The planet-sized hive of perfectly subservient ant-people with a queen who is paranoid enough to colonize the galaxy using only contemporary technology seems like she wouldn’t fall for most x-risks.
Despite science-fiction, I see little plausibility in hive rationality. So—and I may be putting my neck under an axe by this—I claim that no hive race could raise to getting anything near “contemporary technology”. Also, most of the contemporary technology usable for colonizing is already costly and/or faulty enough that someone who is “paranoid enough” (and some Prof. Moody tells us there is no such thing—but still) would be unlikely to ever leave theit own planet.
The ways in which contemporary technology is faulty do not destroy the civilzation that uses it. I mean that she does not try that exciting physics experiment that turns her first planet into a strangelet.
Could a society of hives develop contemporary technology? Imagine that each queen is human-level intelligent, in their ancestral environment there are as many hives as we had humans, and in their World War III, they finally kill off all but one queen, and now they’re stuck at that technology level.
The planet-sized hive of perfectly subservient ant-people with a queen who is paranoid enough to colonize the galaxy using only contemporary technology seems like she wouldn’t fall for most x-risks.
Note that the paper Dissolving the Fermi Paradox makes a strong case that the Great Filter is early.
Despite science-fiction, I see little plausibility in hive rationality. So—and I may be putting my neck under an axe by this—I claim that no hive race could raise to getting anything near “contemporary technology”. Also, most of the contemporary technology usable for colonizing is already costly and/or faulty enough that someone who is “paranoid enough” (and some Prof. Moody tells us there is no such thing—but still) would be unlikely to ever leave theit own planet.
The ways in which contemporary technology is faulty do not destroy the civilzation that uses it. I mean that she does not try that exciting physics experiment that turns her first planet into a strangelet.
Could a society of hives develop contemporary technology? Imagine that each queen is human-level intelligent, in their ancestral environment there are as many hives as we had humans, and in their World War III, they finally kill off all but one queen, and now they’re stuck at that technology level.