Just to make sure, could this be because you [sic] assume that “intelligent life” will automatically be similar to humans in some other aspects?
It could be because they assume that. More likely, I’d guess, they think that some forms of human-displacing intelligence (like your spacefaring smart torturers) would indeed be ghastly and/or utterly unrecognizable to humans — but others need not be.
It could be because they assume that. More likely, I’d guess, they think that some forms of human-displacing intelligence (like your spacefaring smart torturers) would indeed be ghastly and/or utterly unrecognizable to humans — but others need not be.