Why UPLift

Twink (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Fri, 21 Nov 1997 19:07:08 -0500 (EST)

At 07:01 PM 11/20/97 -0800, Anton Sherwood <dasher@netcom.com> wrote:
>: Though one might ask, why one wants to change the species in the
>: first place, is there any practical benefits from that ?
>
>If nothing else, to increase diversity. (Why do people struggle against
>extinction of species that nobody cares about?) Contact with foreign human
>cultures is interesting, contact with nonhuman cultures should be even more
>interesting.

Let's also add the reason the Tines gave in Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_
-- well ,not for uplifting, but for contact with many different sentient
species:
to be prepared for when we do meet ETs. (Surely, it's a long shot reason,
but who knows?:)

Daniel Ust