I think about estimates of how long it would take a determined civilization to expand itself throughout the universe, and I ask myself --
Does cancer have fun?
If the difference between a determined civilization and a relaxed civilization is just one or two orders of magnitude in growth rate, does it matter? Every exponential curve looks the same from far enough away.
It's more that only cancer, in the category of things that grow, has an exponential curve rather than an S-curve, because it's the thing for which growth is a terminal goal. For everything else, it's instrumental.
(Even the Daleks, as pretty much the gold standard for highly-focused monomanic civilizations, don't want to wallpaper the universe. They just want to be alone in it, and growth is a tool.)
((Even if they could destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek.))
