3 ms·
I would define short lived as the difference between dying out in a local star cluster or continuing to expand till the heat death of the universe. A long-lived
by dougmwne 3y ago
I would define short lived as the difference between dying out in a local star cluster or continuing to expand till the heat death of the universe. A long-lived and expansionary civilization will eventually reach us, even if it takes 1k years to hop from star to star. A short lived civilization will never reach us.
- lazide 3y agoNone of the situations you’re giving are based entirely off longevity - they use longevity as a factor of another equation. A billion year old civilization that isn’t expansionary will never reach us either. Or one that doesn’t want to spend the energy ($$$) if other cheap energy forms we’ve speculated aren’t possible or as inexpensive/portable as would be needed. They could just as easily be happy being billion year old zen masters, and we’d never know - even if they had warp drives. They’d still exist though, and if we ever wanted to find them I guess we’d be able to do so. But we’d never know about them proactively.