3 ms·
We don't have to be totally alone, we just have to be rare enough that there's no detectable civilization in range at this time. If you multiply the probabiliti
by goatlover 7y ago
We don't have to be totally alone, we just have to be rare enough that there's no detectable civilization in range at this time. If you multiply the probabilities of complex, intelligent life evolving that happened to be broadcasting signals into space a few decades to centuries ago (depending on how many light years away they are), then it's a reasonable conclusion that what we're looking for is rare.
If the closest ETs are 20,000 light years away, would we ever find out about them? Space is vast and time is deep. We could have missed the most recent civilization in range of detection by a million years.
- Retric 7y ago> multiply the probabilities of complex, intelligent life evolving that happened to be broadcasting signals into space a few decades to centuries ago We have no idea what those probabilities are. Planets where often assumed to be rare until we started looking for them.
- goatlover 7y agoThey're not going to be 1, so you're multiplying fractions. Start with us being the only radio broadcasting life out of 3.5 billion years of species on this planet, or how long it took to get to multicellular life on a relatively stable world with only occasional mass extinction events that doesn't turn the planet into a Mars or Venus.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]