Do you ever think about the universe, and how aliens could quite possibly exist? What is their life like? Do they have a society like ours, or is it something completely different?
Is it more efficient and does equality exist at all? The reason I ask these questions is that I was thinking about how we do things as humans, and how awful we can be to each other.
(Humor me with these scenarios, and pretend that communication isn't an issue for a second.)
Imagine you're an alien, and you happen to land your UFO in London, you're exploring, so you get on a city bus. You see a young couple sitting together, and of the sudden a group of teenagers is yelling at them, demanding they kiss on command.
When the couple refuses, they are assaulted. You learn that they were being ridiculed because they are a same-sex couple, and for some bizarre reason, that is considered wrong. Humans are attacked over who they care about and choose to spend their life with. Weird.
Melania Geymonat and her partner, Chris were brutally attacked on a London bus for refusing to kiss. MELANIA GEYMONAT/FACEBOOK
Now, imagine you landed in the desert on the U.S/Mexico border. You wander around and you find gallons of water with writing on them, but they're slashed. You continue to walk around until you run into a few people, clearly exhausted and in need of food and water. They tell you they are migrating to the United States, but it's illegal for them to enter without the proper documentation.
They're fleeing their home country because it isn't safe, and there isn't enough work for them to stay there. U.S Border Patrol will kill them if they find them walking through the desert, so they have to be very careful, that's why you see so many slashed water bottles. They want them to die of thirst before they reach the U.S.
This planet belongs to everyone who lives on it, but there are imaginary lines that are supposed to keep people out of certain parts of this world. If you enter without a piece of paper, you will be sent back to where you came from, or worse, you will die. Dying because they're seeking a better life...that makes sense.
This time, say you landed Alabama. Segregation is alive and well down south. You learn that humans have a made-up hierarchy based on skin color. Humans don't get to choose their skin color, and if it's a shade darker than pasty, you are less of a human and do not deserve basic respect, or any rights, really. Sometimes, these darker-skinned humans are segregated into certain areas, those areas are usually lower-income, which makes it harder to live.
You also learn about a new thing called an abortion ban. Humans have the ability to grow other humans in their bodies, but they are losing the right to choose whether they want to keep the human they are growing or not. They tell you all about sex, and how sometimes sex is forced on one another, which can cause pregnancy.
It doesn't matter if the human growing it wants it or not, they have to keep it, and if they don't they will go to jail. Alabama thinks it has the right to dictate humans reproductivity because of a person living in the sky. They've never seen this person but said person told them to terminate a pregnancy is wrong.
Last stop, you've landed in Sudan. Sudan also believes in a person in the sky, but not the same person as those living in Alabama. Alabaman's believe in Christianity, people in Sudan believe in Sunni Islam. Their views are pretty much the same, the story is a little different, nevertheless, they still believe in someone in the sky watching their every move.
You learn that if you worship the Christian person in the sky openly, you could die. You also learn that many people all around this planet believe in some type of person in the sky. Although everyone has this in common, they care more about their version of the person in the sky, rather than each other.
Thinking about it from an outsiders perspective makes all of this seem pretty silly, right? Obviously, I think everyone should have the right to believe in whatever they want. However, these scenarios shine a light on issues that are occurring right now all over the world.
At the end of the day, we are all human inhabiting the same planet, so we should probably start acting like it.