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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 the question here isn't "should you, as a person expect to be born into a mostly-empty universe", but rather, "should you expect to be part of a race that has mostly conquered the universe without resistance from other aliens".
In some ways I think people are insufficiently paranoid about the implications of this question, though. I think it's likely that, a few millennia from now, we'll realize that life can be roughly modeled as
And you can kind of use this to break things down into four options.
If humanity is the first species and FTL travel is possible, then we're going to settle the entire universe with no resistance.
If humanity isn't the first species and FTL travel is possible, then this may simply be a paradox; we haven't been settled, therefore our assumptions are wrong.
If humanity is the first species and FTL travel isn't possible, then we will expand in a sphere, roughly at light speed, and eventually meet up with other species that will be less advanced than us and therefore pose little threat.
If humanity isn't the first species and FTL travel isn't possible . . . then we live in a universe full of species-spheres rapidly expanding, and we will be absolutely crushed when we encounter the first one of them.
This is concerning.
One possibility I never see represented is that maybe capping out on tech isn't actually that hard on these timescales. Maybe once you get into the rapidly expanding bubble phase everyone has the same tech and there is some defensive advantage asymmetry that robs the first mover of an advantage.
Why shouldn't the rapidly expanding sphere thing apply to earth scale conflict? Even with vast technological supremacy the west has repeatedly be unable to conquer parts of the globe it would quite like to conquer. The future of all universal species might just be infinite multi-polar cold wars, or if I dare to dream, Star Trek style interspecies cooperation.
Incorrect.
Moldbug has a piece on this which I was just reading the other week but now can't retroactively find (the wonders of living life on incognito mode), so you'll have to excuse my paraphrasing of the argument:
The West is perfectly capable of conquering e.g. Afghanistan. Because the West has nuclear weapons and Afghanistan doesn't. A handful of hydrogen bombs, and there are literally no Afghanis left alive to stop you from taking their clay and holding it in perpetuity. The West's failure to conquer Afghanistan is because the West self-restricts itself from deploying its high tech, not because the high tech ain't up to the job.
That being said, while I object to your analogy I think your overall point is sound. I can believe that after a couple more thousand years there will just be no more hyoeradvanced applied physics left to discover; the tech tree of Reality may indeed have an end that soon.
TBH, the west doesn’t have much difficulty conquering things it has strong reasons to conquer. Afghanistan was a failure because we didn’t think it was worth it to keep fighting. Same with Vietnam.
I think what you and @Butlerian are missing is that this is very much how you defend yourself successfully from stronger foes: you turn any fight into a quagmire and retain levels of enthusiasm for wanton slaughter of invaders that they cannot sustain.
The West can not conquer Afghanistan. Not because it lacks materiel, but because it lacks the will and it would destroy western society to try to manifest it. Vociferation about how you could have wiped your adversary off the map if only they didn't use successful tactics are always vacuous, whatever the tactics.
War is the art of making the enemy do what you want. Not of having the best weapons.
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