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Suppose we hit the SETI gold medal, and meet and interact with intelligent aliens. We discover that these aliens are effectively immortal.

The aliens ask you for advice about how to live. Would you recommend that they all commit suicide at age 100, because it will be so good for them and their society?

Always flip the default and ask, will you switch back.

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What if you could ask an octopus the same, and it suggested that dying after breeding is best for society to prevent the problems of overpopulation [1]? Unlike your hypothetical aliens, octopodes live in the same resource-constrained world we do.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Lifespan

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