Intrepid altruism may have been the wrong phrase, but evidence of mutual aid is abundant. Assisting the advancement of other civilisations may be very lucrative for an alien civilisation which recognises the benefit of greater intelligence and more agents working together.

On the Nazi example: their genocide was predicated upon an entirely non-rational, anti-intellectual conception of racial superiority. And I feel the essence of cooperation precludes the extermination of a race of people. Note that its not technology which precludes mass murder, but (and of course this is pure hypothesising) the intelligent ability to empathise — to recognise their is no lesser race, all equally deserving of moral considerations, etc.

And whilst, as a society, we have a long way to go currently, the existence of widespread outrage at say, cross-species extermination, economic exploitation, illegal wars, etc, suggests that as we progress, our notions of what is right and wrong do too — “the moral arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice”

When I say intelligence i don’t mean technological capability, though that is a corollary of greater knowledge, but in a deeper, perhaps spiritual sense of uncovering universal truths, of cultivating wisdom, and constraining or jettisoning our tendencies of domination, brutality, xenophobia, etc.

I am unconvinced that a space-fearing super civilisation could not develop means to extract water from air, to make it through chemical reactions. Nor am I convinced that a resource would be so scarce in the vastness of the observable universe to require genocide to access. And on the impracticality of the Dyson sphere — it is of course the speculation of an earth-bound physicist. It may be true that is impractical even given supreme intelligence, but I think we are doing a disservice to our imagination if we think an advanced civilisation couldn’t construct something similar/superior/more practical.

Extrapolating from our civilisations practises of resource extraction seems wrong in my opinion. We may be forced to exploit third-world coltan mines for efficiency, but that is because we exist within a perverse, amoral (if not often immoral) economic system. After all, we’re “cosmic teenagers” and the fact we have been so far unable to construct a system not based on hierarchical exploitation, and which is pushing us to the brink of collapse, is not a sign of all intelligent lives brutality, but of our own myopic stupidity.

Thanks for the reply!