If the entities outside our Hubble volume outnumber the entities inside it by near infinity to one, or infinity to one, then even a small preference they have about our world should be more important than strong preferences of ours.
This is what I mentioned in the “Tyranny of the aliens?” section. However, it’s not clear that human-style values are that rare. We should expect ourselves to be in a typical civilization, and certain “ethical” principles like not killing others, not causing needless suffering, reciprocal altruism, etc. should tend to emerge repeatedly. The fact that it happened on Earth seems to suggest the odds are not 1/infinity of it happening in general.
Very particular spandrels like dance and personality quirks are more rare, yes. But regarding the conclusion that these matter less than we thought, one man’s modus tollens is another’s modus ponens. After all, wouldn’t we prefer it if aliens valued what we cared about rather than being purely selfish to their own idiosyncrasies?
In any case, maybe it’s common for civilizations to value letting other civilizations do what they value. The situation is not really different from that of an individual within society from a utilitarian standpoint. We let people do their own weird artwork or creative endeavors even if nobody else cares.
This is what I mentioned in the “Tyranny of the aliens?” section. However, it’s not clear that human-style values are that rare. We should expect ourselves to be in a typical civilization, and certain “ethical” principles like not killing others, not causing needless suffering, reciprocal altruism, etc. should tend to emerge repeatedly. The fact that it happened on Earth seems to suggest the odds are not 1/infinity of it happening in general.
Very particular spandrels like dance and personality quirks are more rare, yes. But regarding the conclusion that these matter less than we thought, one man’s modus tollens is another’s modus ponens. After all, wouldn’t we prefer it if aliens valued what we cared about rather than being purely selfish to their own idiosyncrasies?
In any case, maybe it’s common for civilizations to value letting other civilizations do what they value. The situation is not really different from that of an individual within society from a utilitarian standpoint. We let people do their own weird artwork or creative endeavors even if nobody else cares.