The author's tone is too pessimistic, but in light of SETI's failure to capture any transmissions, his general assumptions can be justified. I personally will be delighted if life, or evidence of past life, is discovered on Mars - it seems to me that this would increase the odds of alien civilisations.

I don't consider our civilisation to be overly intelligent. Certainly as individuals we are - but taken as a whole, we are a superstitious, frightened and squabblesome lot.

We have yet to unite in our desire to explore our own system and have so far to go before even contemplating interstellar travel. The distances are so great, FTL engines are still the stuff of fantasy and the light barrier appears insurmountable. We have not even colonised the moon, something that is widely considered to be the first real step. The ISS is tiny by comparison (an argument in favour of increased funding).

Time may be against us, the ever present threat of war could be what overcomes us eventually - assuming no galactic disaster hits us. Thats quite a gauntlet to run.

Speculation is all we have, its no idle thing, some good will always come of this.


I always wondered about Fermi's Paradox and the calculations for the existence of other civilisations in our galaxy. Don't they assume all stars to be the same?

If i recall correctly, isn't our star a 3rd generation one? Which allows for the heavier elements in our makeup. Is it not the case that the star systems towrds our central hub are more chaotic, and prone to galactic disasters?

Its not my area of expertise, apologies if i'm mistaken. But i've always thought that intelligent civilisations would be more likely along the outside edge of our galaxy.

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There is no light in space. - Moon Man

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