• howrar@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    since they are by definition far beyond our technology

    How so? Aliens aren’t going to suddenly come into existence and have super-human technology in that same instant.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      If an alien can travel to meet us, and we have nowhere near the technology that we could travel to them, then yes they are far beyond our level of technology.

      Since the question mentioned “civilization”, these are sapient beings, not just microbes or animals of some sort. While there’s still a chance of primitive life in our solar system, sapient life pretty much implies travel from outside the solar system and we can only do that in our fiction

      • howrar@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        we can only do that in our fiction

        At present, yes. The hypothetical is in the future, possibly in one where we’ve developed interstellar travel and we can be the ones visiting the alien planet.