I don’t think it’s likely that any civilization is actively sending probes to every solar system in the galaxy, but it seems very plausible that there are technologically advanced civilizations undertaking projects that span centuries or millennia.
Even human beings living in pre-industrial times embarked on multi-generational projects such as grand cathedrals that the designers knew they’d never see completed.
Besides, just because an Earth probe built in the 1970s would take 18,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri doesn’t mean a highly advanced civilization couldn’t design something that could make the trip within a human lifetime, let alone the lifetime of an exotic alien intelligence.
I’ve tried to point out to folks too many damn times that if an alien spaceship turned up, YOU WOULD NOTICE, because it would be fucking huge. And, like I said above, either made of computronium that poops out robots when it needs to, or funny-looking rocks with eyes.
Yeah, my problem with #11 was kinda the opposite. Why would there need to be so many, so often? I’ve always assumed if there are advanced interstellar civilizations out there, they probably sent a few automated probes out that tagged the Earth as “might get interesting” sometime around the Cambrian explosion and have been quietly watching ever since, so who cares about millennia of delay? But it’s not hard to imagine there’s tech in our solar system we haven’t noticed. There are so many fairly large objects nearby we’ve never really looked at, and a probe wouldn’t have to be big at all to be useful.
I am profoundly pessimistic about the longevity of ‘advanced’ technological civilizations. Humanity seems too close to species suicide. ET aliens may not look like humans, but are all too likely to be just as muddle-headed. Convince me that technical and moral qualities somehow correlate positively.
SF authors have proposed varied possible motivations. Food planets. Platforms for hazardous experiments. Military stations. Sources of slaves. Frantic desire to occupy and control space resources. Gaining social/economic status. Entertainment. And of course, very alien reasons we humans can’t comprehend until we’re forced to. Yow.
Unless the ship is your country, full of all the wonderful things your own civilization has to offer, and then since there’s nothing tethering it to one place you might as well see some new sights from time to time.
There are something on the order of ten thousand species of ants. And for numbers and weight even insects are exceeded by things in the open ocean, with I think copepods and krill at the top of the list. For vertebrates, it is estimated that there are hundreds of trillions of bristlemouths down there, with only 32 known species.
I do think it’s remarkable that there are so many humans all in a single species though, and apparently not even a particularly diverse one – a single subspecies, with less genetic differences than some chimpanzee groups in the same country. We took off fast.
totally. obviously for a bit there we weren’t our only species. ( hobbits i’m looking at you. and a few others i suppose. ) but now just us
these damn minds must have put off the evolutionary pressure a bit, i guess. oh yeah, and the holocene. sorry, stable climate. you were really doing your own beautiful thing there weren’t you.
must be a few worlds out there with multiple sapient species. ( plus or minus whales and cuttlefish. ) it’s kind of sad that none of us alive now will ever know for sure. i hope some humans get to find out ( in a non brain eating way ) someday
My thought is always, “how could there not be?”
Here we are way out in the boondocks of our own spiral galaxy, it’s funny how confident some people are about stating that there isn’t intelligent life or they aren’t visiting each other. Given what human curiosity undertakes (no one needs to ski across Antarctica or climb mount Everest), it seems like other intelligent life would also want to explore just to see what’s out there. And if interstellar travel were more manageable, by being in a more “populated” section of the galaxy, it would likely develop sooner.
Or not. But like you said, we’ll likely not know in our lifetimes, so why not pick the more optimistic, interesting theory?
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