Re: Why the universe is empty...
Intelligent, sentient species construct civilization. It is an inevitable process of any sentient beings' capacity to question the nature of their existence. The process of developing civilization, then, inevitably leads to the development of society, culture, and technology, which, SHOULD, in turn, lead to the capacity to explore and colonize the universe. Technology should ultimately, then, develop towards a sentient species becoming immortal, their ability to time-travel, and their ability to travel between parallel universes. The entire universe in all space-time really ought to be populated with a vast universal civilization of sentient beings; that it is NOT thus populated should be seen as something unexpected, strange, anomalous.
In other words, that we have seen no evidence of a pan-universal civilization (let alone any other sentient species) should be a warning sign to us: that developing a space-faring civilization is very difficult if not impossible. The question should thus arise, why is it so difficult for sentient species to develop space-faring civilizations?
To answer this, we have no other reference point other than our own historical examples of the rise (and fall) of our own civilizations on our planet. In each and every case, survival instincts, base, primal, or primitive desires we have used as the prime motivators for our behavior; systems by which human behavior is motivated inevitably appeal to these base, survival instincts; the primal motivators: greed, lust, etc. Humans with the tendency to be motivated by these base motivators would then better fulfill their basic needs and thus breed more offspring than those who would be less driven by primal motivators. That there are humans without these propensities to be lustful and greedy, therefore, should be seen as something anomalous, strange, WEIRD. How it is that we even developed any awareness of higher motivators such as ethics and intelligence, or any other motivators other than those based on primitive survival instincts, should also be questioned.
Those whom we might consider intelligent and ethical, by virtue of being both ethical and intelligent, would be less motivated by base, primal motivators, and, therefore, would as such be disenfranchised from the majority. They would be virtually ostracized in a society based on uniformity; they would be less able to fulfill basic needs in order to breed in a cooperative society where uniformity, and basic, primal motivations were espoused. Moreover, by virtue of being disenfranchised and ostracized by their very tendency to be ethical and intelligent, they would tend to disassociate themselves from those who cannot perceive how unjust, inequitable, and immoral systems of civilization are; the intelligent, ethical individual, as a direct result of having transcended their base, primal, primitive motivators, would be voluntarily OPPRESSED, and, therefore, EFFECTUALLY RENDERED STERILE by their inaccessibility to the fulfillment of basic needs necessary in order to breed.
In a civilization where it is by being selfish, greedy, self-centered, lust-driven, deceitful, predatory, etc. garners one the resources necessary to breed, produce and look after offspring, those with the predisposition to be greedy, self-centered, lust-driven, deceitful, predatory, etc., would be more biologically successful. If there are any ethical, intelligent sentient humans on our planet, then, or if there are any ethical, intelligent beings in the entire universe, then, it must be seen as some sort of miraculous, unexplainable phenomenon running counter all rational probability.
The reason that the universe is apparently void of any universal civilization, or any space-faring civilization at all, therefore, is that life inevitably fails to transcend its base, primitive nature, BECAUSE any initial civilization it creates (a civilization upon which its opportunity to colonize space must necessarily depend) inevitably causes the 'de-evolution' of sentient species.
In hunter-gatherer societies, those in which humans initially evolved, it was those humans who lived in cooperative, trusting, egalitarian social relationships who were more likely to survive. In short, in hunter gatherer societies, it was the ethical and intelligent who survived. In civilization, by contrast, which fostered the biological success of those with opposite tendencies: greed, lust, apathy, it was the greedy, lustful, and apathetic which survived. In short, the unintelligent and unethical have been more successful biologically in social systems of past civilizations, which, inevitably, over time, has lead to the collapse of said past civilizations, long before said sentient beings developed the capacity to colonize the cosmos.
We have seen civilizations rise and fall. For ours to be any different, and for human civilization to be expand to the stars, ours should be a civilization which continues the process of evolution of our species, rather than its de-evolution: the same traits which were rewarded in hunter-gather societies (cooperation, sharing of resources, egalitarianism) MUST continue to be fostered in our systems of civilzation, lest we, like all other sentient species to have ever evolved everywhere, in every time, will likewise never reach the stars.
