling to them.

 

So, this post, along with other stuff such as a communication studies workshop I went to last week, made me think of a few things.

Humans just spontaneously breaking into song, which sometimes involves non-verbally coordinating themselves in a way an alien observer might be sure has to involve some kind of hive mind, is something really odd. Particularly how powerful it can be sometimes.
This is where that workshop I mentioned becomes relevant. It focused on another symbol of a political turning point (the pledge of allegiance of the Corsican territorial government to the Corsican people and not the French state, sworn on an Enlightenment-era defense of the Corsican revolution), but there was an aside on what immediately followed it, which the speaker also considered an important turning point: someone in the crowd started singing the Corsican national anthem, which was picked up by everyone else, including the opposition politicians. The speaker then remarked similarities to the Singing Revolution in the Baltic states, which he personally witnessed. One could also mention the role of Va, pensiero in Italian reunification, and its role in Italian politics. Or protest songs as a whole. Or this. Or a lot of other stuff I can't directly source because I either forgot the name and exact context or the songs are copyrighted and not publicly available.

Basically, human crowds spontaneously singing in a really oddly coordinated manner is a thing that happens, and it can cause, to put it simply, shit to get real.

 

@palindromordnilap
Kinda related but the way people get really emotional about songs to? I'm sure everyone's had had that moment where a song just hit you right into the shatterpoint for some reason and suddenly All The Emotions are happening.

 

I feel like aliens would find the differences in emotional response to the same song by different humans really fascinating/confusing. Like, initially attributing it to the meaning of the song or the lyrics alone, thinking that the literal message was what caused it, and then being perplexed when that's not the case.

Like, I can listen to Steve Earl's "The Mountain" all day except for the cover by Lost Dog street band, because that was the version we played at my dad's funeral. My friend can't listen to the original version of "The Boxer" without crying, but the mumford and sons cover is fine.

So aliens are like "why does one cause these emotions but the exact same thing doesnt???" and the humans are like "no its just the difference in the music and the association with it"

"But they're the same!"

"No they're not!"

Aliens baffled that something as small as change in a song's cadence and/or main instrument is enough to cause such a strong reaction in humans.

And lord, don't even talk about key shifts. Play All Star in minor key ONE TIME and by the second verse every human in the vicinity is yelling and deeply uncomfortable

 

I liked bohemian rhapsody on our work pandora once, because I love that song and wanted to hear it nonstop. Pandora misunderstood what I wanted and thought I wanted to hear songs like bohemian rhapsody. Cook at work also loved that song. Everyone did.

So one slow day, when I heard the opening tones of bohemian rhapsody coming out over the speakers, I ran and got the cook and dragged him out to the dining area to do and epic duet.

Then the lyrics started.

It was a cover.

I have never seen anyone look so disgusted in all my life. I've never FELT so disgusted. I was hype to have a sing along to one of my favorite songs, and all of that turned sour in less than a second, all because it wasn't Freddy Mercury singing. It absolutely matters whether or not it's a cover, you hypothetical aliens.

 

Don't forget getting emotional about instrumental music. I could see aliens that didn't really do the music thing being like, "Hmm, I see, these creatures form an emotional connection to the sound of another one's voice, and the other sounds are intended to complement that sound and clarify the timing for the vocalist," and being very proud of themselves that they've Solved It when they see people being emotional over songs with nonsense lyrics or in a language the listener doesn't speak, and then they see somebody crying over a piano piece and are like, "...??????"

 

OK but consider riddles. Humans as a whole love shit like puzzles, crosswords, sudoku, what have you. We sit down for fun trying to work out crosswords where the hints are ridiculous wordplay and invest time and effort. Sometimes for prizes and sometimes just for the fun of it.

 

Puns! And the really, really old classical riddles like "I guard a golden treasure in a chest that has no lock" (the answer is 'an egg' and I'm probably misremembering how exactly that riddle goes) and other ones from Middle English where we're pretty sure we've lost the exact answers because the language shifted.

 

Another fun Space Orcs detail: we invented cars before inventing brakes that worked on them.
(Sadly, the link doesn't provide source for the brakes bit, which is only in the French version. But basically the wooden braking mechanism was completely useless at any relatively high speed.)

 

gotta go fast! what do you meant, gotta stop too?

 

I think I saw this floating around tumblr but what if instead of space orcs humans are on the smaller side of alien life so are more like space cats to the point that other aliens start taking us on their ships to be pets.

I can just see a ship with a human pet getting invaded and the human springing into action with a wrench or something and taking the invaders out while their owners just look on in udder amazement and horor that their pet could do that.

 

hey i heard this for the first time because of this post and that was incredibly unsettling thanks

 

Oh hey y'all there's a book i just bought called Humans Wanted. It's a short story anthology about humans in outer space and is super hopeful and awesome about the concept of what humanity brings to the intergalactic table. I bought it a few days ago, stayed up until 3 am reading it, and absolutely love it. Definitely worth a read if you have four dollars to spend. (I bought the paperback copy ($14) because this is my favorite concept right now and want to own more things.)