r/rational

A hypothetical I've been turning over:

Suppose a technologically advanced civilization discovers a much younger intelligent species.

They decide not to interfere.

They observe that species for hundreds of thousands of years.

During that time, they watch multiple civilizations emerge, grow, destabilize, and collapse.

Eventually they become extremely good at predicting the pattern. They can recognize the conditions that lead toward collapse long before the younger civilization can.

But they continue observing because intervention introduces unknown risks.

At first, that seems defensible.

But imagine this happens not once, but dozens of times.

At what point does “we shouldn't interfere” stop being neutrality?

If you possess:

1. strong predictive knowledge,
2. the ability to alter the outcome,
3. repeated evidence that the outcome is catastrophic,

does choosing not to act eventually become a decision you are morally responsible for?

The complication is that intervention could itself cause enormous harm. You may save the civilization from one failure mode while permanently distorting its development.

So I’m curious how people here would frame the decision.

What evidence threshold would justify intervention?

And perhaps more importantly:

Is there any principled way to distinguish responsible non-interference from simply avoiding responsibility?

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