Article How the pursuit of pleasure could doom all intelligent life to a blissful extinction

[C C]

https://bigthink.com/the-future/pursuit-...xtinction/

KEY POINTS: The global population is set to peak in 40 years, then decline. From sex toys to TikTok, humanity’s separation of emotional rewards from procreation can be seen in the rise of "emode" technology. If the pursuit of happiness is the primary explanation for our decreasing fertility rate, this tendency might be true not just for humans but for all intelligent life — providing a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox...

EXCERPT: . . . The Emode hypothesis posits that sub-replacement fertility is an unintended consequence of our increasing reliance on technology to manage our emotions. Furthermore, the implications could extend beyond humanity, offering a plausible explanation for the Fermi Paradox: the conspicuous absence of intelligent life beyond our own planet.

In order to expand the emode hypothesis and address the Fermi paradox, an additional, well-founded assumption is required. Specifically, we presume that evolution by natural selection ultimately produces only sentient intelligence. This assumption stipulates that sentience, characterized by the capacity to experience positive and negative emotions, is a necessary aspect of any intelligence that possesses agency and can innovate technology. (The implication for AI is that without sentience, AI lacks the capacity for agency, though it can still be a highly advanced tool, as is currently the case.)

With these assumptions in place, we can trace the evolutionary arc of intelligent life: (1) a long period of evolution by natural selection, a process fueled by random mutations, repeated over countless reproductive cycles until a sentient species emerges with sufficient intelligence to develop technology; (2) a brief technological phase, during which the species advances its technology in pursuit of improved quality of life, diminishing its reproductive drive in the process; and (3) eventual extinction, typically through a gradual decline in population — a blissful fade-out.... (MORE - missing details)

[Magical Realist]

When we contemplate the ephemeral nature of intelligent species and the rarity of planets with the capacity to sustain them, the probability of two alien civilizations blossoming in close proximity and flourishing concurrently appears quite low. Consequently, the spans of time and the vast distances of space could be keeping us separated from extraterrestrial civilizations, rendering our efforts to detect them fruitless.

It is intriguing to think of intelligent life — unlike plants and microbes — as an evolutionary dead end.

Contentment with our lives is a state not favorable to our continued evolution. Sexuality sublimated into self-stimulating entertainment and solitary hobbies. The once aching need for another to give one's life some emotional meaning suppressed and deferred for a lived-with existential angst. We are not the passive gene-vessels of our yesteryears. We are becoming thru our technologies celibate impotent drones idly milking the benefits of being a part of a global hive mind.