nice point. if aliens do exist then they hell know we are here on earth. maybe they're waiting for us to evolve or get a higher degree of knowledge, who knows.
Sometimes I wonder if they are intimidated by us.
If a number of the accounts throughout histories of 'battles of the gods' and encounters of 'sky-beings' - they ring pretty true of what some people talk about seeing, today. Not much has changed in thousands of years, technology wise, for these beings (assuming they exist).
Or, at least, outwardly the technology does not appear to have changed.
A hundred years ago, we were running on steam engines, fascinated by magnets and x-rays, and were getting the internal combustion engine figured out. A hundred years before that, we were reliant upon horses and other work animals.
About seventy years ago, they may have detected bursts of gamma radiation and returned to find us playing with nuclear power, developing the transistor, and crafting a model of quantum mechanics that would later propel us into the age of silicon semiconductors and digital computing.
I hardly recognize the world from when I was five years old. We may not have flying cars, but we have printed organs, laser scalpels - star trek shit. Just without the space propulsion.
Perhaps the axioms of FTL or other forms of flight are quite simple - just something we missed, or some compound that is not readily available to experiment with (for us). If you consider that descriptions of their technology have not changed over thousands of years of alleged brief contact... yet we are born into a world to see it re-invented several times before we pass...
If there are aliens - we are likely turning a few of their heads.
Perhaps their -abilities- are relatively advanced ... but perhaps the current generations of aliens have lost the knowledge regarding how they work and how to improve upon them. Industry may have become more of a ritualistic art as opposed to a developmental and descriptive science.
I find it difficult to accept the notion that humans are somehow morally inferior to alien beings.
Any creature that develops space travel is most likely to be a predator. For every non-predatory animal on the planet, there is an example of a more cunning predator that targets it. Further, the senses we rely upon heavily for experimenting with and developing science/industry are all features shared almost exclusively by predators. Binocular vision gives excellent depth perception, social coordination/communication helps with bringing down larger prey, the inherent nature of a predator is to manipulate prey to an end - the same is the objective of developing technological solutions. Our vision is exceptionally high definition and our foray into being omnivorous made color distinction a worthy trade for low-light performance.
More than likely, just about every species that makes it into space travel has the evolutionary history of a super predator. To expect their instincts and mentality to be radically different from our own is somewhat silly - unless we assume they have spent such an extended time frame in microgravity and under the bliss of techno-industrial capability that they have become a class of organism we can only speculate about.
Generally speaking, I would expect them to be very similar to how we are in terms of mentality and overall intellect. We may soon out-pace them by merging our biological functions with solid-state functions (neural interfaces) - being able to individually command far more resources than most biological organisms could ever expect to.
Though I expect, culturally, there would be a few differences. Any species with that kind of ability and freedom of movement through space would have very little in the way of territory battles. The expense of kicking someone else out of an asteroid field would be far greater than the practicality of simply finding someplace else to go.
Though wars would likely be more ideologically based than resource based. I expect ancient depictions of battles between the gods would have been a battle over what entity had the right to 'nurture' our upbringing.
Or, perhaps their involvement in our history is a bit more insidious. Just as we manipulate bacteria and viruses to do work for us - perhaps these species recognized long ago that species like ours (or... perhaps our particular species that has been seeded in multiple locations) is able to rapidly develop technological and industrial solutions that the 'master' species are just not as efficient at (differences in perspectives and resources). Perhaps they've been gently nudging the course of our history to get us to develop solutions to problems they are dealing with, elsewhere.
Perhaps there are many of 'our' civilizations spread across the galaxy and many of them being cultured to solve problems or to counter threats of some variety or another.
It's always fun to speculate.
It's silly to try and make any definite conclusions.
I'm sure there are other living creatures out there that are similar to us and trying to explore the universe (if they aren't doing it already.)
Have they found us, and have they been in contact with us through history? I like to think so - but, there again, what I like and what is are occasionally two different things. There are a lot of questions if they have found us.
But, also, I do not subscribe to the belief that aliens would be 'better' than us, 'wiser' than us, or even 'more dangerous' than us. There are a number of people who, oddly enough, put almost a religious faith in the idea that aliens would 'save us from ourselves.' I find the view repugnant and self-destructive.
But that's me. Which is reason enough for many to discredit everything I've said.