"I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
I can't decide if Steve Hawking was dumbing down his thoughts for the rest of us and so something got lost in translation from his big brain to us .. or if he's one of those guys who are brilliant in one area and just average in the rest.
There is far more stuff in our solar system than there is on our home planet. This should be more-or-less true for other solar systems. To get here to plunder our resources the alien nomads would have to drive by vast stores of wealth all ready to be mined, processed and used.
Anyone who would do that is dumb as a box of hammers and how is someone like that going to get a space-faring culture going in the first place?
Via Popehat, among others.
