The Optimism of Agents

So one way of reading that scenario is that these aliens needn't be any more intelligent than us or any kind of radically different to us, but they could have just been around a lot longer. And again, they're kind of carving up and thinking about the world in a way that's so different from how we think about it. So yeah, that might be a cause for optimism. But fundamentally, I don't think we can get out of that box without meeting those aliens. Because sitting in your little village at home, it's probably impossible to imagine other ways humans can be.