NationStates Jolt Archive

Which would you rather have humanity discover when it eventually reaches other stars: a galaxy that's overflowing with so much intelligent life that there is little room to expand (without doing so at other's expense) or a galaxy that is deserted of intelligent life but our own (and possibly a few isolated incidents)?

From our species perspective deserted would be preferable. There's no benefit to us if the galaxy is swarming with intelligent life, they'd just be competition for resources.

A crowded galaxy would make for cool space wars.

Overcrowded. Deserted would be so very boring. Furthermore, population sustainability is perfectly within our grasp even now; look at Europe. It isn't like we would need all that much room to expand.

Which we, being on the rim of the galaxy, and thus a much younger star system, would be severely disadvantaged in.

From our species perspective deserted would be preferable. There's no benefit to us if the galaxy is swarming with intelligent life, they'd just be competition for resources.

Sure there would be. There would be trade, an interchange of ideas, technology, culture.... Quite possibly they would have gone off in completely different directions than us, and we would be capable of learning a great deal from them, and them from us.

deserted. It would be boring to be alone in the Milky Way, but I think if there are aliens, they would be quite far away from us.

crowded..i want things to be like starwars..i mean..would it not be kewl if there were planets of wookies, hutts, and half nude twilek women?:p

Oh god, the prospect of Intergalactic and interplanetary politics makes me want to throw up, please may there at least be some intelligent life somewhere out there ('cause there's bugger all down here on earth), but not tons of it...

Which we, being on the rim of the galaxy, and thus a much younger star system, would be severely disadvantaged in.
Not necessarily. If those other civilizations have lived this long without destroying themselves with WMD they may have evolved to be pacifists. It would be great to massacre some space pacifists!

crowded..i want things to be like starwars..i mean..would it not be kewl if there were planets of wookies, hutts, and half nude twilek women?:p

But what if all the important bits 'n pieces didn't match up correctly? :D

Wait what if these new worlds had concepts of God and all that? would you still want all those new beings?

Crowded would make things more interesting. Why would we want to expand that much anyway? Surely if we could travel to other stars we could terraform all the empty planets we have right on our relative doorstep.

But what if all the important bits 'n pieces didn't match up correctly? :D


we'd have hairy hutts with nice tits?:cool:

Sure there would be. There would be trade, an interchange of ideas, technology, culture.... Quite possibly they would have gone off in completely different directions than us, and we would be capable of learning a great deal from them, and them from us.


You're making an incredible leap and presuming that:

1) An alien race would be anything we could remotely relate to.
2) An alien race would be interested in anything we posess, seeing as they could be billions of years more advanced than us.
3) An alien race would care about us.

Not necessarily. If those other civilizations have lived this long without destroying themselves with WMD they may have evolved to be pacifists. It would be great to massacre some space pacifists!

Kiff, fly the white flag of war
Mwahahaha

I'm the indecisive wimp. I could see advantages in interacting with alien cultures, but they'd probably take one look at us and wipe us out before we were advanced enough to threaten them.

You're making an incredible leap and presuming that:

1) An alien race would be anything we could remotely relate to.
2) An alien race would be interested in anything we posess, seeing as they could be billions of years more advanced than us.
3) An alien race would care about us.


well i don't know if they are billions of years more advanced...and we could always export virgins if they don't want our other resources.

You're making an incredible leap and presuming that:

1) An alien race would be anything we could remotely relate to.
2) An alien race would be interested in anything we posess, seeing as they could be billions of years more advanced than us.
3) An alien race would care about us.

It's a similarly incredible leap assuming we could travel the vast distances to other stars and find intelligent life there. We could just get there and find nothing, or worse, space bugs. Everyone knows space bugs are the worst kind.

I'm the indecisive wimp. I could see advantages in interacting with alien cultures, but they'd probably take one look at us and wipe us out before we were advanced enough to threaten them.

But we might be the advanced race, and we could find a species still in their equivilant of the dark ages. We could be the 'benevolent' alien overlords.

I think its safe to say that a crowded universe should be one of mans greatest fears as it basically means man becomes part of a ruthlessly evil club putting all those races that are inferior (and there will be massive differences in how brilliant a species is) under its boot fortunately its safe to say we are very good at that and have all the experience we need thus enslavement/extermination will be the problem of those peaceful little green men

If you look at a deserted universe it gives man a divine mission to spread its seed across the cosmos and become the flag bearer of life in the universe

odd if you look at the two don’t they seem to make a cycle of expansion and killing that also explains many of mans attributes that could be built in for our survival like ruthlessness, ignorance and blind hatred combined with our feelings of expansion and sense of community

It's a similarly incredible leap assuming we could travel the vast distances to other stars and find intelligent life there. We could just get there and find nothing, or worse, space bugs. Everyone knows space bugs are the worst kind.
Indeed...
http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/tyranids/extras/art/popup.htm?images/1.jpg
They must be purged! :D

Given that we have today things that were unimaginable 100 years ago, another few centuries of technology could give us advances we can't fathom now. Who would of imagined a way to send messages nearly instantly around the world through a computer a century ago? Space fight, robots on other planets, manipulating the speed of light itself.

All you need to exceed light speed is manipulation of gravity, and no time dilation! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

('cause there's bugger all down here on earth)

nice quote. I like it. good movie.

Oh and definitely crowded with other species. I'm bored of mankind.

You're making an incredible leap and presuming that:

1) An alien race would be anything we could remotely relate to.

We don't have to "relate" to them. Observation is good enough. Furthermore, if we are assuming "intelligence," it's quite possible we could indeed relate to them.

2) An alien race would be interested in anything we posess, seeing as they could be billions of years more advanced than us.

Advancement is not linear, nor is everything we possess produced through advancement.

3) An alien race would care about us.

True, an incredible leap. We will have to wait and see. Or not, as the case may be.