Steve Watson

Pseudo-Ethics of a Bracewell Lurker

June 17, 2026 – 11:10 pm

The hypothesized Bracewell ‘Lurker’ Probe monitors the development of an ETI until some point at which it judges it appropriate to initiate contact. Until that point the BP is supposed to follow a strict non-detection and non-contact policy. We accept as a matter of prudence that a probe will not announce itself immediately in any case but will take the time required to study the encountered culture in order to maximise the likelihood of a successful first contact and continuing relationship. The issue is whether there is a certain level of cultural advancement that has to be met by the encountered culture before contact can be made. As currently imagined, the cultural level would seem to be rather high (beyond our own, for example) and a probe would follow a policy of non-contact until the encountered culture was basically a peer of the probe.

It is not entirely clear, however, that such a policy is justified.

Reasons for a Review of the Reasons for Lurking

There are two very broad motivations for proposing that BPs follow that policy. In the first place, it would make the possible presence of such probes in the solar system consistent with the fact that we have no evidence of their presence and consistent more broadly with the Fermi Paradox. In the second place, the fashion for extreme cultural humility (not to say self-flagellation) in the modern West has created a great reluctance to approve an interference by a technologically superior culture in the affairs of an inferior. This is relevantly reflected in current attitudes towards interactions with isolated peoples on Earth[1] and in the recurrent appeal to such rules as Star Trek’s ‘Prime Directive’ in popular SF. These motivations do not, however, constitute justifications for the policy.

A review of possible justifications is warranted for at least two reasons.

1. To determine whether the Lurker policy is permissible or advisable or mandatory or none of those things.
   1. It will be noted that many of the arguments for and against that are commonly put forward are explicitly ethical. In such cases we need to be aware that an alien might not have the same or even similar ethical standards and that the verdict on Lurker policy so derived might not be determinative of their policy.
   2. Consequently, in order to understand potential alien behaviours, and to make the behaviour of our probes comprehensible to ETI observers, we should prefer arguments for and against that appeal to reasons, preferences, and interests that we can reasonably expect to be universal – or at least universally comprehensible. (The prevention of harms and the promotion of benefits seem like useful proxies for all such ethical claims. We shall adopt that approach here.) Any behaviours derived from idiosyncratic alien motivations are, of course, unpredictable.
      1. We should expect any ETI, at the point that it becomes contactable, to be aware of the sorts of considerations that lead to the probe’s actions being guided by the sorts of rules
      2. Ditto for ourselves on discovering or being contacted by ET probes.
2. To suggest criteria by which to determine the point at which contact becomes appropriate.
   1. Where the Lurker policy is justified by the preference, dispreference, threat or vulnerability X, when that X no longer applies the Lurker policy is no longer justified by it.
   2. We can already take as basic criteria the Mission Constraints previously noted for a Von Neumann Probe
      1. Do nothing to jeopardise humanity
      2. Do nothing to harm actual or potential ETI
      3. Do nothing to jeopardise the prob.
   3. We can further take as read that when the ETI being monitored are at the point of launching their own interstellar probes or engaging in their own SETI programs, or – worst case – they have detected the Probe, continued non-contact is pointless.

Review of Reasons for Lurking

1. Preventing Harm to the Less Advanced Culture

Contact between (technologically) advanced and primitive societies harms the primitive.

Response

This would surely depend upon the type of contact. The harms done historically to which people refer when they make this claim are those that followed from competition over resources, imperial conquest, religious impositions, etc. Basically, all versions of an exercise of force by those associated with the more advanced society and in which the technological superiority of the one party put it in a position to assert its will without the other having any effective power to resist. It is the inequality in the instrumentalities of coercion that creates the problem in these cases.

This would not apply to the situation in which the contact is merely communicative. In fact, it is rather difficult to even think of examples of purely communicative contact between any contemporaneous societies that could be used to test the claim of harmfulness. The closest I can think of are the diplomatic contacts between Bronze Age cultures such as the Mycenaeans and the Egyptians, but those also had trade relations and were involved in alliances that did have points of contact. In so far as they are relevant, however, no harm seems to have come to either side through these contacts.

Perhaps a closer analogy to the probe contact with an ETI at a lower level of sophistication (though not a very close one) is the contact across time between two non-contemporaneous cultures. The introduction of Greek learning to the Islamic world with the Translation Project, or to the Christian West with the Renaissance would be an example of such contact. Obviously, this is a one-way communication, but since the harm is imagined as coming from the more advanced, the transmissions from the more advanced culture are the relevant parts of the communication. There is no evidence of harm following from that.

Another analogy might be the spread of Buddhism across Asia, entering China by way of Gandhara. No communication went the other way, so it is again a type of one-way communication. In this case we can see more clearly where the harm might be thought to come from in such contacts. Ideas might be transmitted that the recipient finds in some cases attractive but which in fact do it harm. This was certainly the opinion of the Chinese Literati who found Buddhist monasticism, mortification of the flesh, and idolatry bizarre and socially harmful[2]. It certainly had an effect on Chinese society, but it’s equally certainly debatable whether that effect counts as a harm.

