[rms]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that advanced civilizations aren't necessarily intelligent or conscious, at least how we define it. Something could be self-replicating on an energy level much beyond us without being particularly observant.

[sdurkin]

Benevolence seems to be something our species is trending toward, and is in someway required as part of the foundation for civilization. As such, I think its reasonable to believe that conscious or any derivatives thereof would be concerned with the welfare of less advanced beings.

[rms]

>Benevolence seems to be something our species is trending toward

Definitely

>and is in someway required as part of the foundation for civilization

I disagree. The foundation of a civilization is energy and how much energy a civilization can use. See the Kardashev scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

I'm trying to say that something could exist that is so fundamentally different from us that it really doesn't care about our existence. Right now, the biggest organisms on earth are fungi. There are some truly enormous fungi. Imagine a fungus or set of fungi that start converting radiation directly to mass for itself to grow. It could expand to surround its local sun. In certain ways, this fungus is more advanced than us, but it would eat us alive without noticing it was doing anything wrong, because it isn't capable of having the thought required to have morality.