# Have we reached the point when it is kooky to not believe in massive amounts of intelligent life having evolved throughout the universe?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 19, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972 "2022-08-19T23:30:48Z")\
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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2025, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-reached-the-point-when-it-is-kooky-to-not-believe-in-massive-amounts-of-intelligent-life-having-evolved-throughout-the-universe/969972/416 "2025-10-30T11:31:54Z")

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> [@eburacum45](#):
>
> Precisely. A civilisation located in close orbit around the galactic supermassive black hole would experience time more slowly than us; for every decade we experience, they might only see a single year. I’m not sure why an advanced civilisation might want to do that, but if you want to travel into the deep future quickly, time dilation would do the trick.

In the David Brin short story _Crystal Spheres,_ it turned out that multiple advanced civilizations were using black hole time dilation to reach the future where there’d be _more_ advanced civilizations. None of them wanted to be the burned-out, jaded “ancient precursors”.

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