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Grabby Aliens is a Terrible Model
My understanding of Robin Hanson’s Grabby Aliens argument is as follows:
Over time, most of the universe will be claimed by Grabby Aliens, leaving less and less room for other alien civilizations
Therefore, most civilizations in the universe will appear near the beginning of the universe, before the Grabby Aliens are so visible and powerful
Therefore, it’s no mystery that we find ourselves near the beginning of the universe, without other aliens in sight
Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood his argument--I’m sure I’ve lost some detail in this summary but the gist of it is that based on outside view it makes perfect sense that aliens are fairly common but that they’re not visible to us yet.
However, this is obviously the wrong perspective through which to view the issue. The outside view works on a civilizational level, yes. If we accept all premises, it makes sense that most civilizations would find themselves “early” in a cosmic sense. But on an individual level, which I’d argue is the much more relevant perspective, the vast, vast majority of individuals should be born into Grabby Alien civilizations.
So my argument is:
If Grabby Aliens exist, in time most of the universe will be claimed by grabby aliens of one sort or another
If at least one Grabby Alien civilization doesn’t immediately succumb to AI or a similar thing, the incredibly vast majority of sentient beings will be born under Grabby Alien rule
It doesn’t matter what the distributions of early civilizations is, because how individuals are born is a more relevant, powerful, and potentially accurate use of Outside View
Therefore, the Fermi Paradox has not been resolved; it’s just been transmuted into the question “Why weren’t we born into a Grabby civilization at its peak?”
(optional) If going by the outside view, I personally find it more likely that we actually have been born into a Grabby civilization, and are being fooled into thinking we’re alone. This is highly speculative though.
There are of course large weaknesses to using the outside view at all, but I’m just trying to use all the same premises that the original argument did. It frustrates me to see so many rationalists essentially dismiss the issue as solved now that a prominent rationalist has come up with an argument against it, when the argument is so weak.
I’d love to hear what you guys think.
I think we should withhold judgement of these things until we're more advanced.
Right now, we understand about 5% of the energy in the universe. 'Dark' matter and energy that makes up the overwhelming majority of everything. My pet theory is that these are the aliens we're looking for. I think that Dyson Spheres, Matrioshka brains and black hole harvesting is a suboptimal use of resources, that it's not worthwhile for a truly advanced civilization. True masters manipulate dark matter/energy, they couldn't care less about Baryonic matter. Baryonic matter is for beginners - advanced nations on Earth don't burn animal waste or wood for fuel anymore. It's not efficient. Aliens don't care about the stars. That's my explanation for Fermi.
But I don't know because we aren't wise enough to understand these things. I think a lot of theorists overreach. We don't have quantum gravity. We don't understand 95% of the universe's energy. We're only 300-400 years into the Scientific Revolution, we haven't even developed fusion power! How can we pontificate on the billion-year scale? How can we speculate on the methods of civilizations vastly superior to our own?
For sure, but I do still like disagreeing with people on their terms.
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