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I agree that the pessimism is disheartening, but looking at the limited data we have, is there any evidence of an intelligent species (e.g. humans) discovering

by sgk284 9y ago

I agree that the pessimism is disheartening, but looking at the limited data we have, is there any evidence of an intelligent species (e.g. humans) discovering the presence of another intelligent species (e.g. humans) without conflict soon thereafter? Not a fan of extrapolating from single data points, but it's the best we've got for now.

malux85 9y ago
I think it will likely go beyond that. If aliens are hyper intelligent they probably go well beyond sentience to something else and may not even consider us “conscious” (or whatever they have) Then think about how we human treat much lower life forms. For example, a plant. We have no ethical issue mowing down a paddock of plants because we don’t see them as equal life forms. We have mostly no ethical issue of killing millions of cattle/sheep for mostly the same reasons. When there’s a large intelligence differential, the smarter one might not even try and communicate
- MarkPNeyer 9y ago
  Which humans? And which other life forms? Plenty of humans treat animals with respect. I see people like spiritual leaders as being far more conscious than political leaders or sociopath CEO’s. I don’t think this increased ethics is some weird quirk of spiritual leaders, but rather a deep feature of true intelligence. It would take a lot of energy and computional capacity to make it all the way across deep space. I don’t see how a species could do that if it were fighting itself at home. If it’s not fighting itself at home, why? Dictatorships are unstable because there’s always someone else who wants to be on top. The only way I can imagine a stable societ with that much reach is if the society contains individual members who care ahout each other. A house divided against itself will not stand, and a social network at war with itself can never reach the stars. If you imagine how different humanity would have to be for us to get out that far, we’d have to all be concerned with the welfare of all humans. Once empathy reaches critical mass, the bodhisattva vow becomes an obviously correct moral imperative. I think of it like a schelling point for sufficiently introspective intelligent minds. Once you’ve expanded empathy to all humans, you can’t stop there. He only way to truly care about all humans - in all their myriad forms and oddities - is to care about all beings.
  - mazerackham 9y ago
    this sounds like a dream
- pegasus 9y ago
  And yet if we'd find even the most primitive life-form on another planet we'd do the exact opposite of trampling on it.
  - mazerackham 9y ago
    until we run out of resources, develop a plan to terraform the planet, which is incompatible with the original biosphere, and wholesale destroy all life on that planet. If it ever got to us vs them, we haven't evolved past choosing us first.

by sgk284 9y ago

malux85 9y ago

I think it will likely go beyond that. If aliens are hyper intelligent they probably go well beyond sentience to something else and may not even consider us “conscious” (or whatever they have) Then think about how we human treat much lower life forms. For example, a plant. We have no ethical issue mowing down a paddock of plants because we don’t see them as equal life forms. We have mostly no ethical issue of killing millions of cattle/sheep for mostly the same reasons. When there’s a large intelligence differential, the smarter one might not even try and communicate

MarkPNeyer 9y ago
Which humans? And which other life forms? Plenty of humans treat animals with respect. I see people like spiritual leaders as being far more conscious than political leaders or sociopath CEO’s. I don’t think this increased ethics is some weird quirk of spiritual leaders, but rather a deep feature of true intelligence. It would take a lot of energy and computional capacity to make it all the way across deep space. I don’t see how a species could do that if it were fighting itself at home. If it’s not fighting itself at home, why? Dictatorships are unstable because there’s always someone else who wants to be on top. The only way I can imagine a stable societ with that much reach is if the society contains individual members who care ahout each other. A house divided against itself will not stand, and a social network at war with itself can never reach the stars. If you imagine how different humanity would have to be for us to get out that far, we’d have to all be concerned with the welfare of all humans. Once empathy reaches critical mass, the bodhisattva vow becomes an obviously correct moral imperative. I think of it like a schelling point for sufficiently introspective intelligent minds. Once you’ve expanded empathy to all humans, you can’t stop there. He only way to truly care about all humans - in all their myriad forms and oddities - is to care about all beings.
- mazerackham 9y ago
  this sounds like a dream
pegasus 9y ago
And yet if we'd find even the most primitive life-form on another planet we'd do the exact opposite of trampling on it.
- mazerackham 9y ago
  until we run out of resources, develop a plan to terraform the planet, which is incompatible with the original biosphere, and wholesale destroy all life on that planet. If it ever got to us vs them, we haven't evolved past choosing us first.