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[–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

But if a civilization is peaceful, would it exterminate another just because they are a threat? It seems quite ruthlessy egoistic. Maybe they would just intervene at some specific point, without extermination but by somehow gatekeeping our expansion and letting us live without spreading evil.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I think of it the same way as the paradox of tolerance. If a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance.

    If a peaceful civilization allows the expansion of a non-peaceful society, it could spell the end of the peaceful civilization.

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  • As even a type 1 civilization it costs you almost nothing to send a big ball of death a few million years into the future to wipe out a possible future rival.

    The timescales are where things get tricky. If you wait for them to become a problem they will be a problem for millennia. and that problem will metastasize.

    Now if you have FTL figured out. I mean. Carl from accounting could wipe out all life on earth because he had a bad day.

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