Space is big. Let's say someone was beaming a very strong signal at us, would we have detected it by now with all our SETI programs? Nope, not very likely we w

Space is big. Let's say someone was beaming a very strong signal at us, would we have detected it by now with all our SETI programs? Nope, not very likely we would have. We've only scratched a tiny bit of the search space with SETI, spatially and in wavelength. Similarly, what if an Earth-twin existed in a stellar system within 20 light-years of us, would we have detected it by now? Again, also no. It would take rather a lot of luck for us to have detected it by now, our methods of detecting planets are very limited. It will likely take many more decades before we can confidently have a nearly complete survey of exoplanets near Earth, let alone at greater distances. As far as the Fermi paradox, I never bought it as a paradox. All it says is that we probably don't understand the nature of space-faring technological civilizations, which we clearly don't, nothing more.