1. You don't have to believe in aliens for them to believe in you.
2. You are ascribing human motivations to alien species that are at a minimum, far beyond our medium term theoretical technical capabilities.
3. Even within a human centric mindset, who is to say that the last 1/3 of the western spiral arm of the Milky Way isn't set aside as a nature preserve? A civilization that can travel the stars, harness cold fusion, fight with laser swords, and transcend to pure energy might not have any need to plunder the only planet with intelligent life for say 100 light years in any direction.
Now all that said, I don't put any more credence in alien visitation than I do the time travel idea (now THEY need resources), which is to say very little, but not zero. I just want to be careful in closing off possibilities based on our very limited understanding of things like xeno-biology (BIO 297), comparative galactic civilization trends (GalHist 332), galactic economics after the collapse of the Flanian Pobble Bead (Econ 450).
Do the same comparison you did in part 3, but with New World primitives and Cortez’s people from Europe. Who’s to say back then that an advanced European economy that could harness the wind with sails to travel to the other side of the ocean system and who had firearms that used gunpowder not yet invented in the new world would have need for simple relics like gold/silver or arable land?
They could have ascribed native motivations to cultures beyond their medium (Europeans) like you state in part 2 and still ended up being pretty close to right. Just because another society (human or otherwise) doesn’t really need a thing doesn’t mean they won’t take a thing if they can find a use case for it elsewhere and make it available for sale or trade.
I think the difference in part 3 is one of relative difference in technological abilities being different. The aliens with warp abilities, terraforming abilities, etc., etc., may well be more like we currently are with those remote tribes we just leave alone. They don't have to be of course, but with the rapid increase in technological advancement, the gap between human cultures cannot be measured in years, and the gap between us now and primitive tribes might be more illustrative. Think if we found an undiscovered island in the South Pacific today, quickly scanned it, and found that while nice, it didn't have any oil, rare earth metals, etc. I wouldn't guarantee that we'd leave them alone (perhaps study them of course), but the concept would certainly be entertained.
As for your second paragraph, you are right that another society MIGHT take what they can, but that cannot be assumed, just because that's what humans do. Their value structure would be...wait for it...alien.
1. You don't have to believe in aliens for them to believe in you.
2. You are ascribing human motivations to alien species that are at a minimum, far beyond our medium term theoretical technical capabilities.
3. Even within a human centric mindset, who is to say that the last 1/3 of the western spiral arm of the Milky Way isn't set aside as a nature preserve? A civilization that can travel the stars, harness cold fusion, fight with laser swords, and transcend to pure energy might not have any need to plunder the only planet with intelligent life for say 100 light years in any direction.
Now all that said, I don't put any more credence in alien visitation than I do the time travel idea (now THEY need resources), which is to say very little, but not zero. I just want to be careful in closing off possibilities based on our very limited understanding of things like xeno-biology (BIO 297), comparative galactic civilization trends (GalHist 332), galactic economics after the collapse of the Flanian Pobble Bead (Econ 450).
Do the same comparison you did in part 3, but with New World primitives and Cortez’s people from Europe. Who’s to say back then that an advanced European economy that could harness the wind with sails to travel to the other side of the ocean system and who had firearms that used gunpowder not yet invented in the new world would have need for simple relics like gold/silver or arable land?
They could have ascribed native motivations to cultures beyond their medium (Europeans) like you state in part 2 and still ended up being pretty close to right. Just because another society (human or otherwise) doesn’t really need a thing doesn’t mean they won’t take a thing if they can find a use case for it elsewhere and make it available for sale or trade.
I think the difference in part 3 is one of relative difference in technological abilities being different. The aliens with warp abilities, terraforming abilities, etc., etc., may well be more like we currently are with those remote tribes we just leave alone. They don't have to be of course, but with the rapid increase in technological advancement, the gap between human cultures cannot be measured in years, and the gap between us now and primitive tribes might be more illustrative. Think if we found an undiscovered island in the South Pacific today, quickly scanned it, and found that while nice, it didn't have any oil, rare earth metals, etc. I wouldn't guarantee that we'd leave them alone (perhaps study them of course), but the concept would certainly be entertained.
As for your second paragraph, you are right that another society MIGHT take what they can, but that cannot be assumed, just because that's what humans do. Their value structure would be...wait for it...alien.