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The Grabby Values Selection Thesis: What values do space-faring civilizations plausibly have? — EA Forum

forum.effectivealtruism.org · 3,640 words · saved by 1 readers

Summary: The Grabby Values Selection Thesis (or GST, for short) is the thesis that some values are more expansion-conducive (and therefore more adapted to space colonization races) than others such that we should – all else equal – expect such values to be more represented among the grabbiest civilizations/AGIs. In this post, I present and argue for GST, and raise some considerations regarding how strong and decisive we should expect this selection effect to be. The stronger it is, the more we should expect our successors – in worlds where the future of humanity is big – to have values more grabbing-prone than ours. The same holds for grabby aliens relative to us present humans. While these claims are trivially true, they seem to support conclusions that most longtermists have not paid attention to, such as “the most powerful civilizations don’t care about what the moral truth might be” (see my previous post), and “they don’t care (much) about suffering” (see subsequent post). Spreadin

The Grabby Values Selection Thesis: What values do space-faring civilizations plausibly have? — EA Forum Hide table of contents What values will control the Future? The Grabby Values Selection Thesis: What values do space-faring civilizations plausibly have? by Jim Buhler May 6 2023 5 min read 12 52 Forecasting Grabby aliens Cultural evolution Extraterrestrial intelligence Instrumental convergence thesis Long-term future Space colonization Trajectory change Value drift Value erosion Value lock-in Frontpage The Grabby Values Selection Thesis: What values do space-faring civilizations plausibly

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