[gdy]

See Liu Cixin's cosmic sociology)

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/11/11/the-big-idea-liu-cixi...

Second: technological explosion. It took humans about a hundred thousand years to advance from stone tools to the age of agriculture, but only two hundred years to go from the steam age to the information age. Explosive advances in technology could occur at any moment in any civilization in the universe. Thus, even a primitive civilization that appears as harmless as a baby or a sprout is full of potential danger.

[clouddrover]

Pure fantasy. The only real advance in the last 400 years has been the development of an organised, systematic approach to science. The scientific method has driven all development. And the science says we're not travelling between stars any time soon.

[gdy]

There was similar attitude at the end of the 19th century - some people thought all major scientific discoveries had already been made.