a taste for desert landscapes

A philosophical friend asks:

Imagine if an advanced life form was discovered on another planet.

We learn that it has the potential to end our own existence (by some manner or other: war, disease, colonisation, etc.).

Bear in mind that the threat is only potential. Indeterminate. This life form may threaten our own existence (for various discerned reasons) and it may not. It’s fifty-fifty.

Let’s make it more interesting by saying that this life form might just as easily enhance our own existence (a new Jerusalem, no less). But it’s fifty-fifty.

Either we’re doomed. Or good times are coming.

Luckily (or not), we have the ability right now to eliminate this life form. In fact, we have just one chance to exterminate it (for reasons I won’t go into), but we must act now or that chance will evaporate.

To eliminate this life form (which is actually no different to us – it’s almost as if it’s us from around 65 years ago (pre-nuclear)) – we nuke their planet so as to kill its entire population of 6 billion.

What to do?

———————————————

Good question. Here’s my answer:

Are we wondering what to do from a “moral” standpoint, or from a “prudential” standpoint? In other words, are we wondering what’s best for everyone concerned, or wondering how best we can further our own interests, and hang the rest of them?

From a moral standpoint, in other words assuming everyone’s interests should be given due consideration, it doesn’t matter whether they all die or we all die — as long as we’re all equally sentient, equally reluctant to die, and equal in number. But taking action that we know will kill 6 billion (of them) would be worse than doing nothing, which merely might or might not kill 6 billion (of us).

Why worse? — When we act rationally, we should take account of two things: the desirability of the goal, and the likelihood of achieving it. The undesirability of the result of 6 billion dead is the same whether they die or we die, from the presumed moral standpoint, but the likelihood of achieving the two results are different. If numerical measures of these things are available (and they usually aren’t) then a potential course of action has an “expected value” — what you get when you multiply the desirability of the goal and the likelihood of achieving it. For example, a lottery ticket that gives you a one-in-three-million chance of winning a million dollars has an “expected value” of 33.3 cents. So it isn’t worth parting with a dollar for such a ticket, although it is worth parting with 30 cents for it.

If we count the death of each alien or human as “minus one”, then the expected value of taking action that will certainly kill all of them is minus six billion. The expected value of not acting — with a mere fifty-fifty chance of all of us getting killed — is minus three billion. Minus three billion is bad, but it is not as bad as minus six billion. So if we take account of everyone’s interests, we should not kill these aliens.

Now let’s think about it from a “prudential” standpoint, in other words considering our own interests in isolation, with the aim of acting out of pure self-interest. Again, we have to weigh the pros and cons against each other. The likelihood of us all getting killed by them versus all of us getting something very positive from them is stipulated to be the same — fifty-fifty. But I’m not convinced that we are really able to imagine that. Our estimates of the desirabiltity or otherwise of their “gift”  depend too much on what we are able to imagine them giving us.

In my opinion, it’s very hard to imagine aliens giving us anything so positive that it cancels out the negativity of instant death. Knowledge beyond anything we have so far dreamed of? — Big deal! — The world is already full of knowledge that I haven’t acquired yet as an individual, because it takes too much effort to acquire it. Eternal life? — Impossible! Eternal youth? Extended life? — These are undeniably attractive, and I’m trying to imagine an alien life form bringing these things, but I’m finding it awfully hard…

Given that it is so much easier to imagine all-too-familiar negative consequences than positive consequences, from the purely self-interested, amoral standpoint it seems rational to “press the button”. It seems to me that in fact almost all life on Earth has evolved to follow a similar rule: “if in doubt, kill it, and if you can’t kill it, run away from it!” Immoral though killing aliens surely is, and unbecoming as running away seems, it’s probably “rational” from that purely self-interested viewpoint. Alas, natural selection rarely misses a trick.

All of the above is stipulated on our knowing practically nothing about these aliens. But as I have tried to illustrate, that is a very difficult exercise. Can we really imagine an “advanced” life form that doesn’t threaten our very existence? If they’re that advanced, surely they’re that dangerous too?

If we had some clear indication that they had malicious intentions, it might be a good idea to wipe them out first, even from the moral standpoint. Why? — We might not just be doing ourselves a favor, but a favor to the “next planet on their conquest list”. If they’re trying to kill us, they’re probably “comfortable with killing”.