The Fermi Paradox — Where Are All The Aliens?

The Fermi Paradox isn't a new concept - most of us are aware of it.

The Fermi paradox (or Fermi's paradox) is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization and humanity's lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations. The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael H. Hart, are:

- The Sun is a typical star, and relatively young. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older.
- With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets. Assuming the Earth is typical, some of these planets may develop intelligent life.
- Some of these civilizations may develop interstellar travel, a technology Earth is investigating even now (such as the 100 Year Starship).
Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years.
Wiki

This new video explains the Fermi Paradox, and it is quite depressing if you had any hope of alien contact... Even thought the chances of life on other planets are pretty high, the chances of ever coming in contact with them are pretty slim...



The video/theory doesn't take into consideration methods of travel we aren't aware of yet like the "portals" we've seen in so many scifi movies. So, IMO there is still some hope left...

Edit: Bill Nye makes a good case as well:



And this little cartoon hits the mark pretty well:

Well yes ... but.

Our primary tech development in this area is for warfare. That has always been the major impetus. We have only had this type of tech for less than a hundred years.

If we do not get off this planet in the next five hundred or so years, our civilization is likely to collapse when the next ice age hits.

The question really is, why would they want to talk to us?

We are a woeful race really. I would not want us out there. The first chance we got, we would be at war and building Star Ships and would get wiped out in short order.

We look for signs of ET in the EM spectrum which is probably dumb as all hell.

The day we discover something like sub space, someone will likely come along and ask us why we are on channel 12365 because it is reserved for Star Ships in quadrant 6.

Every one seems to assume that Aliens will be like us and have the same desires and needs in space. They may not. ET may have discovered Warp Drive without ever inventing a calculator let alone a computer.

On the other hand, they could be hovering above us in cloaked luxury liners sending cloaked drones down to examine us in our daily lives.

It is all so variable.

At the moment, I would suggest that they would just be watching from afar, wondering when we will destroy ourselves and have the attitude of "Who cares dude, it is a # of a world anyhow. It cycles between frozen and thawed and it is frozen for most of the time."

Assuming they see time in the same way we do.

Let's be honest here, we do not even know what causes gravity. We must be fairly low down on the brainy scale.

Nice thread S&F

P

We are not listening hard enough, I have to agree with that.

We think we know too much, but we are barely doing things in the last 150 years, give it another 300-500 years and our current knowledge will look like the one of the Romans

Oh come on, we do too know what causes gravity. They likely aren't here bc they destroy themselves like we will

originally posted by: Shorteststraw
Oh come on, we do too know what causes gravity. They likely aren't here bc they destroy themselves like we will

No we don't we can model it's effects but the cause is still unknown. We know it's liked to mass but the questions are why and how.

Thanks Gemwolf

I would love to do a weekly show, a parody on the Alien equivalent of Sir David Frederick Attenborough, commenting on Earth.

"And here they are at some sort of conflict, flying these amazingly slow machines, dropping explosive charges willy nilly on peoples heads. It is believed that this is some sort of population control although it does not seem to work. Our best field researchers have no other answers and no one seems to know who will be next."

"Here we see one group without their coverings. The Sexual Organs are right between the two waste lines."

"In most areas it seems to be illegal to take off all of their coverings and this varies wildly between different parts of the planet. There is no discernible reason for this. Our researches are quite baffled."

Would be an interesting show.

Think of an Alien watching you right now as you read this. The assumption they may make is that all of these strange gadgets all contain the sum total of human knowledge. If they cannot understand or sense our wireless networks, this would be an understandable POV. Perhaps they never went down the electrical pathway and instead followed one based on crystals and thermal energy. Who knows.

P

originally posted by: pheonix358
Well yes ... but.

We are a woeful race really. I would not want us out there. The first chance we got, we would be at war and building Star Ships and would get wiped out in short order.

If anything people probably don't want to talk to us because we're that kid that has really low self esteem and sits in the corner a lot.

Global violence is on the way down. Deaths from war are on the way down. We haven't nuked each other after the first time. Most of us aren't hurling explosives at one another. Cheer up Earth kid, its not all bad.

Every one seems to assume that Aliens will be like us and have the same desires and needs in space. They may not.

Exactly this.

I imagine it would be fairly obvious why a couple of billion creatures stuck on a single rock are fighting all the time to most space travellers. To them it may look like a knife fight in a phone box when all of space is their playground.

a reply to: Gemwolf

Flora are natural to this planet needing only the sustenance the planet and sun provides.

