[resu_nimda]

I’m not familiar with the book, but

1) I don’t think the analogy of ambling around our backyards holds for space travel. Space is vast and largely empty, it would be astronomically unlikely for anyone to casually wander over to earth from another star or galaxy.

2) We only treat ants that way because we already know about them. People have noticed them and studied them at great length. A person who doesn’t know that other animals exist on earth would probably be incredibly fascinated by them and likely try to communicate with them.

[jolincost]

We think space is empty, but we don't really have evidence that it is... It could be teeming with life or ships that our current sensor tech simply doesn't pick up from here.

Maybe if we inhabited space significantly we would find there's a lot going on between the stars