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James_Miller comments on Quickly passing through the great filter - Less Wrong Discussion
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You are trying to do X. From an inside viewpoint it seems as if you could do X because you seem to understand what it would take to do X. But then you learn that everyone who has ever tried to do X has failed, and some of these people were probably much more skilled than you. Therefore from an outside view you think you will not be able to do X. For the gladiator X is getting his name engraved. For mankind X is making ourselves known to other civilizations at our level of development. For both, knowing that you will not be able to do X means you will likely soon die.
Now, however, pretend there was a way to cheat so that you will have technically done X but in a way that is much, much easier than you previously thought. From an outside viewpoint once you have done X you are less likely to die even if doing X doesn't change your inside view of anything. So should you cheat to accomplish X?
I still don't see how it makes you more likely to be able to do X. The gladiator isn't trying to have his name engraved, he's trying to survive. Likewise, we aren't trying to get our messages heard by foreign civilizations, we're trying to survive whatever the Great Filter is (assuming it lies before us).
This looks to me like a case of Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a valid measure.
(Oh also, I just thought: by the same reasoning, the gladiator should expect something to stop him from being able to get his name engraved via bribery, since he would reason that previous gladiators in his position would do the same thing, and he still doesn't see any names.)
Does not fit. We have no idea how many of them there were - and if there were, how skilled they were.
My analogy is based on my doomed assumption being true. I did not intend the post to be a justification of the assumption, but rather a discussion of something we might do if the assumption is true.