I’m not sure I agree that the Anthropic Principle applies here. It would if ALL alien civilizations are guaranteed to be hostile and expansionist (i.e. grabby aliens), but I think there’s room in the universe for many possible kinds of alien civilizations, and so if we allow that some but not all aliens are hostile expansionists, then there might be pockets of the universe where an advanced alien civilization quietly stewards their region. You could call them the “Gardeners”. It’s possible that even if we can’t exist in a region with Grabby Aliens, we could still either exist in an empty region with no aliens, or a region with Gardeners.
Also, realistically, if you assume that the reach of an alien civilization spreads at the speed of light, but the effective expansion rate is much slower due to not needing the space until it’s already filled up with population and megastructures, it’s very possible that we might be within the reach of advanced aliens who just haven’t expanded that far yet. Naturally occurring life might be rare enough that they might see value in not destroying or colonizing such planets, say, seeing us as a scientifically valuable natural experiment, like the Galapagos were to Darwin.
So, I think there’s reasons why advanced aliens aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive with our survival, as the Anthropic Principle would require.
Given, I don’t know which of empty space or Gardeners or late expanders is more likely, and would hesitate to assign probabilities to them.
I’m not sure I agree that the Anthropic Principle applies here. It would if ALL alien civilizations are guaranteed to be hostile and expansionist
I’d be interested to hear why you think this. I think that based on the reasoning in my post, all it takes is one alien civilization to emerge that would initiate a galactic x-risk, maybe because they accidentally create astronomical suffering and want to end it, they are hostile, would prefer different physics for some reason, or are just irresponsible.
Most of the galactic x-risks should be limited by the speed of light (because causality is limited by the speed of light), and would, if initiated, probably expand like a bubble from their source, again, propagating outward at the speed of light. Thus, assuming a reasonably random distribution of alien civilizations, there should regions of the universe that are currently unaffected by that one or more alien civilizations causing a galactic x-risk to occur. We are most probably in such a region, otherwise we would not exist. So, yes, the Anthropic Principle applies in the sense that we eliminate a possibility (x-risk causing aliens nearby), but we don’t eliminate all the other possibilities (alone in the region or non-x-risk causing aliens nearby), which is what I mean. I should have explained that better.
Also, the reality is that our long-term future is limited by the eventual heat death of the universe anyway (we will eventually run out of usable energy), so there is no way for our civilization to last forever (short of some hypothetical time travel shenanigans). We can at best delay the inevitable, and maximize the flourishing that occurs over spacetime.
I’m not sure I agree that the Anthropic Principle applies here. It would if ALL alien civilizations are guaranteed to be hostile and expansionist (i.e. grabby aliens), but I think there’s room in the universe for many possible kinds of alien civilizations, and so if we allow that some but not all aliens are hostile expansionists, then there might be pockets of the universe where an advanced alien civilization quietly stewards their region. You could call them the “Gardeners”. It’s possible that even if we can’t exist in a region with Grabby Aliens, we could still either exist in an empty region with no aliens, or a region with Gardeners.
Also, realistically, if you assume that the reach of an alien civilization spreads at the speed of light, but the effective expansion rate is much slower due to not needing the space until it’s already filled up with population and megastructures, it’s very possible that we might be within the reach of advanced aliens who just haven’t expanded that far yet. Naturally occurring life might be rare enough that they might see value in not destroying or colonizing such planets, say, seeing us as a scientifically valuable natural experiment, like the Galapagos were to Darwin.
So, I think there’s reasons why advanced aliens aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive with our survival, as the Anthropic Principle would require.
Given, I don’t know which of empty space or Gardeners or late expanders is more likely, and would hesitate to assign probabilities to them.
I’d be interested to hear why you think this. I think that based on the reasoning in my post, all it takes is one alien civilization to emerge that would initiate a galactic x-risk, maybe because they accidentally create astronomical suffering and want to end it, they are hostile, would prefer different physics for some reason, or are just irresponsible.
Most of the galactic x-risks should be limited by the speed of light (because causality is limited by the speed of light), and would, if initiated, probably expand like a bubble from their source, again, propagating outward at the speed of light. Thus, assuming a reasonably random distribution of alien civilizations, there should regions of the universe that are currently unaffected by that one or more alien civilizations causing a galactic x-risk to occur. We are most probably in such a region, otherwise we would not exist. So, yes, the Anthropic Principle applies in the sense that we eliminate a possibility (x-risk causing aliens nearby), but we don’t eliminate all the other possibilities (alone in the region or non-x-risk causing aliens nearby), which is what I mean. I should have explained that better.
Also, the reality is that our long-term future is limited by the eventual heat death of the universe anyway (we will eventually run out of usable energy), so there is no way for our civilization to last forever (short of some hypothetical time travel shenanigans). We can at best delay the inevitable, and maximize the flourishing that occurs over spacetime.