This is a linkpost for https://benjaminrosshoffman.com/predation-as-payment-for-criticism/
I don't buy it. Lots of species have predators and have had them for a long time, but very few species have intelligence. It seems more likely that most of our intelligence is due to sexual selection, a Fisherian runaway that accidentally focused on intelligence instead of brightly colored tails or something.
The post describes how predation creates a specific gradient favoring better modeling of predator behavior. While fact that most predated species don't develop high intelligence is Bayesian evidence against this explanation, it’s very weak counterevidence because general self-aware intelligence is a very narrow target. More importantly, why would sexual selection specifically target intelligence rather than any other trait?
Looking at peacocks, we can see what appears to be an initial predation-driven selection for looking like they had big intimidating eyes on their backs (similar to butterflies), followed by sexual selection amplifying along roughly that same gradient direction.
Your theory would predict that we'd be much better at modeling tigers (which hunted us) than at modeling antelopes (which we hunted), but in reality we're about equally bad at modeling either, and much better at modeling other humans.
This seems mostly right, but, seems plausible to me that the predatory/prey cycle was a necessary prerequisite to get us into a basin where intelligence-sexual-selection was a plausible outcome.
I don't think this is the angle you're meaning to look at things from here, but a thing this reminds me of is I feel just... pretty confused about how to relate emotionally to things that are horrifying to my current moral outlook, but, also seem like they were necessary for my current moral outlook to come into being.
(See also: maybe expansionistic imperialism and eradication of local culture was necessary for bringing the worldview of "universalish humanism" into existence. Or maybe not, I dunno, but I don't quite know how to handle it if it was. I think you handle this by not being as into universal-ish humanism. Currently I just go "something something, meditate on green")
Well, Christianity sometimes spread by conquest, but other times it spread peacefully just as effectively. Same for democracy. So I don't think the spread of moral values requires conquest.
A predator's success depends on exploiting specific flaws in prey – poor awareness, slow reactions, weak social coordination. Unlike resource competition or disease, which select based on physiological robustness, predation creates focused pressure on intelligence, pressure which favors the development of consciousness. A cheetah doesn't catch just any gazelle, but the one that fails to notice and react effectively. Prey get better at evading, predators get better at predicting, each side has to model the other's thoughts more accurately - an arms race that eventually rewards both sides for explicitly modeling the other's perspective, the basis for cognitive empathy. If you're glad you're conscious, no need to thank a predator - somebody else already did - by being eaten.
For a species evolving over time, predators are performing a service: identifying specific failures of capacity. The payment for this service is the nutrition from the prey's body, while the cost to the prey is their life and fewer offspring. This harsh exchange enables something remarkable - the development of sophisticated defensive capabilities without any explicit agreement or negotiation between species. The gazelle doesn't need to understand that it's participating in continuous process improvement via selective criticism, nor agree to pay for the information.
Before someone can explicitly negotiate for decision-relevant criticism, it needs to already be smart enough to generate the idea of making informed decisions, and of criticism, understand the information value of criticism, and choose to offer to pay for it by some means other than being devoured by the critic. Predation creates pressure to develop these capabilities without requiring their preexistence. This differs markedly from domestication, where selective pressures often reduce agency - breeding for docility rather than capacity.