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Aliens haven't contacted Earth because there's no sign of intelligence here
- euroderf 4y agoJeez Louise, we're still swingin' from the trees.
- Quequau 4y agoWhen I was a teen I would have enthusiastically agreed with this but now I understand that it describes me too.
- Buffout 4y agoHow will they contact us? We need Galactical mailbox. And you don't know how to build one unless you already have one.
- krapp 4y agoEarth's galactic mailbox is located near our local planning department in Alpha Centauri, only four light years away.
- schwartzworld 4y agoIs this really a new solution to the Fermi paradox? It's a common trope in SF that alien cultures wait for a species to reach a certain level of development before contacting them. We've had radio for barely any time at all.
- seanhunter 4y agoYes. If I recall correctly, this is a major plot element of "Star Trek: First Contact" for example.[1] [1] I'm not a huge trek person but it's pretty decent as these things go https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731/?ref_=fn_al_tt_20 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731/?ref_=fn_al_tt_20
- someNameIG 4y agoNot just First Contact but most of Star Trek. The Federation has the prime directive, do not make contact with pre-warp/pre-FTL civilisations.
- iszomer 4y agoI recall an episode on Enterprise (2001) that showed Vulcan's living amongst them before the Prime Directive was ever a thing. Yep -- https://screenrant.com/star-trek-enterprise-vulcans-earth-1957-first-contact/ https://screenrant.com/star-trek-enterprise-vulcans-earth-19...
- lofatdairy 4y agoThe paper seems to be instead arguing that the range of our radio broadcasts has not reached significantly far into space. Not that aliens are waiting for us to develop, so much as the sign that we're even here hasn't even reached them yet.
- fullshark 4y agoI thought it was because we haven't developed warp travel.
- grishka 4y agoDoes this still assume that the speed of light is a hard limit?
- hulitu 4y agoYou need an updated ulimit utility because the current version does not implement the speed of light.
- hoffspot 4y agoThe aliens must have picked up CSPAN from the Oumuamua probe, translated the proceedings of US congress, and confirmed the absence of intelligence in the system.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dancingvoid 4y agoHow about, confirmed the absence of intelligence in a species that allows and support such a system?
- unsupp0rted 4y ago> even if we had the resources, humanity would not consider sending Rosetta-like missions to every single asteroid in the Asteroid Belt or to every comet in the Oort Cloud. Of course we would. Not to every single one, but to enough of a random sampling to get a statistical sense of what's there.
- rambojohnson 4y agouh huhuhuh huhuhuh
- schrodinger 4y agoMaybe they picked up a broadcast of Fox News and bailed immediately?
- Hillberry12 4y agomaybe they saw how retarded we are with masks and vax cards
- tenpies 4y agoI didn't realize this was considered a "new" solution. I always assumed that there would be no contact because we are utterly uninteresting. We probably lie well within the middle of the pack in every single way as far as species go, not only in current attributes and technology, but also in our trajectory. If we're lucky, some very bored data-focused alien in the region may discretely drop by just to catalog us.
- polishdude20 4y agoEither we are unremarkable compared to other lifeforms and thus we'd be ignored. Or.. We are just like every other lifeforms in space and neither of us has developed a way to travel to eachother or even pick up the others signals.
- whywhywhywhy 4y agoThink any planet capable of producing art would be fascinating to any species capable of contacting it.
- harshalizee 4y agoNot if there's a plethora of other civilizations/species that are also producing art. Some higher beings may look at our stuff in the same vein as a 6 year old's drawing of a house. Cute, but uninteresting and there's billions of 6 year olds out there.
- sureglymop 4y agoNever thought this because I always pictured aliens as some sort of microbial, primitive life forms and not like ET. Not sure why, but that's always how I pictured it.
- steponlego 4y agoWhat if there just aren't any aliens? What if they are so small that due to an error of scale their entire fleet was swallowed by a small dog?