3 ms·
The other way of looking at that is that it would only take a few hundred thousand years for a technologically advanced civilization to permeate the galaxy. But
by rad88 8y ago
The other way of looking at that is that it would only take a few hundred thousand years for a technologically advanced civilization to permeate the galaxy. But the galaxy is billions of years old and that has not happened.
The other thing is that the paradox isn't just that they aren't physically here with us. It's that there's no evidence of intelligent life whatsoever. We're at the point where we can take direct optical images of exoplanets. At some point we have to conclude that if they are out there, we would have seen some indication of it.
- Razengan 8y ago> it would only take a few hundred thousand years for a technologically advanced civilization to permeate the galaxy. Why? How? How soon would they be able to start? Why haven't we begun doing so ourselves? Why haven't we even established a presence on our neighboring moons and planets, even though we are technically capable of already doing so? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the "we should have met someone by now" argument relies upon a bunch of thin assumptions that have been brought up elsewhere in response to other instances of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17829840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17829840