Would extraterrestrial intelligences harm humanity because of our greenhouse gas emissions?

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.4462

Would contact with extraterrestrials benefit or harm humanity? A scenario analysis

Seth D. Baum,¹ Jacob D. Haqq-Misra,² & Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman³

1. Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University. E-mail: [email protected]
2. Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University
3. NASA Planetary Science Division

Acta Astronautica, 2011, 68(11-12): 2114-2129
This file version: 22 April 2011

While humanity has not yet observed any extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), contact with ETI remains possible. Contact could occur through a broad range of scenarios that have varying consequences for humanity. However, many discussions of this question assume that contact will follow a particular scenario that derives from the hopes and fears of the author. In this paper, we analyze a broad range of contact scenarios in terms of whether contact with ETI would benefit or harm humanity. This type of broad analysis can help us prepare for actual contact with ETI even if the details of contact do not fully resemble any specific scenario.

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An interesting and important case of universalist ethics in this context is when civilization itself holds intrinsic value. ETI that support this ethical framework would seek to maximize the total number of civilizations, the diversity of civilizations, or some other property of civilizations. All else equal, such ETI would specifically wish for our civilization to remain intact. But all else may not be equal. It is plausible that such ETI might try to harm or even destroy us in order to maximize the number/diversity/etc. of civilizations. This could occur if our resources could be used to more efficiently to generate or retain other civilizations, though this possibility seems highly remote given how efficiently tuned humanity is to its environment. Alternatively, such ETI could seek our harm if they believe that we are a threat to other civilizations.

The thought of humanity being a threat to other civilizations may seem implausible given the likelihood of our technological inferiority relative to other civilizations. However, this inferiority may be a temporary phenomenon. Perhaps ETI observe our rapid and destructive expansion on Earth and become concerned of our civilizational trajectory. In light of the Sustainability Solution to the Fermi paradox, perhaps ETI believe that rapid expansion is threatening on a galactic scale. Rapidly (maximally) expansive civilizations may have a tendency to destroy other civilizations in the process, just as humanity has already destroyed many species on Earth. ETI that place intrinsic value on civilizations may ideally wish that our civilization changes its ways, so we can survive along with all the other civilizations. But if ETI doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us. A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies.

It is worth noting that there is some precedent for harmful universalism within humanity. This precedent is most apparent within universalist ethics that place intrinsic value on ecosystems. Human civilization affects ecosystems so strongly that some ecologists now often refer to this epoch of Earth’s history as the anthropocene. If one’s goal is to maximize ecosystem flourishing, then perhaps it would be better if humanity did not exist, or at least if it existed in significantly reduced form. Indeed, there are some humans who have advanced precisely this argument. If it is possible for at least some humans to advocate harm to their own civilization by drawing upon universalist ethical principles, then it is at a minimum plausible that ETI could advocate harm to humanity following similar principles.

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[arcane1]

1. Perhaps they are the force behind climate change denial

hoping to terraform our plant into something more suitable to their metabolism

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. The Arrival

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115571/

[arcane1]

3. Thank you!!! It was killing me trying to remember the title...

All I could remember was the creepy backward knees :)