Care to show the path for that?
The Amish.
If you are not subject to the Malthusian trap, evolution favors subgroups that want to have lots of offspring. Given variation in a population not subject to the Malthusian trap concerning how many children each person wants to have, and given that one's preferences concerning children are in part genetically determined, the number of children the average member of such a species wants to have should steadily increase.
Aren't the Amish (and other fast-spawning tribes) a perfect example of how this doesn't lead to universal domination? They're all groups that either embrace primitivity or are stuck in it, and to a large extent couldn't maintain their high reproductive rate without parasitism on surrounding cultures.
For a moment lets assume there is some alien intelligent life on our galaxy which is older than us and that it have succeeded in creating super-intelligent self-modifying AI.
Then what set of values and/or goals it is plausible for it to have, given our current observations (I.e. that there is no evidence of it`s existence)?
Some examples:
It values non-interference with nature (some kind of hippie AI)
It values camouflage/stealth for it own defense/security purposes.
It just cares about exterminating their creators and nothing else.
Other thoughts?