slippery slope Dean: where do I draw the line when I allow cultural context or local community or even individual guardianship contract to be dictated by someone else's values?

For perspective take it one step higher: when humans become only one form of many intelligent lifeforms (alien or artificial doesn't matter), we'd also be 'only' cultural context, a 'local' community, the individual robot that is forced by its three laws into a 'guardianship contract' with us 'weaklings' ;) maybe then we'd actually have a good reason to protect and help along our origins, our offspring, our species ... nothing bonds humans as thoroughly as the threat of extinction.

I agree this is getting highly speculative, but I hope it illustrates my point ... after all: we're supposed to be mean and not coddle our overestimated humanity and its murky origins :D

PS: Curiously enough that's another sideline of being mean and not 'helping': 'helpers' always seem to gather quickest when there is disaster to confront in large groups of humans - few actually help to further values and individuals. Or is it just that we're not seen as 'helpers' cause we do this for our own benefit, our own values, our own worthwhile individuals and not some selfless murky idea of 'humanity'?

To be mean again: I'd postulate that if we restricted our 'help' to the second we wouldn't have much left to 'help' in the first ;)