[krapp]

We're talking about beings capable of harnessing enough energy to travel interstellar distances, possibly even harnessing (let's say for the sake of argument) strange new physics like warp drive or wormholes. They'll know at a glance whether we're a threat just by our scale of energy output, and they'll be able to tell from light-years away. No species that hasn't already colonized their solar system or started mining the plasma from their home star is going to be worth worrying about.

[giantg2]

"They'll know at a glance whether we're a threat just by our scale of energy output,"

Except we don't use our most powerful energy source (nuclear weapons).

[krapp]

They would still be orders of magnitude past that. Probably Kardashev type 2 at least. A couple of nukes probably aren't going to scare them.

[friend_and_foe]

I think advanced aliens would laugh at our kardashev scale and say "well it's a lot more nuanced than that" especially considering we don't see a single shred of evidence that anyone out there has a dyson swarm. It's probably the wrong metric to use. If they're up there, whatever they're up to, it's probably really interesting and not just about energy consumption.