Though I haven’t engaged much with Robin Hanson’s ideas about alien expansion, it mirrors something I’ve said before: if we encounter extraterrestrials we’re probably fucked because the only two reasons for expanding out into the universe for most would be religious nuttery or colonization.

Therefore: fucked. Because we know what happens when religious nuts with superior tech encounter those who don’t have those things. And it is not pretty. You’re living atop the wreckage of that now.