ANNOTATION:
Are evil highly-advanced civilizations possible?

I have no proof that one cannot have an evil highly-advanced 
civilization (we're talking about one that has achieved the 
Global Brain level), but it seems very unlikely.  Merely from 
the fact that evil and selfish, uncooperative behavior is 
 strongly filtered out by evolution.  I don’t know if we have 
locked-in to the Global Brain at this point, or if we could 
still go extinct.  It seems to me that most of our internal 
strife at this point is more likely to be analogous to having a 
haircut than having our heads cut off.  An Earth-impactor could 
do the job, but most scientists directly involved with detecting 
Near Earth Objects (NEOs) assure us that the highly unlikely 1 
in 20,000 chance that any one individual will be killed during 
their lifetime by this cause translates to no chance worth 
worrying about, so we should be ok.  However, my sleep’s been a 
little fidgety lately.