Fauna appears to cope very well with the planets environment and has evolved and adapted to the planets changes with time.

There is only one species that appears out of place, for instance, with it's natural "skin" this species gets sunburnt easily and can die with minutes in cold environments. So, to adapt, it has done what no other species needs to do - it has created artificial environments on this planet to survive - a fundamental requirement of this is the destruction of the planets natural flora and fauna.

This species I talk of, in my opinion, is not native to this planet but has been introduced to it and is therefore the aliens we are searching for. Maybe we are looking at this whole scenario incorrectly.

Can you guess the species I speak of?, they are destructive yet ironically amazingly loving and do not have the capability to yet find who or what actually placed them on the planet because their philosophers and scientists think each other are wrong when both are correct..........soon though.

a reply to: Pinke

I imagine it would be fairly obvious why a couple of billion creatures stuck on a single rock are fighting all the time to most space travellers. To them it may look like a knife fight in a phone box when all of space is their playground.

I loved that, it is a great analogy.

The only reason our population continues to explode is because third world parents need children to provide for them in old age. In first world countries, this is covered by Government handouts and forced savings.

We are at the tech level of making life an absolute utopia, but we cannot do so for all of the seven billion humans on our planet. It is a case of chicken / egg and only one country seems to be on the right path to solving this dilemma and that is China with its negative population controls.

And yet, the rest of the world screams at them for taking this step.

Would ET see us in exactly the same light as we would a herd of cattle? It is quite likely that they may.

I wonder what ET would have thought about the launch of Sputnick.

I would love to hear their thoughts on the Saturn V rockets. "And the brave few sit on top of this huge explosive device and get hurled into orbit. Sometimes they just die in the attempt."

P

P

a reply to: Gemwolf

Well, one might see the absence of a signal as a signal on its own.

An idea I've recently heard was to consider energy and resource requirements of technological advancement, especially interstellar travel. So while there might be plenty of life out there, most of them might have exhausted the resources available, didn't manage their energy budgets well enough.

The same might actually happen to us too.

Call it natural selection...

originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: Gemwolf

Well, one might see the absence of a signal as a signal on its own.

An idea I've recently heard was to consider energy and resource requirements of technological advancement, especially interstellar travel. So while there might be plenty of life out there, most of them might have exhausted the resources available, didn't manage their energy budgets well enough.

The same might actually happen to us too.

Call it natural selection...

Not if they have a sun.

a reply to: Gemwolf

Awesome

Finding them in some instances might really depend on if they want us to find them in the first place. Your last meme is a fine example of what we are presently doing which removes another possible chunk. Then add in the Conspiratorial angle of being lied to by those who are possibly aware of visitors which may threaten their perceived hold on power.

Sometimes and this is just one mans opinion I feel that NASA and other agencies pull a magicians act when they release information. Purposely examine sectors of space which are known dead-zones *Known to them already. While avoiding the great Amazonian space equivalent sectors *Packed full of life. Then release yet another discovery of a rocky but dead Earth like planet...

originally posted by: pheonix358
If we do not get off this planet in the next five hundred or so years, our civilization is likely to collapse when the next ice age hits.

Got me wondering whether there are ice ages on other planets and yes there are.

www.nasa.gov...

www.iceagenow.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

Just another thing to add to the Goldilocks Principle - ice ages that are not too severe and too frequent.

If we assume that the galaxy is teeming with life it seems like a huge problem that we don't run into any. There should be such a variety of stuff going on and the odds of it ALL just happening to be undetectable are negligible.

But there are quite a few explanations.
1. It's being hidden from us: maybe some incredibly advanced species is manipulating all energy approaching our planet to filter out absolutely every indication that we are not alone- maybe to protect us, or to protect others, it because they have claimed every bit of energy in the galaxy that isn't being used by indigenous species and don't want anyone expanding their habitat into their cosmic power plants- who knows.

2. There's no rational motive. Maybe it's absolutely impossible to successfully travel and communicate between stars without also gaining abilities that make such behaviour obsolete. Perhaps you crack the theory of everything on that road and become capable of knowing and obtaining everything in existence from the comfort of a nano computer where you exist without physical form as an immortal all knowing consciousness, impossible to recognize as anything but a spirit to anyone who had not attained the same level of evolution.

