The speaker believes that intelligent civilizations that are able to travel across space have evolved past aggression and now lean towards deep cooperation. Additionally, he suggests Robert Ager's theory for the meaning of the monolith to those interested.
The monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey has been interpreted in various ways, but the theory proposed by Robert Ager is one of the best. The monolith represents technology and the screen in particular, reminding us of how much technology is integrated into our lives.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to live a different material existence through screens, leading us to realize that our perception system is a screen between reality and our mind, making us already live in augmented reality.
The speaker believes that if intelligent civilizations have evolved to the point of being able to travel across space, they must have evolved past aggression and be deeply cooperative, even though humans are ill-equipped to do so.