That's a really bold claim. As the only sapient species we can draw for comparison, we largely don't respect life even when it comes to our own species, let alone the graveyard of entire biomes of species we found inconvenient to the placement of our strip malls. If our space faring age is led by people like Musk and Bezos, expect generational labor camp colonies and being born into company stores you can't escape.

I hope the majority of space faring civilizations out there have more respect for life than us, but that's not a high bar. Our most advanced technologies are born out of a desire to kill one another. Power generation is a bonus we half assed upon harnessing the power of the atom explicitly to murder one another in greater numbers at once.

[–] ikanreed@mastodon.social 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@AllonzeeLV I think the basic logic is that if they're as bad as us, they don't make it past their own global environmental catastrophes.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Ah yes, I love the Great Filter concept.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter#:~:text=The%20Great%20Filter%20is%20the,detectable%20extraterrestrial%20life%20exceedingly%20rare.

https://youtu.be/UjtOGPJ0URM?si=BiiRqQqnHXqkUfsB

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah I actually edited that out right after submitting the comment, it does assume a lot.

I do think empathy in general grows in step with technological progress, if lagging behind a bit, and the chances of alien civ being benevolent are higher.