RE: time travel - anything we speculate about time travel, the age of the earth, etc - is done so within the confines and limitations of our minds.
WE assigned values to numbers. WE determined what constitutes a billion or whatever. So what seems like a long time to us could actually be instantaneous for E.T.s
Anyways, I refuse to believe we're the best this universe has to offer. That would be a bummer.
Maybe we're at the bottom of the totem pole, but too stupid to realize it.
Put a human baby on the floor and watch it try to ingest every single thing it can grasp with two fingers.
They have zero discernment for what's digestible.
Kittens be hopping off of sheet, doing Cirque de Soleil moves within a few weeks while our babies still be stuck on their backs, crying 'cause they pooped themselves in a major way.