The typical worry about the transmission of ideas from an advanced culture to a primitive one is that the primitive one may be given access to technology for which their society is not yet prepared. There are, however, two responses to that. Firstly, the advanced culture is not likely to make such technology available if it can be reasonably foreseen that the recipient culture would be harmed by it. Secondly, technology doesn’t come in discrete packets: in order to have radio, for example, you need a lot of other things, all of which require time to acquire or develop and that time gives the opportunity for the society to begin to adapt to the new technology. All technology is new at some point.

Beyond technology transfer, the harms are more difficult to foresee. The revelation by the probe of alternative philosophies of life, for example, might create disturbances in the social fabric of the ETI. Even the revelation of the mere fact of the existence of the probe and the alien culture it represents might be socially dislocating. It would need to be left up to the probe to determine the likelihood of harm following from such information transfers – a discretion that would be based on the extensive prior study done before contact. This recognition of the uncertainty of outcome would not, however pass as a justification for maintaining the status quo and continuing non-contact, since it would equally forbid any contact at any time between anyone. A balancing of risks and rewards will always be necessary before initiating contact, and there is no evidence yet that the risks to less advanced cultures are greater than to more advanced.

In any case, granted that the probe would not be irresponsibly promiscuous with its information, it could not reasonably be thought – by either party – that by making contact the more advanced society was doing or intending a harm to the less advanced. Indeed, beyond a certain point, the refusal of an advanced probe to communicate with a less advanced observed culture would reasonably cause the observed to wonder about the motives of the observer. Moreover, the realisation by the observed that the observer had information that would have benefitted the observed but had refused to share it might well be seen as tantamount to a harm having been done to them (if withholding a benefit = doing a harm.)

2. Permitting the Self-Determination of the Less Advanced Culture

Contact with a less developed civilization infringes its capacity for self-determination.

Response

There are two immediate problems with this claim: first, it is not always quite clear what is intended by ‘self-determination (or ‘autonomy’ or other related terms that might be used;) and second, just as with the previous claim to the inevitable harms of contact, its plausibility is dependent on the type of contact involved. With regard to this second objection, we shall assume again that we are concerned only with communicative contact – actual physical interaction is not envisaged, let alone coercion. With regard to the first, by observing the context of such claims, it seems that those worried about infringing on the self-determination of uncontacted societies are concerned to preserve a characteristic rather different from what is usually meant by political autonomy or self-determination but that can be captured in the following definition:

• Self-Determination: to follow a path of development not determined by the influences of other cultures.

To be even more clear about what this implies, we need to expand on the notion of determination. It can’t just mean ‘being affected by’ because to be affected by other cultures is simply the normal condition of mankind in all times and places, and self-determination is not generally thought to be impacted by every case of a culture affecting another culture. When the Arabs pursued the Translation Project, when the Japanese took over much Chinese culture and later did the same with European culture, when the Ethiopians adopted Christianity, when the Chinese were introduced to Buddhism, even where there was resistance to these vast social movements, none of them were experienced as a loss of self-determination, nor are they regarded in hindsight as such.

• A loss of self-determination, if it is to be a remotely plausible objection to contact, has to mean something more along the lines of a change in the culture brought about by an alien culture under some species of compulsion.

Two further problems also require attention: first, that it is simply assumed that self-determination is a thing whose infringement constitutes a harm and whose exercise is a benefit; and second, that the nature of the harm involved would typically be described in terms of duties or entitlements when we have earlier argued that ethical considerations are not an appropriate way to consider interactions with alien intelligences. In this case, I suggest that we can preserve the gist of the objection by rephrasing it in terms of possible preferences and dispreferences. Thus:

• A loss of self-determination constitutes a harm when a society would prefer to be self-determining in the present and when if self-determination had been infringed in the past the society would prefer that it had not been.

Interpreted in this way, we can understand how infringing on self-determination would be something that a probe should avoid if it wished to pursue further positive relations with the contacted culture.

It is, however, difficult to see how the contacted culture could interpret the probe’s communications as unwelcome intrusions, much less undertaken under compulsion. In order to prevent the probe from affecting the development of the culture, much less determining it, all that that culture has to do is reject the request for communication. By accepting the request and then by engaging in communications with the probe, the contacted culture has affirmed that it does not regard the risk of influence by the information gained from the probe to be a serious threat to its interests and that its preferences are on the side of engagement. Note also that the protocols for receiving responses to the initial request for communication acknowledge that where contradictory responses are received the probe should err on the side of the status quo and wait for a consensus to develop in the contacted culture. In any case, it would be unreasonable for the contacted culture to consider the ongoing mutual communications to be an intrusion and unwelcome and an unfriendly act. And again, there is unlikely to be any reasonable way to interpret the communicative strategies of the probe as any form of compulsion.

