this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Absolutely certain
Completely absurd.
The Fermi Paradox is only a paradox if you apply a ludicrously unjustified value to the last figure in the Drake equation.
Technological civilizations are very likely self-extinguishing simply because technological power grows faster than any evolved species capacity to apply that technology to the benefit of the species.
Only way out of that would be that bio life is just a bootstrap for machine life and machine life just isn't that interested in interacting with biological life so we'll never see or hear from it.
I think that we may simply be among the first civilisations to reach such a technologically advanced point. By the time a species gets tech that can destroy their civilisation, i reckon they would most likely have also made a broadcast of some sort, either through radio or light or whatever else.
Granted, there's no real way to know any of this, us being the first is just what I reason is the most likely answer.
You have to account for the fact that, even if a civilization were to broadcast some sort of signal, it would take many millennia or eons for any signals to reach us. And even then, we would have to be advanced enough to be able to receive and interpret those signals at the same time they reach Earth.
There could very well be countless advanced civilizations whose signals just haven’t reached us yet, just as there may have been countless ones whose signals couldn’t be received or understood when they reached us, and they’ve died out or otherwise stopped transmitting before we could.
Keep in mind that the first radio broadcast on Earth was only 127 years ago. That means the farthest anyone could possibly detect any radio signal from earth is a mere 127 light years away.
Idk, this seems anthropocentric. Why would we be the first? I understand that there is some degree of truth to the universe being young, but that seems as likely as us being the only advanced life, which assumes that we are some special exception.
It seems more likely that other technologically advanced life may have gone intentionally dark (minimizing signals that may leave the solar system) for safety. It's possible humans will do this some day, maybe after we detect alien life and determine it is dangerous. Or, they prioritized harmony and stewardship of their planet and stopped broadcasting (or never did) because that is incompatible with their life style.
All answers to the FP boil down to one of three Fs.
We're first, we're few, or we're fucked.
I'm not saying we are the absolute first, as in there's nobody else, I'm merely saying that we could be among the first civilisations ever to exist. To me, it seems a more plausible explanation than civs just going dark. As far as we know, there's no way to take back a broadcast that has been travelling for centuries, so even if they no longer send anything, what they sent in the past should still be detectable, I think, unless it didn't have enough time to travel here. In which case, the broadcast has been sent relatively recently (no more than a few millenia ago) or we are very far apart.
When you go to a party and you don't see anyone else there, you don't think "Everyone must be hiding", you think "I must be first", right?
Broadcast degrade, which wouldn't mean much for already existing conqueror civilizations looking for anyone to invade, but does mean the signal isn't entirely endless and we don't broadcast with the strength to reach very far (what with our only needing to send them around our planet). Our historic signals may very well never make it to civilizations advanced enough to hear them just due to distance and the fact that space isn't a perfect vacuum; signals degrade linearly as they are overwhelmed by the comparatively much more powerful background radiation. Digitally encoded signals like the ones we send now would be even harder to detect as the information would seem random.
Additionally, if we were to stop broadcasting then our broadcast would be effectively an expanding bubble with a ~130 light-year thick surface, so while it may reach a civilization and continue to reach them for 130 years, there is a chance it would reach them prior to technological advancement and it would pass by without detection. Of course in this case we assume that a new civilization would be hostile.
The party example doesn't really work here because there is no start time to be on time or fashionably late/early to.
Fun conversation, this is the stuff I used to love reddit for 😊
you cant know that for sure from a sample size of 1.
sure, humans are doing it but thats all we can truly say.