Peak oil explains lack of UFOs

Peak oil explains lack of UFOs

www.salon.com

The Fermi Paradox is an attempt to wrestle with the question of why we haven't yet encountered any evidence of alien civilizations. Wikipedia defines the paradox as follows:

The size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.
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In other words, we haven't encountered alien space-faring civilizations because all such alien races that developed the technological capacity for space-flight smacked head on into peak oil and then reverted back to barbarism, or some other form of pre-Industrial Revolution social arrangement.

(visit the link for the full news article)

If you don't believe the UFOs have visited us, then this is a very interesting take on why that may be the case. This article is also pointing to our impending doom, apparently, much like E.T's.

www.salon.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 7/5/2008 by SilentShadow]

Interesting perspective, but I find it a little hard to swallow personally. It's kinda complicated to explain why I feel that way though. I guess it's about propulsion methods. Given the vast distances, interstellar travel (let alone intergalactic travel) requires some kind of space/time manipulation, which would require vast amounts of energy. There's simply no way (that I can imagine) that burning fossil fuels would generate anywhere near sufficient energy.

So the way I see it, either some other form of energy creation exists to allow for interstellar travel, or interstellar travel doesn't exist. I don't think that oil, peak or no, would have any effect on interstellar travel whatsoever.

That's my two cents. But definitely an interesting perspective.

I love these types of articles. Very interesting, but who is to say every planet with life on it has oil or an equivelent? From what I know, this isn't the case. There are planets with life that isn't carbon based, I'm told it can't be accurately described with the words we use. (Not in scientific terms, but how one would interpret and explain his/her surroundings if one were to see it first hand) I agree that this has likely happened to countless civilizations on planets simialar to Earth.

We are currently (and have been for some time now) investigating the use of non-oil based fuels for earth bound transport, not to mention interstellar transport. If a race from another planet has the technology to get here, they surely would have found a much more efficient energy source than oil.
Still a very interesting story though. Something for us to consider, and for the teams working on alternative fuels.

Interesting read, but considering I believe peak oil is about as real world a concept as turds spontaneously defying gravity and sticking to the bathroom ceiling, it leaves me with more of a chuckle and a smirk than any real grounds for thought. I'd expect that unless such an alien race had their own little grey Al Gore & his little grey cronies running around spouting lies and pseudo science to try and frighten people into redirecting all the oil money they want a chunk of into waste of time alternative fuels and carbon offsets, they long ago recognized that oil is a planetary by-product and is renewable if you only extract it using the same principles used in crop rotation. If they'd rest the oil fields for a few decades and divert their efforts into extracting the oil from oil shale and tar sands exclusively, they'd find the oil fields fully replensihed. Hell, it wouldn't even take decades, I don't believe. At the current rate of extraction we still only hear fear mongering rumors of these fields running out while the actual numbers of the various nation's in-situ reserves miraculously keep going up.

I sincerely hope that advanced extraterrestrial life isn't bogged down by the same nonsense our world has fallen victim to. In fact, I'd be sorely disappointed to believe otherwise.