I think part of it is ironically fed, as I mentioned in my earlier re-post, by a sort of arrogance, and an insistence that humanity now is at some sort of "peak" (just as, say, the Romans thought), when in reality it's more likely to be just another random spot out of what may be an incredibly long history going forward.
Somewhat of a tangent here, but I remember being kinda pissed (and disappointed) when Stephen Hawking made that comment about how we should be afraid of alien life, since it's likely to be violent and aggressive, a conclusion he arrived at by looking at humanity's history . . . I just find the idea that advanced civilizations, or even ones near to the most advanced societies of our current time, are going to go around finding other life simply to war with it, is kind of...dumb. For starters, there's virtually no practical motive. Any resource on Earth (aside from life itself) can be found in abundance elsewhere in the universe. Beyond that though, I think using our own primitive history as a way of predicting how an advanced alien species might interact with us is almost hilariously shortsighted, not to mention anthropocentric (which is why I bring this topic up -- it's the same sort of "humans are inherently bad" viewpoint, only placed onto the entire universe) . . . We're hardly perfect by any means, but there's also a very notable effort to undo damage we've caused, and to conserve the preciousness of life, which a lot of folks tend to completely gloss over in these discussions. The important thing, too, is that these tendencies appear to grow more common as a civilization grows more developed and intelligent. I don't think it's going to suddenly stop, or turn the other way around.
I didn't know how to chop and quote this properly as I think I'm riffing off most of your post. The thoughts that come:
We experience preeminence in our personal lives. How can we not think all change a sheer drop?
I understand your reaction on Hawking's dissemination. I fear this is simply communicative laziness on his part (which I think I can forgive much more than mine own) but we never truly know what people are going to take from our words. The best we can do (which people don't - see the unfolding world) is construct our communications with rigor and care. Nothing goads me more than when that feeling of communication efficiency evaporates at the glazed and vacant stare remaining on a listener's face.
My guess was always that Hawking tried to use that idea as metaphor for a more-encompassing argument. Ultimately, his counsel is strategically warranted but there remains the fact that our social and technological growth is as much a beacon as is our searching at all (which may inherently require exposure).
We're an immature species, FB. It doesn't mean we can't work to be, qualitatively, better or different; proud of ourselves for once. If we're going to exist at all, we should always strive toward philosophic ideals. The more of us who embody and disseminate difference, the more we all can't help but change.
Perhaps, the empathic civilization is the next culmination?
The science is a little off (especially mirror neuron research is still very young, as Rifkin says, and the term is a placeholder) but still food for thought (also the full lecture from which this animation is generated from and the book by the same title are awesome, as well):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g