I think that such possibilities depend on the interelationship of
individual intelligence and sociability levels. For example, a highly
individualistis, even viciously animistic species may reach interstellar
capacity by having an extremely high individual intelligence. Such high
individual capability may overcome a lack of ability to cooperate, and
may be aided by extreme differentiation between the sexes, where the
males would be extremely agressive, individualistic, and intelligent,
while the females may be more cooperative, compliant, and submissive, so
there would be a alpha male pack phenomenon with numerous female
servants. Niven's Kzin are one example of this, though even they were
described by Niven as having acquired their technology from another race
involuntarily.
Primitive agressive species may also gain interstellar capacity by
acquiring advanced technology from other races who are not careful in
their planetary activities (Niven's Kzin), and are either attacked, or
lose technology due to vehicle crashes (shades of Roswell???). If such
were the current case, it is considered one reason for the Great Filter
question, as well as an explaination why our own government would not
admit to acquiring technology, as a tv broadcast goes out into space and
is basically an announcement to other races that we have acquired
technology we may not be prepared to handle, or may abuse in an
expansionist way. Lack of radio signals from outside systems can easily
be explained by current technology. We currently have the capabilty to
jam EM broadcasts in a localized area, or jam broadcasts into an area
without disturbing the broadcasts within the area, all without giving
away a localized signature of the jamming source. If we can do this,
certainly more advanced races could do the same to us on a solar system
wide scale.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}