A long read introduction to the topic - from We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters
“The search for exoplanets is radically expanding our understanding of the cosmos. “We have learned that the universe is teeming with a fascinating variety of planets, more types than we could have imagined,” writes the astrobiologist Lisa Kaltenegger. But so far, it has found exactly as many extraterrestrials as radio astronomy has: zero. The more we learn about the universe, the more acute the Fermi paradox becomes.”
TL;DR:
Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space
There’s probably life all over the place like on earth but it’s very primitive.
It took 3.5 billion years to get to the point where we evolved enough to be able to ask this question. 3.5 billion years of near misses, mass extinction events, and our star remaining stable enough to not wipe us out. I suspect microbial life is very common, we might even find some in our solar system but sentient life much less so and sentient life existing at the same time that we do is even rarer let alone sentient life creating radio waves over a long enough period to coincide with our very recent attempts to receive it.
Earth has been giving off obvious chemical evidence of life signs for eons. Any Type 1 civilization would have seen it a long time ago and we would stand out like glass on the beach.
Even if they haven’t arrived to check it out, which I doubt, they will be watching carefully in various ways.
So: zoo hypothesis seems more likely than anything to me.
People who believe in there ever being “contact” do not comprehend the size and nature of the universe.
Rule one, it’s expanding, rule 2, faster than light.
We’ll never achieve relativistic speed, our physiology doesn’t allow “generational ships”, a fetuses brain will never develop to intelligence in freefall. Centrifugal force is not gravity.
The belief in alien intelligence is simply going to be an exercise for theocracy and philosophy, never to manifest in our reality.
Maybe as the universe evolves new physics emerge allowing for new technology, the universe was once in fact so hot physics didn’t work as we identify with it but contact within humanities existence probably won’t happen. Nice to think about though, it’s in our nature for community due to our emotional intelligence, sometimes lack thereof providing contrast.
Speed of light, expansion of universe. The end.
Liu Cixin sold me on the Dark Forest theory
I like the theory that any life advanced enough to explore the galaxy is watching humanity in disgust and avoiding us like the plague while waiting for our self-induced extinction.
It is not a paradox, we are speed running towards human extinction. Thus providing a very simple reason why intelligent life doesn’t last long and defines a simple great filter.
What we consider intelligent is quite subjective
Under different definitions, “a forest” could be an inteligent individual
I knew one. He was not at all intelligent.
We are almost certainly an outlier.
I believe for us the answer is a very depressing one, I think organic intelligence almost always is superseded by more durable and effectively unlimited inorganic intelligence. That the intelligence exploring the universe is all machine we are regarded as a dull precursor wet phase to what they hope will emerge and they have no interest in interactions with slime.
The alien races travel around the galaxy (anti-spinwise), collecting promising species along the way and helping them evolve into space faring races like themselves. Humanity evolved too fast, or wasn’t noticed the last time around, but they’ll be here “soon” - within 10 million years.
