I'd also expect an advanced form of life to have discovered game theory and analyzed potential interaction with other civilizations as a sequential game with imperfect information (I'm assuming no FTL so nobody has current knowledge of anyone else's capabilities).
The results are pretty scary. PBS Space Time had an episode on this recently [1] which goes into more detail. Briefly, if you put survival of your planet over all else, "destroy aliens as soon as you become aware of them" has a better outcome for you than "contact them" or "ignore them".
It's the speed of light limit that is the problem with the "contact them" option. If they are not nice and go for destroying you, which they do by sending some heavy masses at you at relativistic speeds, you don't find out about until it is too late to launch a counter attack so there's no "mutual assured destruction" deterrent like the one that has kept us from using civilization ending weapons on Earth.
The Space Time episode does go into possible reasons that advanced aliens might not value their own survival so highly that the risk of them being destroyed by not picking "destroy" is outweighed by the benefits of contact or ignoring others.
> I'd also expect an advanced form of life to have discovered game theory and analyzed potential interaction with other civilizations as a sequential game with imperfect information
Noteworthy: all that is known is not necessarily utilized (optimally, and often ~at all).
> PBS Space Time had an episode on this recently [1] which goes into more detail. Briefly, if you put survival of your planet over all else, "destroy aliens as soon as you become aware of them" has a better outcome for you than "contact them" or "ignore them".
This demonstrates how inescapable faith is, as a cognitive & cultural phenomenon - science is absolutely overflowing with it, but cannot see it due to ideological blindness.
> It's the speed of light limit that is the problem with the "contact them" option.
The speed of light limit that is problem with the "contact them" option.
FTFY
> If they are not nice and go for destroying you, which they do by sending some heavy masses at you at relativistic speeds, you don't find out about until it is too late to launch a counter attack so there's no "mutual assured destruction" deterrent like the one that has kept us from using civilization ending weapons on Earth.
This seems fine, but it is but one theory among many theoretical possibilities. I do not disagree at all that we should put more thought into whether advertising our presence is a good idea.
Imho, humanity would be well served by allocating a larger percentage of our compute to these sorts of conversations!
I would expect an advanced form of life to be nice. Maybe humans will aspire to that some day too.