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Note that I personally don't have a set opinion on this subject. I am only trying to respond to OP's question of why some people would think this is a possiblit

Note that I personally don't have a set opinion on this subject. I am only trying to respond to OP's question of why some people would think this is a possiblity. But I like to play devil's advocate so: > Or other societies realized widely broadcasting noise is bad for whatever reason. > Or maybe broadcasting widely resulted is a case study for getting your civilization invaded, so they avoided it it or only send signals as strong as they need to be Every other society realized it at the same time? Which would imply every other society is roughly born at the same time, which sounds unlikely. So some of them (like us) should not yet have discovered the danger of broadcasting signals. > Or maybe it's so consistently and universally done that we simple see it as cosmic background radiation. I don't think you can possibly mistake the CMB with some artifical radio signals coming from point sources. > Or maybe something like quantum entanglement someday makes wave transmissions for communication seem as backwards as smoke signals Definitely a possibility, but again, that would assume some kind of synchronicity between all other societies (no one is still figuring out quantum communication). But since radio signals are hard to pickup at a long range, it's possible. But we also haven't seen any other traces of civilizations: probes, dyson spheres etc.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
> Every other society realized it at the same time? Which would imply every other society is roughly born at the same time, which sounds unlikely. So some of them (like us) should not yet have discovered the danger of broadcasting signals. Yeah, that's the Dark Forest book in effect. If you broadcast, other civilizations could attempt to destroy you, so most civilizations find some way to dampen transmissions or limit them somehow.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  > Yeah, that's the Dark Forest book in effect. Precisely, and in the Dark Forest book we (humans) did indeed detect radio signals from other civilization very early after we built the radio telescopes capable of doing so. So the fermi paradox is not present in this alternate reality. In our reality we haven't detected anything yet, hence the paradox.
nobody9999 6y ago
>Every other society realized it at the same time? Which would imply every other society is roughly born at the same time, which sounds unlikely. So some of them (like us) should not yet have discovered the danger of broadcasting signals. And I'll play Devil's Advocate to your Devil's Advocate. :) It's entirely possible that there have been other technological civilizations over the past 13.7 or so billion years. That's a long time. As such, any civilization that stopped broadcasting in our direction, if they ever did so in the first place, any more than 100,000 or so years ago, would be completely undetectable to us -- ever. What's more, as was pointed out in another comment, we haven't been looking for such signals for long (~60 years) and haven't surveyed anything close to the entire galaxy. I guess the most accurate thing we can say would be that we haven't detected another technological civilization within 60 light years or so in the few places we've looked. Given the lack of data, the Drake equation[0] is less a predictive device than a way to categorize our ignorance. The Fermi Paradox[1] and its "where is everybody?" question is more in line with what I perceive to be your point. Given that we haven't looked very hard for very long (as I mention above) in an enormous galaxy that's existed for billions of years, it seems to be in a similar position as any predictions from the Drake equation. It's interesting to speculate, but without enough data, speculation is all it is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
- krapp 6y ago
  >Given that we haven't looked very hard for very long (as I mention above) in an enormous galaxy that's existed for billions of years, it seems to be in a similar position as any predictions from the Drake equation. Also remember the search space isn't even just a single galaxy, it's the entire observable universe with a hundred billion galaxies, give or take.
- Voloskaya 6y ago
  > It's entirely possible that there have been other technological civilizations over the past 13.7 or so billion years. That's a long time. As such, any civilization that stopped broadcasting in our direction, if they ever did so in the first place, any more than 100,000 or so years ago, would be completely undetectable to us -- ever. But this is assuming radio signals are the only way we could detect a civilization, what about probes (von neuman or regular), dyson spheres etc. ? > I guess the most accurate thing we can say would be that we haven't detected another technological civilization within 60 light years or so in the few places we've looked The signals we received in the last 60 years come from the entire observable universe (it's how we define the observable universe), not just from a 60 ly radius. But the furthest the signal comes from the hardest it is to detect (or the strongest it would have to be to be detectable). > It's interesting to speculate, but without enough data, speculation is all it is. I certainly hope that everyone is aware that is pure speculation ;)
guerrilla 6y ago
> Definitely a possibility, but again, that would assume some kind of synchronicity between all other societies Does this not happen with eyes, limbs and especially blood which have evolved independently many times? Maybe whatever the reason is is actually quasi-inevitable and we're missing the few that fall outside of that evolution for some unrelated reasons.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago

> Every other society realized it at the same time? Which would imply every other society is roughly born at the same time, which sounds unlikely. So some of them (like us) should not yet have discovered the danger of broadcasting signals. Yeah, that's the Dark Forest book in effect. If you broadcast, other civilizations could attempt to destroy you, so most civilizations find some way to dampen transmissions or limit them somehow.

Voloskaya 6y ago
> Yeah, that's the Dark Forest book in effect. Precisely, and in the Dark Forest book we (humans) did indeed detect radio signals from other civilization very early after we built the radio telescopes capable of doing so. So the fermi paradox is not present in this alternate reality. In our reality we haven't detected anything yet, hence the paradox.

nobody9999 6y ago

>Every other society realized it at the same time? Which would imply every other society is roughly born at the same time, which sounds unlikely. So some of them (like us) should not yet have discovered the danger of broadcasting signals. And I'll play Devil's Advocate to your Devil's Advocate. :) It's entirely possible that there have been other technological civilizations over the past 13.7 or so billion years. That's a long time. As such, any civilization that stopped broadcasting in our direction, if they ever did so in the first place, any more than 100,000 or so years ago, would be completely undetectable to us -- ever. What's more, as was pointed out in another comment, we haven't been looking for such signals for long (~60 years) and haven't surveyed anything close to the entire galaxy. I guess the most accurate thing we can say would be that we haven't detected another technological civilization within 60 light years or so in the few places we've looked. Given the lack of data, the Drake equation[0] is less a predictive device than a way to categorize our ignorance. The Fermi Paradox[1] and its "where is everybody?" question is more in line with what I perceive to be your point. Given that we haven't looked very hard for very long (as I mention above) in an enormous galaxy that's existed for billions of years, it seems to be in a similar position as any predictions from the Drake equation. It's interesting to speculate, but without enough data, speculation is all it is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

krapp 6y ago
>Given that we haven't looked very hard for very long (as I mention above) in an enormous galaxy that's existed for billions of years, it seems to be in a similar position as any predictions from the Drake equation. Also remember the search space isn't even just a single galaxy, it's the entire observable universe with a hundred billion galaxies, give or take.
Voloskaya 6y ago
> It's entirely possible that there have been other technological civilizations over the past 13.7 or so billion years. That's a long time. As such, any civilization that stopped broadcasting in our direction, if they ever did so in the first place, any more than 100,000 or so years ago, would be completely undetectable to us -- ever. But this is assuming radio signals are the only way we could detect a civilization, what about probes (von neuman or regular), dyson spheres etc. ? > I guess the most accurate thing we can say would be that we haven't detected another technological civilization within 60 light years or so in the few places we've looked The signals we received in the last 60 years come from the entire observable universe (it's how we define the observable universe), not just from a 60 ly radius. But the furthest the signal comes from the hardest it is to detect (or the strongest it would have to be to be detectable). > It's interesting to speculate, but without enough data, speculation is all it is. I certainly hope that everyone is aware that is pure speculation ;)

guerrilla 6y ago

> Definitely a possibility, but again, that would assume some kind of synchronicity between all other societies Does this not happen with eyes, limbs and especially blood which have evolved independently many times? Maybe whatever the reason is is actually quasi-inevitable and we're missing the few that fall outside of that evolution for some unrelated reasons.