“I agree, any intelligent being, human or alien, should be protected, but we also need to protect ourselves,” said Miranda. “Let’s ignore the intelligence issue, what are they capable of, physically? If they are granted the full scope of human rights under the law, then their bodies, their persons, would be protected under the Fourth Amendment. We could possibly never know what they are capable of until it’s too late.”

“Then that is a totally separate question as to whether or not they have full, natural human rights under international law,” Cora butted in, not giving Satomi one millisecond to step in. “Your reasoning is that there should be a separate category based on species, where the only real difference is intelligence or physical capability. The same discriminatory rationale could be used against any human person or any group of human people. Believe me, the ETIs I’ve interacted with do have some cognitive advantages, but they are not so much more intelligent than us as to be unfathomable. Saying that, for instance, high intelligence makes someone a threat to existing human-built systems could apply to anyone, human or alien. That’s discrimination.”

“No serious person in favor of the Third Option is making an argument that they are less than we are,” Miranda said. He looked frustrated. She had gotten him playing defense.

“But you aren’t advocating giving them different rights, you are advocating to give them fewer rights. You would have to select what, exactly, about them makes them liable to exploit the system of human rights that every country has already agreed on. Let’s say it’s intelligence— is intelligence the reason to say, ‘You don’t get access to full human rights’? If that’s the case, the same argument could be applied to an exceptionally intelligent human, and that would be discrimination. And if we are a part of an interstellar community, and the very first thing the most powerful country on Earth does upon learning about persons outside their own planet is to declare them as unworthy of the full scope of human rights that we grant ourselves, how can we even hope to ask their civilization to see us as equals?”

“We wouldn’t have the right to ask that,” said Miranda. “And either way, that isn’t the issue at hand. The issue is domestic, the issue is about protecting our way of life and our systems, not dictating how other advanced civilizations used theirs.”

“It doesn’t matter if you say it isn’t ‘fewer rights’; that is how their civilization will see it. There are aspects about the human experience they don’t understand, but believe me, laws are not one of them. They understand how laws work.”

“Cora Sabino, Jano Miranda, thank you both for your time,” said Satomi. “We’ll be back with more Hot Seat in a moment.”

“Thank you!” chirped Miranda.