I wasn't talking about need or ability, only exposing themselves to extra risk, failing to discover important discoveries because they don't explore ideas. I'm sure I wasn't perfectly clear.

Sorry. I may be reading more into the chain than what's actually here. I'm just saying "aliens can't be expected to behave like humans" isn't really a viable explanation to the Fermi Paradox without some big caveats, because given a large enough sample of intelligent alien species, (1) they won't be monolithic, (2) some will exhibit human-like behavior on the premise that humans aren't special, (3) some will have arrived on the scene millions or billions of years before us, and (4) the "somes" from the last two points is enough that galaxy spanning civilizations should already be everywhere even if FTL is forever impossible.

If intelligent life is rare enough to preclude the "given a large enough sample" (I'm thinking one species per galaxy level rarity), then the solution to the Fermi Paradox is elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorsal_root_ganglion

Bivalves such as mussels are aware of many stimuli but are generally incapable of safely relocating making them one of the incredibly few exceptions to the rule.

I would generally assume any alien lifeform we encounter would be closer to humans than bivalves.