[sbierwagen]

Son, you don't have to start jumping up and down and gibbering excitedly about the singularity. This ain't hard.

All life uses energy. All civilizations will always use energy, because they are made of life forms. (biological or silicon-- who cares)

If civilizations grow steadily, then their need for energy will grow steadily. If they don't flame out, then they'll need to expand beyond their host planet, and intercept more solar energy, until eventually all sunlight is captured, and you've got a Dyson sphere.

If civilizations grow until they hit a threshold, then stay steady-state for the rest of the universe's lifespan, then we'll only be able to detect them if the threshold is pretty big-- if they just stay on their planet, then they'll be hard to spot, without really big space telescopes.

[hcarvalhoalves]

Thanks, but again, you're explaining me the reasoning behind it (I get it, otherwise I wouldn't be arguing it), and losing the point about why I say it's pretentious in the first place.

Intelligence and wisdom are different qualities.