Biden knew Saddam Hussein had NO plans to attack the US. Evidence is overwhelming.

[_Gunnar]

I don't think you can assume alien races will have mentation similar enough to humans to anthropomorphize their hypothetical reasoning.

It seems to me that the mere fact of having achieved the necessary scientific knowledge and technological expertise to successfully leave the surface of their home planet, let alone their home solar system, necessarily implies possession of the same driving curiosity that we humans have.

[_honorentheos]

Most of the assumptions aren't based on biological structure but rather on the scientific principles that we observe at play.

As noted, evolution seems necessary for species to arise on a planet. For one or more of those to achieve the intelligence needed to master interstellar travel means they are competitive or have it in their inheritable traits.

The survival instinct compels a race to pursue space travel in a manner that is consistent with their own survival over that if other species. I tend to agree it's likely a certain percentage will not desire to harm other forms of intelligent life. But the realities of space travel, barriers to communication, and the kinds of reasoning that allowed them to achieve interstellar travel should also cause them to pursue avoidance rather than attempt friendly contact. And, for similar reasons, they aren't broadcasting their existance to the universe because self-preservation is likely the most universal trait shared by all life forms.

So, as I keep reiterating, the alien race that shows up on our solar system made decisions that are almost certain to result in our extermination. On the chance they can here knowing there was an exoplanet with resources but didn't know if there was intelligent life present, they came with the intention of staying because it had to have taken them centuries to make the journey. So regardless of intentions they are now a high tech presence in our solar system from whom we will pursue to learn from and take knowledge from on order to advance our own technological level. If they don't arrive and immediately exterminate us out of risk avoidance, the collision course of impeded communication and competitive species survival will result in conflict. Odds are pretty good they will awaken to this reality soon enough to still have a technological advantage and we are toast.

It's not about anthropomorphizing alien thinking. It's assuming that the laws of the universe we observe must be true everywhere. Of those, biology is the least constraining and most likely to produce very different results. But if they evolved then they are competitive and have a compelling survival instinct that privileges their race over those they might find elsewhere in the galaxy.

[_Res Ipsa]

DT: my opinion on Biden’s Coie is irrelevant. Go read or listen to what he said.

[_EAllusion]

There's a whole range of drives and motivations a being can have that, including or not including caring about the sort of species humans are, that are consistent with achieving technological capacity beyond ours. There's no "law of the universe" that requires any of the motivations listed here, or even motivations as we normally understand them in a human context, to be present in an alien species. Even our sci-fi writers, limited by a human perspective, can imagine space-faring species with with more range than that. Even if you assume humanoid survival instincts the thinking here seem still fall into the "one alien species / one culture" trope of sci-fi shows when aliens themselves could have diverse mental attitudes. After all, humans vary wildly in their thinking about how to deal with aliens, other people, and other earth-bound species.

[_honorentheos]

It isn't about compatibility with technological advancement, it's about evolution. Motivations, mental states, culture, all are wildly variable and perhaps beyond our capacity to imagine. Yet it's impossible to conceive there is another mechanism at work in the universe whereby a species would arise that isn't through the competitive forces of natural selection.

Now supposing there was a benevolent species who ventures out into the galaxy to spread the Gospel of good tech. Every species with whom they come in contact has the chance of being motivated by their own survival and, upon acquiring the tech advancements themselves, removing the competition.

Imagine this as a simulation of the spread of the Coronavirus with white dots (alien species who wouldn't engage in violence for their own survival) and red dots (those disposed to engage in violence for their own survival) mostly remaining static except for a couple of rules.

1. Once a moving dot touches a stationary dot, the stationary dot can move and multiply.

2. White dots that come into contact with red dots will become converted to red dots ( they chose to fight the red dot, becoming a red dot themselves for their own survival), or they are destroyed and the red dot begins to move/multiply.

Because of 2, white dots remain white dots by avoiding red dots.

3) Given the constraints of real space travel and communication/culture abysses that are also a result of being so alien one can't have a reliable theory of other minds regarding what an alien species is intending to do, no race knows for sure if another race is a red or white dots. You can't practice slecrive avoidance while chosing to associate with white dots because you can't know a dot is actually white.

Over time, the odds increase any dot that another dot encounters will be a red dot until it's a statitical certainty.

It's not anthropomorphizing. It's simply logical operations that say we shouldn't be trying to shake hands with aliens. Because they are almost certain to eradicate us at some point. And, frankly, humanity is a red dot for sure.

