[A]ssuming that the observable universe is void of extraterrestrial civilizations, then what hangs in the balance is at least 10,000,000,000,000,000,… - Nick Bostrom

By anybody’s standards, there is a huge amount of unnecessary and undeserved suffering that is just bad and that we should get rid of.

The singleton hypothesis is that Earth-originating intelligent life will (eventually) form a singleton. It is an open question whether the singleton hypothesis is true. My own opinion is that it is more likely true than not. Historically, we have seen an overarching trend towards the emergence of higher levels of social organization, from hunter-gatherer bands, to chiefdoms, city-states, nation states, and now multinational organizations, regional alliances, various international governance structures, and other aspects of globalization. Extrapolation of this trend points to the creation of a singleton.

Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization - a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it.