Not every intelligent life form out there will have the same homicidal baggage in their genes as the homo sapiens

Why not? The same general biological evolutionary principles would apply.

I'd suspect the vast majority would. Apex predators are pretty much the only niche that gains any incremental, real utility from investing energy in increased intelligence. What benefit would an individual slightly smarter manatee acquire?

Hi, I found this comment interesting could you please elaborate? Don't scavengers benefit from as much intelligence as possible to survive?

Scavengers are probably the second most likely to develop intelligence, and I was definitely thinking in terms of carnivore vs. herbivore. Intelligent scavengers such as corvids and raccoons come to mind. That said, it's quite possible to scavenge with limited intellect. Vultures, for example, are somewhat intelligent, but not the extent of a dolphin, wolf, or primate. Additionally, a sufficiently intelligent scavenger will probably eventually turn to hunting. If you've got tool use, and are hungry for something dead, it's not a terrible leap to kill the thing yourself.

On the whole, intelligence in nature is largely focused on predicting another animal's actions, and planning to take advantage of that foresight. The benefit of being better at that than your peers is immediately obvious in a hunter: predict, hunt, kill, eat. For things that aren't doing the hunting, more passive solutions can be optimal: evolving faster escapes, or natural defenses such as being very large take less energy, and can be developed much faster, when compared to the rather energy intensive process of maintaining a large brain and raising intelligent young.

Yet humans endure.

We're in the process of wrecking our own ecosystem.

We have the military capability to wipe ourselves out at any moment.

And when some natural threat arises — take the pandemic for example — we turn on each other and bicker. "Don't Look Up" seems quite plausible.

Above statements are proving my point. Despite its many flaws human civilization is stronger than ever and is on the verge of expanding beyond the home planet.

> Above statements are proving my point.

I don't really see how.

> human civilization is stronger than ever

I don't really see how.

> on the verge of expanding beyond the home planet

I don't really see how.

Really? You don't see how our civilization is stronger than it's ever been? You don't see how we are on the verge of expanding beyond our home planet? Just, don't see it huh? Perhaps you're not the person that should be explaining to everyone what is painfully obvious and what is not then.

> Perhaps you're not the person that should be explaining to everyone what is painfully obvious and what is not then.

You didn't even understand my comment. I meant it's painfully obvious to me. It should have been obvious that I didn't mean it was obvious to everyone, but obviously some people can't see the obvious.

I could write a long essay on why we're not on the verge of expanding beyond our home planet, but I feel that it would be a big waste of time. I'm not going to change your mind, you're not going to change my mind, and that's one reason why humanity is ultimately doomed.

> I could write a long essay on why we're not on the verge of expanding beyond our home planet

The reason that essay would be long is because you'd have to explain away so much successes from multiple independently operating space industries.

"progress"

We have a handful of humans living temporarily in Earth orbit. We have precisely zero humans living permanently off planet. That's not much progress toward a self-sustaining space colony millions of miles away in an extremely hostile environment.

We don't even know whether the human body can survive long term in the much lower gravity of Mars. Life on Earth didn't evolve for that. The whole idea could be doomed from the start.

I'd call going from nobody ever having been to space to a handful people living in space seasonally for work progress. Define progress?

If I could change your mind would we still be doomed?

Proving what? With a sample size of 1 that is all just survivor bias so far... and after all we know it is ending soon

We need a real godly or technological wonder (a real wonder, not something like fusion what is on the horizon), or maybe just humanity coming to reason and agreeing and uniting and doing the right thing (ok yes, now I am getting really ridiculous, the least likely to happen) to avoid that filter.

With a bit of luck humanity may endure though.. in the hundred thousands on medieval level with some more luck..