Ontoplankton,
Those are all valid points. Sorry for misinterpreting the Star Wars analogy. I enjoy some science fiction (but not a Star Trek fan)and find it strange how our current morality always wins out at the end of the day.
My overall view of any attempt to understand aliens is to...
Ontoplankton,
I have no idea what a Star Trek prime directive is. Western civilization in 2003 has little more insight than an inanimate rock into the motives of an ET civilization. Even the concept is loaded. Humans have changed 'motives' several times in the last couple thousand years...
Nereid
"Extrapolation is always fraught. However, it's taken homo sap. only ~10,000 years to go from agricultural settlements to manned spaceflight. Where will we be in 10,000 years' time?"
You are correct in warning of extrapolation.
The question is also one of the physical laws of the...
Intelligence versus contact.
I don't see any validity to Fermi's Paradox (I guess then it doesn't make it a 'paradox'.
Intelligent ET life can be common. What if there is one billion intelligent E. civilizations in the Universe? The odds would be beyond comprehension if we ever learned of...