[michaelmrose]

There is no reason at present to believe such things exist or can exist. It also makes the fermi paradox much worse.

Without faster than light travel its possible to legitimately imagine that the size of space is a major barrier to colonizing the galaxy/observable universe. Maybe civilizations don't expend the energy required to expand when trips take thousands of years or most civilizations don't persist for the potentially millions of years required to saturate the galaxy.

Once you posit faster than light travel you have a situation where you have to explain why nobody in sphere bigger than the observable universe decided to saturate the observable universe in the mere centuries required to exponentially expand everywhere.

[jim_bailie]

I wasn't positing faster than light travel, but rather a medium allowing a ftl transfer of information.

[michaelmrose]

Outside of being a useful trope in scifi can you imagine any reason why information but not matter would be able to be transferred faster than light?

[jacobush]

Spooky interaction at a distance shenanigans entanglement?

[michaelmrose]

None of this can even theoretically be used for communication. Information doesn't travel faster than light.

[jim_bailie]

Never say never

[redial]

> All I know is that if we're going to locate or communicate with any other advanced civilization out there, it's sure not going to be with radio waves.

Never say never, indeed.