> I'd be more interested in what you think it "should" look like for an "advanced" species besides optimal?
In a word, sustainable. An advanced civilization should be able to develop in a coordinated and self sustaining way, rather than as a grand experiment in tragedy of the commons. Microbes don’t coordinate their growth, and therefore fall into boom-bust cycles that dominate and exhaust their local environment. Humans can reason about these issues, but we see insufficient ability to collectively coordinate in response to them.
In a word, sustainable. An advanced civilization should be able to develop in a coordinated and self sustaining way, rather than as a grand experiment in tragedy of the commons. Microbes don’t coordinate their growth, and therefore fall into boom-bust cycles that dominate and exhaust their local environment. Humans can reason about these issues, but we see insufficient ability to collectively coordinate in response to them.