Grabby Alien works on similar logic to well-known anthropic camps such as SSA and SIA: consider what we are as an Observation Selection Effect. As you wrote, treat ourselves as random selections from a list containing everyone. The main difference is regular anthropic camps typically apply this to individual observers, while grabby alien applies it to civilizations.
Whether this reflects good anthropic reasoning is hard to answer. If one endorses regular anthropic camps then Grabby Alien’s logic is at least incomplete. It should incorporate how many observers different civilizations have. But it should be noted applying the Observation Selection Effect at the observer level is not watertight either. Maybe it should be applied to the observer-moment pair level: what I am experiencing now should be regarded as it is randomly selected from all observer-moments. Then the theory ought to be further updated reflecting the life span of all observers from different civilizations.....
I personally firmly believe the typical OSE way of anthropic reasoning is plainly wrong. What “I” am, or more preciously what the first-person perspective is, cannot be reasoned. It is a primitively axiomatic fact. I.E. “I naturally know I am this person. But there is no reason behind it, nor an explanation for why it is so. I just am.” Attempting to explain it as a random sample only leads to paradoxes. A starter of my argument can be read here.
Grabby Alien works on similar logic to well-known anthropic camps such as SSA and SIA: consider what we are as an Observation Selection Effect. As you wrote, treat ourselves as random selections from a list containing everyone. The main difference is regular anthropic camps typically apply this to individual observers, while grabby alien applies it to civilizations.
Whether this reflects good anthropic reasoning is hard to answer. If one endorses regular anthropic camps then Grabby Alien’s logic is at least incomplete. It should incorporate how many observers different civilizations have. But it should be noted applying the Observation Selection Effect at the observer level is not watertight either. Maybe it should be applied to the observer-moment pair level: what I am experiencing now should be regarded as it is randomly selected from all observer-moments. Then the theory ought to be further updated reflecting the life span of all observers from different civilizations.....
I personally firmly believe the typical OSE way of anthropic reasoning is plainly wrong. What “I” am, or more preciously what the first-person perspective is, cannot be reasoned. It is a primitively axiomatic fact. I.E. “I naturally know I am this person. But there is no reason behind it, nor an explanation for why it is so. I just am.” Attempting to explain it as a random sample only leads to paradoxes. A starter of my argument can be read here.