I seem to get downvoted fair amount on EA Forum, for reasons I don’t understand, and often by people who don’t leave comments; so I have no idea what their reasons are.
Anyway, I agree that using evolutionary biology to understand the likely types and natures of ‘primitive’ ETIs (before they develop technological civilizations) might be easier than using some generalization of economic history to understand what kinds of civilizations they might develop, or how their higher-order social organizations might function.
We have many examples of convergent evolution in biology; we don’t have that many examples of ‘convergent history’ in civilizations—although I’m still optimistic that certain principles of economic and social organization might apply even to ETIs.
Hi Charlie,
I seem to get downvoted fair amount on EA Forum, for reasons I don’t understand, and often by people who don’t leave comments; so I have no idea what their reasons are.
Anyway, I agree that using evolutionary biology to understand the likely types and natures of ‘primitive’ ETIs (before they develop technological civilizations) might be easier than using some generalization of economic history to understand what kinds of civilizations they might develop, or how their higher-order social organizations might function.
We have many examples of convergent evolution in biology; we don’t have that many examples of ‘convergent history’ in civilizations—although I’m still optimistic that certain principles of economic and social organization might apply even to ETIs.