One response to the tougher question is that the practicality of advising said species to hold on to its horse saddles a wee bit longer is directly proportional to the remaining time (AGI_achieved_date, less today's_date) within the interval between transistors and AGI. If it's five years beyond transistors and thousands of years yet to go to AGI, with a low likelihood of success, ever; then maybe the reward attributable to breakthrough (and breakout of some theoretically insufferably stagnant present) outweighs the risk of complete annihilation (which also is maybe not all that bad -- or at least fear and pain free -- if it's instantaneous and locally universal). If, on the other... (read more)
One response to the tougher question is that the practicality of advising said species to hold on to its horse saddles a wee bit longer is directly proportional to the remaining time (AGI_achieved_date, less today's_date) within the interval between transistors and AGI. If it's five years beyond transistors and thousands of years yet to go to AGI, with a low likelihood of success, ever; then maybe the reward attributable to breakthrough (and breakout of some theoretically insufferably stagnant present) outweighs the risk of complete annihilation (which also is maybe not all that bad -- or at least fear and pain free -- if it's instantaneous and locally universal). If, on the other... (read more)