If Aliens Exist, Where Are They?

[Anomalocaris]

1. All civilizations, societies of sentient beings, or large individual sentient beings (like a planet-wide network of neurons or computers) tend to develop.
This fact is a similar statement to the principle that living things evolve via natural selection, except that sentient beings, being natural apex predators and highly intelligent, are freed from much of the pressure that natural selection imposes on most living creatures. This is coupled with the fact that sentient beings develop/advance via the acquisition of knowledge, whereas normal organisms tend to advance via evolution, and it makes the analogy a bit poorer. Nonetheless, both evolution and civilization development ultimately result in increases to the organisms fitness and (probably) complexity.

Disagree on 2 counts.   1, regarding slackening of natural selection pressure,  Unless apex predators specifically go out of its way to ensure all heritable traits existent or arising in its population attain exactly the Same probability of Perpetuating, regardless of how they each individually or in combination affect metabolism, cognition, desire, outlook, or other aspects of behavior, nature selection would continue to operate and impose the same pressure as before, even if the pressure is not superficially in the same form of "red in tooth and claw" that we've associate with natural selection on the African savanna.
2, there is no compelling reason clear to me to believe civilization will necessarily tend to increase in complexity.  In fact, I suspect complexity in aspects of civilization brings with it its own problems, such as the more complex the organization, the more likely it is for the whole organization to respond non-linearly in unanticipated ways, and more likely would the civilization fall apart under stress and bring a stop the increase in organizational complexity it had hitherot nurtured.

2. As civilizations or organisms increase in complexity, their desire to communicate or "bother with" beings of less complexity/importance decreases.
This should go without saying: Humans are not concerned whatsoever with the opinion of an ant, and nor does anyone of sane mind try communicating with them.

You are projecting. It only goes without saying because it appears self evident based on our innate prejudice, and we are willing to overlook the need to support it with a rigorous case.   The prejudice here is our specie's non-rational behavioral tendencies in this regard must somehow be common to all sentient species, and no other imperative arising in the course of further development of civilizations would seriously hamper the expression of this tendency.  I think no rigorous case can be made for this view.

3. Simultaneously, as civilizations/sentient beings advance, they become increasingly concerned with the waste of energy they collectively generate.
The United States, for example, in the late 2000s led a campaign of regulations, subsidies, and other actions to increase the efficiency of consumer and business appliances. As a result, the energy usage of machines continues decreasing to this day, which makes way for more technology and new power-hungry inventions to consume the void in energy usage. So, from this we can be certain to a high degree that societies will seek to limit their energy usage in order to allow 'more... More... MORE!', and in addition, any sufficiently advanced civilization will recognize that if the Universe continues on it's current path and is not stopped somehow, energy will inevitably become more and more valuable over time.

Disagree.  Waste depends on perception.  In a fundamental way, We as a civilization never wasted energy.  All energy we ever expended as a civilization were expended for specific purposes, and were likely the result of intuitive trade off assessments under them current situation.   We simply had exolving perception of which purposes may not be worth the energy expended to achieve it.    For example, burning forests may seem like a waste of energy to us now.  But we didn't do it to waste energy.   At certain point of evolution of agriculture, burning down forests seems like a necessary and efficient step to reach the next level.    There is no reason to believe any highly advanced civilization would not be confronted with a succession of needs or an imperatives that could only be achieved in a timely manner by expanding vast quantities of energy in a manner that allows a great deal of the energy to leak away to be detectable to us.  In other words, from certain point of view, they waste energy.

4. Therefore, given all of the above, the civilization in its final stages of development will not bother expending energy on communicating or attempting to communicate with other beings which may likely not have anything to offer for them, but rather, will focus all efforts on preserving itself and achieving maximal efficiency. This civilization would not be detectable, at least not with any realistic level of ease; all electromagnetic waves would be absorbed on their planet's surface to be transformed into energy for their use. Their planet would be a perfect black body.

See the above.
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