General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I've been fretting more and more about the Fermi Paradox [View all]Johnny2X2X
(19,114 posts)And when thinking of modern humans, it's a mistake to think the European Colonialists were the most technologically advanced, they weren't. What they were technologically advanced in was weapons, and the use of gun powder. Other cultures had more advanced medicine, sanitation, infrastructure, etc, but Europeans developed better ways to kill people and thus took over the world no matter how much more advanced the societies they took over were.
If we ever do get contacted/visited, I think it's unlikely to be organic life forms. Life outside out galaxy could take on many forms, but more likely, any civilization would probably make artificial duplicates (androids) of them self to travel the cosmos. I do not think the human body is fit for deep space travel and won't ever be. I think we'll sooner be able to download a person's consciousness into an artificial life form before we overcome the barriers that space travel offer to the human body. Or maybe AIs will explore the cosmos for us.