[_EAllusion]

Natural selection produces cooperative species with altruistic motives as a survival strategy honorentheos. Competition can produce altruistic populations of organisms that thrive. Human beings, which we have a lot of experience with, are capable of experiencing moral imperatives for non-human species, especially if they are seen as intelligent. That's because human populations have undergone selection for that trait. I think you have a very naïve take on evolution here.

Here you go:

https://www.andrews.edu/~rbailey/Chapte ... 600064.pdf

[_honorentheos]

Funny. When you figure out the problems with your point regarding co-evolution I'm sure you won't post about it, but I'm sure it will be a watershed day for you.

But if you like, you'll be happy to know that human strategies for respecting other life on our own planet involve avoidance as well. The more "enlightened" we've become the more we have come to realize that interference creates conditions that are unpredictable and involve unintended consequences. White dot alien races aren't showing up in our solar system. Things like the tragedy of the commons, etc., all tend to make good intentions bend to a harsh realty of competition. Competition is inevitable. Survival requires adopting strategies that help one succeed or one stops being a competitor because one is eliminated from the competition.

[_EAllusion]

Funny. When you figure out the problems with your point regarding co-evolution I'm sure you won't post about it, but I'm sure it will be a watershed day for you.

You have a high schooler's understanding of evolutionary theory that you are deriving false conclusions from and are out here lecturing me about it. Cool.

But if you like, you'll be happy to know that human strategies for respecting other life on our own planet involve avoidance as well. The more "enlightened" we've become the more we have come to realize that interference creates conditions that are unpredictable and involve unintended consequences. White dot alien races aren't showing up in our solar system. Things like the tragedy of the commons, etc., all tend to make good intentions bend to a harsh realty of competition. Competition is inevitable. Survival requires adopting strategies that help one succeed or one stops being a competitor because one is eliminated from the competition.

It's like you're a turn of the century Social Darwinist waxing about the necessity of race war. Again, selective pressures do not necessarily entail the population outcomes you think they do and because evolution can shape attitudes towards in-group / out-group behavior in an altruistic fashion. We really don't know if that's what we'd encounter or not. You keep going "hurr durr, survival of the fittest" but fitness curves can select for altruistic behavior in inter species competition, direct or indirect. If you're gonna talk about laws of nature or whatever, the principles are the same whether the resource competition is confined to Earth or interplanetary. Humans aren't Bonobos and we are cross-pressured to have a mixture of bellicose and peaceful behavior, but the range of successful strategies is not confined to human-like. Fitness curves are complex.

[_honorentheos]

Yeah that's the problem. Or, you seem to be over confident in your own understanding of how/where altruism as an evolved instinct functions in natural selection. Take E.O. Wilson's research on ants as he applied to his theory of eusocuality for example. Altruism within groups functions as a form of meta-competiton where individual fitness operates within a larger framework of group fitness that still demands success be measured in the ability to outcompete other groups for resources. Your imagined idea is essentially arguing that we can't know or predict how aliens will behave, a central tenant of my point, with the idea higher degrees of cooperation are reasonable because altruism as an evolved function of terrestrial behavior occurs in ways that appear to have some fitness benefit. Essentially, aliens almost certainly won't behave in predictable ways because aliens. But we should expect cooperation/altruism because EA thinks so. On Earth, cooperative and altruistic instincts are a small piece of the broader fitness picture. Survival instincts persevere. Red dots convert white dots.

Plus, you behave as a red dot on the internet yourself so it's fun to have that as an example. Bro.

[_Themis]

There's a whole range of drives and motivations a being can have that, including or not including caring about the sort of species humans are, that are consistent with achieving technological capacity beyond ours. There's no "law of the universe" that requires any of the motivations listed here, or even motivations as we normally understand them in a human context, to be present in an alien species. Even our sci-fi writers, limited by a human perspective, can imagine space-faring species with with more range than that. Even if you assume humanoid survival instincts the thinking here seem still fall into the "one alien species / one culture" trope of sci-fi shows when aliens themselves could have diverse mental attitudes. After all, humans vary wildly in their thinking about how to deal with aliens, other people, and other earth-bound species.

Yes we are a mixed bag so it's not good to make rigid assumptions as to what Aliens would be like. I do think an intelligent species will eliminate competition if survival is on the line, but from what I can see there is no threat from that other then if an alien species determines we may be a future threat. It would be certainly wise not to go out trying to contact a superior intelligent species until we know enough about them first. It could be that evolutionary forces tends to destroy intelligent species before they can really get started in leaving their solar system. Our evolution seems way to slow to keep up to how powerful we have become in such a short time to destroy ourselves and most species on our own planet.