June 5, 20223 yr A while ago we were talking about space exploration. We have discussed meeting advanced civilizations. But suppose we do develop space travel and warp speeds and come upon an inhabited planet with humanoids in the same stage of development as the Aztecs and Incas and the indigenous population of the United States at that time. Suppose again needed natural resources were found on that planet. Given our track record so far, even today in mining diamonds in Africa, would we observe the Prime Directive or would we exploit what we could? Noel Edited June 5, 20223 yr by birdguy Spelling The tires are worn. The shocks are shot. The steering is wobbly. But the engine still runs fine.
June 6, 20223 yr Okay, I had to get up at 4 this morning to take my daughter to the airport, so I'm tired, but I'll do my best to make sense. 😀 I don't think the alien civilisations we encountered would need to worry. The human race is nowhere near developing the capability for interstellar travel. We are 300, 500, 900, 1000, 10,000 years away or much more and in fact it may not be practical at all. Yes, we will/do need resources but we will be mining those resources long before we develop the capability to travel to other star systems. So where will we obtain those resources? The answer is the asteroid belt and near Earth objects. The asteroids are jam packed with all manner of valuable minerals. Asteroid "16 Psyche" for example has gold worth $700 Quintillion. That's enough gold to give every person on Earth $93 billion! In short, we need those resources well before we develop interstellar travel and we don't need to go to other star systems to obtain them. And hopefully, by the time we develop interstellar travel we will be a much more mature species than we are now and less likely to cause mayhem for a less advanced species.
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