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Lets say they will. How is conquering a far off enemy worth it economically? It would be easier from a resource, political, technical, and moral perspective to

Lets say they will. How is conquering a far off enemy worth it economically? It would be easier from a resource, political, technical, and moral perspective to build out large solar arrays or build more nuclear plants (or more fantastically, build out a Dyson sphere) than a space war. We're not post-scarcity, nor even close to it, but we certainly have better options than mindless destruction for energy. Now imagine us 5,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 years from now. Why would we fly to some far off planet to murder everyone for their resources? The universe is teeming with energy and resources. Its simpler and more ethical to just tap local-ish uninhabited resources. Arguably, if your species is mind-mindbogglingly stupid enough to declare war constantly and against the basic rules of game-theory then I doubt your society will survive the nuclear weapons stage anyway and won't ever be in the stars. The nice thing about the Drake equation is that it suggests that Klingon-esque societies don't make it to the space-faring stage, which is nice.

jerry40 10y ago
We can't predict motivations of other forms of life, can we? They are completely different (in theory). They even can build a trap to make evevryone who will get there happy. Or to hear their story. I dont know.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  > They are completely different (in theory). They are products of evolution and, in theory, we'll be very alike in many ways.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I don't think we currently have a very good idea of how much of what we're like is due to universal properties, and how much is path dependent and wouldn't show up in a completely independently evolved ecosystem.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      Greed and selfishness seem to come from evolution in a very robust way. Every time it fails to come a little bit, there's a huge change in some ecosystem or all of them. But then, maybe a species able to colonize a galaxy can only appear as consequence of those rare exceptions. We, as a not completely selfish species are evidence for that.

jerry40 10y ago

We can't predict motivations of other forms of life, can we? They are completely different (in theory). They even can build a trap to make evevryone who will get there happy. Or to hear their story. I dont know.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
> They are completely different (in theory). They are products of evolution and, in theory, we'll be very alike in many ways.
- mikeash 10y ago
  I don't think we currently have a very good idea of how much of what we're like is due to universal properties, and how much is path dependent and wouldn't show up in a completely independently evolved ecosystem.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Greed and selfishness seem to come from evolution in a very robust way. Every time it fails to come a little bit, there's a huge change in some ecosystem or all of them. But then, maybe a species able to colonize a galaxy can only appear as consequence of those rare exceptions. We, as a not completely selfish species are evidence for that.