The Fermi Paradox is Back

nettxzl writes ""Sentient Developments revisits the Fermi Paradox which is "the contradictory and counter-intuitive observation that we have yet to see any evidence for the existence of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (ETI) although the size and age of the Universe suggests that many technologically advanced ETI's ought to exist." Sentient Development's blog post on the Fermi Paradox states that "a number of inter-disciplinary breakthroughs and insights have contributed to the Fermi Paradox gaining credence as an unsolved scientific problem" Amongst these are "(1)Improved quantification and conceptualization of our cosmological environment, (2) Improved understanding of planet formation, composition and the presence of habitable zones, (3) The discovery of extrasolar planets, (4) Confirmation of the rapid origination of life on Earth (5) Growing legitimacy of panspermia theories" and more ... So, where is everyone?"

So, where is everyone?

[UncleWilly]

o Far away in space
o Far away in time
o Far away in space and time
o Hollywood

God only made humans

[Anonymous Coward]

This is it folks, this planet is all there is. God only created life here on earth.

Evidence for intelligent life

[dgtangman]

Anyone remember who first noted that the best evidence for intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't contacted us?

Oh, they're out there...

[Thomasje]

...but they are way too smart to talk to strangers!

Advanced Intelligence May Just Be Embarrassed

[nick_davison]

Assuming they're smart enough to create signals that we can detect, they can most likely detect ours too.

Complex life on this planet has been going on for hundreds of millions of years and yet it's only in the last hundred or so that we've been able to look out with anything more than enhancements of our natural senses. This implies that the odds of a second species being at exactly the same point tiny. Most likely, if they're sending things we can read, they got there a long way before us and are quite a bit smarter.

Assuming they're quite a bit smarter, one look at the crap our radiowaves are sharing with the universe - infomercials, reality TV and our politics/wars - and I'd imagine pretty much any higher civilization would be embarrassed enough about us to screen their signature and make damn sure those idiotic hairless apes don't go and screw their part of the galaxy up too.

So, the answer to the paradox: There's most likely higher intelligence out there. And, because it's higher, it's most likely embarrassed to hell and back by us and screening itself from us. Problem solved.

Maybe they're using Messenger?

[IBBoard]

Maybe they are out there, trying to communicate with us, but they're using MSN Messenger and have the same bad grammar as half of the other people who use it?

"hello earthling.we want to know you know about us.info is important!!!!!"

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Have some patience, we'll run across them... ev

[Anonymous Coward]

>A fungus doesn't need to travel fast to eat your bread. Actually it doesn't travel at all and gets the job done after a few weeks. Space colonization is the same process on a larger scale.

I'm not sure how sending fungi into space to find alien bread to consume is going to be useful to anyone besides the fungi.

They're hiding...

[advocate_one]

they don't want to catch "Democracy"... they've seen how it gets forced onto others who don't want it...

Re:Time to give up...

[SpaceLifeForm]

You *assume* that no ETI has found your planet.

Just because you can observe no evidence to indicate such,
does not mean that it has not happened.

We might just be hiding our ships on another planet, observing you.

Re:So, where is everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

o Roswell

Re:We're right here

[Enoxice]

Or, perhaps, they'd come To Serve Man [imdb.com]...

Re:The paradox

[Plutonite]

My girlfriend pointed out that we've been analyzing for hydrogen based signals, because it's the easiest to produce, and we've found nothing.

You have a girlfriend, and she points out insightful things about space exploration stories on slashdot and knows what a hydrogen-based signal is? Your existence is less probable than that of the aliens :)

Re:The paradox

[dex22]

Great. Now you want me to worry about alien races leeching off my wifi? When I can't even connect from 200 feet away?

Re:We're right here

[SlayerDave]

we are the alien life forms we're looking for...

I'm not the droid I'm looking for.

Re:So, where is everyone?

[DreamingReal]

So does that mean that we may end up being the advanced civilizations that other aliens dream of discovering?

Christ, I hope not. Once the alien civilizations "grow up" we'd quickly become the idiot savants of the galaxy. Sure we will have split the atom, manipulated our genes, and developed FTL travel, but we will probably still entertain ourselves with reruns of Bret Michael's Rock of Love, burn down our cities when sports teams win championships, and get our "news" from Bill O'Reilly IV.

Re:We're right here

[rubycodez]

I'm even more of an optimist, I think the visitors will be delicious and best served with complex red wine.