The arc of technology that would matter or be detectable to a distant civilization is less than 200 years of our history so far. It is yet to be seen how far that arc extends to the future. Even if it does, we’ve already passed the peak of our broadcasting in the EM spectrum. It’s not hard to imagine us coming to terms with the speed of light, and ultimately losing interest in stars that could only be reached by our ancestors tens of thousands of years from now. If we stick within a few tens of light years, and don’t bother to try and contact life we’d have to communicate on a thousand+ year “tape delay” we’d be hard or impossible to detect. That of course assumes that some other form of life is interested in something so far away and in its relative past.
All of that assumes that the arc of technology doesn’t terminate in a cosmic eyeblink after the current era, which it might. Either way, there is a sort of childish assumption that we’re always going to be as exploration-minded as we are today. If ‘c’ really is the cosmic limit, then it makes more sense to stick closer together, because any significant travel will imply either speciation, or a one-way cultural trip.
All of that assumes that the arc of technology doesn’t terminate in a cosmic eyeblink after the current era, which it might. Either way, there is a sort of childish assumption that we’re always going to be as exploration-minded as we are today. If ‘c’ really is the cosmic limit, then it makes more sense to stick closer together, because any significant travel will imply either speciation, or a one-way cultural trip.