Give a man a fish... and the aliens won't come
That story goes on about feeding him for a day or teaching him how to fish to allow him to feed himself as long as there are fish to catch.
Well it goes a bit deeper than that though. When a man is given a fish, in the South African context, what occurs is that the man then assumes that it is yours or the government's duty to continually supply fish to the man whenever he requires fish.
It's a fact of life in South Africa that this is the case, and as long as we give things to people for nothing, the cycle will continue and the poor will never beat the cycle. This can only occur when they do it for themselves.
The same can be said for the self actualisation of the whole of humanity as a species on the universal scale. Any advanced culture that has identified our planet as a home for semi intelligent life would have implemented a strict code of non interference in relation to developing planets and species.
In this regard, it can be assumed that only when we ourselves are able to identify other planets that support intelligent life, as well as develop the means to travel to them, will those who already have the knowledge, identify themselves to us.
It is therefore safe to assume that intelligent life may have seeked us out, but will not interfere in our development until we show ourselves to be ready to handle the responsibility of space travel, the understanding of the physics involved, as well as the technology to enable us to do so.
Therefore, unless we are to be used as slaves for an alien race, we won't see contact for a long time. Once we are in the position to do the above, we may either be welcomed to a vast network of races that have beenn waiting for us to reach the required level of intellect, or realise indeed that the Universe is so vast, as so old that the chances of finding technological races at more or less the same level of development as ours is remote.
Many many races would have come and gone already and if we think that out of 15 billion years we've had the knowledge to use electricity for 150 years shows how small this window is.
Honestly I doubt that even if we do manage to get moving, I'm not sure whether our love of violence would be much enjoyed by our neighbors in space, I trust that we are perhaps a wee bit too stupid for most of them.
