No, we're not.

My point, and slowguy's as well is that different environments will result in life that sees the universe through a different lens. As a result their tools may be different, their brains may operate on a different timescale, etc. This may result in an intelligent, sentient being that is completely unrecognizable to us.

It is incredibly short sighted to pre-suppose that our form is the most successful recipe in the universe, simply because it worked, here, on earth and the conditions we evolved in. Suppose a species evolved on a primarily aquatic world where with significantly more predatory pressure than humans faced - what do you think they would look like, or how they would view the universe? A lot differently than us. What about a species that evolves in the atmosphere of a gas giant?

Ian Douglas (William H. Keith) - has a lot of novels that are focused around the diversity of life and the challenges that brings in inter-civilization relations and understanding.

I didn't say anything about the human species being the most successful, I don't even know what that would mean. I'm talking about having the ability for interstellar travel/communication.

Regardless of the circumstances you'd still (in all great probability) need a species that evolved sophisticated tool use, intelligence and communication abilities. Otherwise how would it ever discover the way the Universe works and how to exploit that knowledge to build the technology to allow for space travel/communication?

Well it's hard to imagine how evolution could select for traits that allow a sophisticated organism to move around on it's planet, survive it's atmosphere, etc. yet also get into and survive space organically. Seems you'd have to be adapted to a situation that was like space but on your planet, yet also have the ability to escape the gravitational pull of the planet.

I don't know what a hive mind is, as for the latter genetics at least here on Earth has failed to get any species within light years of being sophisticated enough for space travel/communication. Again, it's hard to see how natural selection would lead to that given that it adapts organisms to its environment.

We're able to do it by pure happenstance that certain traits that were selected for allowed us to eventually (after a couple hundred thousand years or so) to start figuring out how the Universe works and build on it from generation to generation due to cultural transmission of knowledge. It's an exceedingly rare fluke here, not sure why it would be any different elsewhere.

First, if they are destroyed, then it doesn't matter if they knew it was you.

Do you honestly think that a civilization that is more advanced then we are could be "Destroyed" by us? We might have a chance if that civilization is REALLY close in advancement to us but odds are that even if they are a mere 50 years more advanced then we are we don't have a chance in hell of destroying them. IT would be like 1966 USA attacking us now, not a chance.

Second, I don't know why you assume that "more advanced" necessarily means less vulnerable to attack.

Completely agree but for every society that is "Less agressive" we will likely have one that is more aggressive and more advanced in defense in attack. IOW if we are looking purely at odds doesn't matter.

Advanced doesn't necessarily mean that a civilization is well defended, or even thinks in terms of defense or attack.

So the only viable mentality is to attack and destroy despite the possibility, admitted above, that some societies may not even think in terms defense or attack. This line of thought is making less and less sense as we move on.

The civilization poses a threat regardless, because it's a competitor for resources, and a potential rival.

How do you know this if you know nothing about the civilization. There are a number of life forms in and on this very planet that are actually absolutely crucial to our survival that provide resources to us. This assumption is that every civilization that develops must use and consume all the same resources we do. I think that is a false assumption.

Look at the world around you and tell me that the only threats to the US are more advanced countries hell bent on annihilating us. That's just not the way it works. More advanced, less advanced, that doesn't mean someone doesn't pose a threat.

And yet we don't annihilate every person, group of person, bacteria, animal etc etc that poses a threat. The very concept is ridiculous. It's akin to me shooting my neighbor because after all he is consuming O2 which is a resource I need.

~Matt

Well, I don't think we're strictly talking about us, as in human civilization right now at our current state of technology. We're talking about an idea that would be applicable across the universe. That said, I don't see why it would be impossible for a less advanced civilization to destroy a more advanced one. As I said, more advanced doesn't necessarily mean more defended.


If they are more aggressive, then they present an even greater threat, and the need to destroy them before they discover us is even greater.


Well, for one thing, it's the sociological axiom I declared as a working premise. Feel free to reject it if you want. However, it's assumed because civilizations need to grow and expand, and the universe is finite. Therefore, eventually, civilizations will expand to a point where they are competing for resources.


The resources we us and consume are matter. I don't know that it's a false assumption that all other physical life forms will consume and use matter in some form.


We actually do a pretty good job of killing eachother over resources, but as I already said, part of the reason we don't simply annihilate eachother is because we are able to communicate in real time and cut the chain of uncertainty shorter. That's not really possible with an alien lifeform that lives halfway across the universe, and may not be able to communicate with us at all or in any manner we can understand. That uncertainty drives the entire problem, because it means we can never have a good handle of whether or not the other side means us harm or not.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)