A more likely danger is that after some time in consensual communication the contacted culture might come to consider that the initial offer of communication was made to a communicant that could not properly assess the likely consequences of such action. This might well be a valid criticism, and it will therefore be up to the probe to make an assessment of the competence of the contacted culture in order to determine that the proper level of responsibility is present. This is another reason for the extended initial surveillance, but it does not require that any particular technological level has to be reached. Nor can it be a justification for a total non-contact policy, because the uncertainty concerning a later reassessment of the propriety of the approach will never completely disappear. Such uncertainties are the necessary accompaniment of any interaction; one can only hope to minimise the risk.

3. Maximising Diversity in Cultural Forms

Contact with less developed cultures tends to distort their natural development.

Response

This objection, though clearly closely related to the previous one, is best considered as one that primarily concerns the preferences of the more advanced culture. No harm (even of the etiolated variety described above) needs to be imagined to be done to the contacted culture for this objection to hold. (Other interpretations which make this hardly distinguishable at all from the previous one can be responded to in essentially the same way as that one was.) The preference of the probe culture, for whatever reason, is that the less advanced culture be permitted to develop without influence from outside its ‘natural’ environment – in particular, from the more advanced culture. In pursuit of that preference, contact with the less advanced culture is delayed until some threshold is crossed. The what and when of that threshold will depend upon the precise reasons for the non-contact policy.

A harm is possible though, and the harm may be stated as the converse of the previously defined harm. Thus:

• A continuance of independent development constitutes a harm when a society would prefer an intervention in the present and when if independent development had been allowed to continue in the past the society would prefer that it had not been.

The sorts of failures to intervene that might be perceived (by the not-intervened-upon) to constitute harms are not hard to imagine. They form some of the most common plot points in ST: TNG for example. Our own likely attitude to an ETI probe that allowed such harms might well be predicted from the intuitive appeal of such (admittedly debated) ethical axioms as

• If you can prevent a harm to another with no significant cost to yourself or others, then you should do so.

The ETI probe would be considered prima facie culpable, perhaps even effectively hostile. At the very least there would be grounds for suspicion and ill-feeling.

A similarly damning assessment can be had from a rephrasing of the above in terms of revealed preferences and independent of any ethical commitments. Thus:

• If X can prevent a harm to Y but only at the cost of Z, then if X does not prevent that harm, it follows that X prefers Z to preventing the harm to Y

We could expect any ETI observed by a B-VN probe following a strict non-contact protocol to accept that interpretation of events – as we would ourselves – and to draw the obvious conclusions about the attitude of the probe (and its constructors) towards the observed culture. A negative judgement would be avoided only if the observed culture were able to understand the value of the element Z – or were at least able to understand how the probe’s culture might be able to value it above the prevention of clear harms to the observed culture when it could have easily done that.

It is worth asking then, whether the high value of allowing natural development can be adequately defended in a culturally general and non-ethical context, because if it can’t then neither we nor any ETI can be expected to approve of the Lurker strategy in the face of preventable harms. There are several ways this strategy might be defended. Amongst the most plausible are the following.

1. Testing the limits of possibilities

Intervening in a culture’s development – however marginally – introduces a homogenizing influence that nudges the developing culture towards the intervening one. This reduces the range of possible outcomes of the cultural development. By allowing the character of the culture to develop without interference the limits of possibilities of the culture – or of cultures in general – are tested, with a consequent increase in the probe’s understanding of the nature of culture and the bringing to light of possibilities that might not have been thought available without direct experience.

2. Observing uncontaminated processes

Observation of the development of a culture in a new environment, subject to unique environmental characteristics, provides information to the observer concerning the possibilities of development itself: how it proceeds, what affects it, etc. Intervening in a culture’s development contaminates the process so that the inherent cultural/social process are no longer fully responsible for the outcomes. This reduces the value of the observation and reduces the reliability of the information gained.

3. Ensuring hygiene

Those cultures that are unable to overcome certain obstacles may fail and be replaced with more adequate cultures. If intervention allows such a failing culture to overcome whatever obstacle it had not had resources of its own to overcome, then the resultant culture is in danger of not remedying whatever fault it was that had put it in danger in the first place. Allowing such a culture to continue may only delay the reckoning. Alternatively, a culture that is inadequately resilient but defended by outside forces may continue on to cause problems for its neighbours later.

Whether these are felt to be good enough reasons for a non-contact policy continuing well past the point when the nature of the probe could be comprehended by the observed culture is a matter for debate and trained judgement.

[1] See, for example, report-indigenous-peoples-voluntary-isolation.pdf

[2] See for example, Han Yu’s ‘Memorial on the Bones of the Buddha’ (819 AD)

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