> If weak intelligence is everywhere, Earth-like planets are everywhere, ... where are the aliens? A species needs more than raw intelligence to create technol

> If weak intelligence is everywhere, Earth-like planets are everywhere, ... where are the aliens? A species needs more than raw intelligence to create technology. They also need: 1. Dexterity: dolphins and ravens are intelligent, but they have no fine motor manipulators, so there is no way to build technology. 2. Reasonably high bandwidth communication: other primates are intelligent, social and dextrous, but don't have sophisticated language for precise and expansive communication. 3. Social inclinations leading to building cultural knowledge across generations: octopuses are intelligent, are reasonably dextrous, and their colour changing ability could possibly be used for reasonably moderate bandwidth communication, but they are largely solitary creatures. There are probably even a couple more. Edit: come to think of it, I think a species that builds technology would need to have all of the above features and feature some distinct physical disadvantages in order to drive them towards compensating by developing tools and knowledge to survive. For instance, humans are physically quite weak compared to other primates.