3. Maybe you always die before you become detectable. Maybe the most advanced technology in the galaxy- the one that finds and reaches every new civilization first- is Grey Goo.

4. Maybe we are missing a fact of time and space that explains it. I doubt it's exactly this, but let's just suppose that the means of travel causes you to arrive before you leave, therefore you can't possibly have a motive to travel in that way because it can only take you to places where you already are.

a reply to: Gemwolf

Different physics will produce existential differences, for instance they might be so different to us on so many levels.
It could be that..;

They don't use technology in the same way we do.

They never use the electromagnetic spectrum to communicate, no radio to detect.

They are elemental, discarding their physical forms for 'non-corporeal' forms of existence.

They are ultra conservative as a species..they live from birth to death in a state of suspended animation in vast underground chambers, experiencing 'life' in a sophisticated VR realm of existence...advanced machines monitor their status and take care of creating new individuals from a genetic stock as needed.

They are at primitive stages of development, and so have no technological signature to detect.

They can be living at alternative 'speeds' to us, they might come and go having lived an entire lifetime in the blink of a human eye. Whole ET civilisations may rise up, endure for many of their generations, wane and crumble in the time it takes for you to read this sentence.

They are actively and purposefully disguising their presence.

The possibilities are endless, as we don't have the first idea how they live, how long or short their lives are, whether or not they are carbon based, or silica, or energy based, or machine based...or something else as yet not considered feasible or possible by humans.

Almost any reason we can think of can be the reason that answers the OP's question, or the answer can be all of the above and myriad other reasons combined.

We just don't know, however long we speculate about such things...unless we have more information to go on, or an open and sharing advanced ET species decides to tell us, not knowing will likely be the way it will stay.

a reply to: pheonix358

We are a woeful race really. I would not want us out there. The first chance we got, we would be at war and building Star Ships and would get wiped out in short order.

I tend to hope it will be the opposite for us, if and when we do achieve real space travel and start to colonise our immediate surroundings.

I feel that most of our woes, so far, have come about as a direct result of being confined to this one world of ours.
We fight over the resources, whether they are food, land, water, metal ores, even intellectual resources are fought over.

If our scope for resource acquisition was suddenly beyond limits...the insular, selfish attitudes would disappear, as there would be absolutely no need to fight over resources, as there would be unlimited resources available to all.

No need for tribal mentalities, means there would be no need for tribal based conflicts either.

So really, i think the opposite is true, rather than humanity going into space and starting to export the negativity that has historically been characteristic of our experience so far, it will be the saving of us, not the last straw for us.

It will be the thing that saves humanity, not destroys it. In fact, i'd go so far as saying that if we do not venture out, we've had it as a species, and will inevitably become extinct if we remain confined on this single world of ours.

originally posted by: The Vagabond
If we assume that the galaxy is teeming with life it seems like a huge problem that we don't run into any. There should be such a variety of stuff going on and the odds of it ALL just happening to be undetectable are negligible.

But there are quite a few explanations.
1. It's being hidden from us: maybe some incredibly advanced species is manipulating all energy approaching our planet to filter out absolutely every indication that we are not alone- maybe to protect us, or to protect others, it because they have claimed every bit of energy in the galaxy that isn't being used by indigenous species and don't want anyone expanding their habitat into their cosmic power plants- who knows.

2. There's no rational motive. Maybe it's absolutely impossible to successfully travel and communicate between stars without also gaining abilities that make such behaviour obsolete. Perhaps you crack the theory of everything on that road and become capable of knowing and obtaining everything in existence from the comfort of a nano computer where you exist without physical form as an immortal all knowing consciousness, impossible to recognize as anything but a spirit to anyone who had not attained the same level of evolution.

3. Maybe you always die before you become detectable. Maybe the most advanced technology in the galaxy- the one that finds and reaches every new civilization first- is Grey Goo.

4. Maybe we are missing a fact of time and space that explains it. I doubt it's exactly this, but let's just suppose that the means of travel causes you to arrive before you leave, therefore you can't possibly have a motive to travel in that way because it can only take you to places where you already are.

Oh I love this stuff! Sit back, sip port and consider.

a reply to: Gemwolf

The problem for me Gem, is that I don't believe in FTL.

Maybe near FTL, but IMO, any race of aliens either doesn't have the tech to make these super long journeys without severe repercussion, or they just don't care about our little back water galaxy.

If we just look at it from a scale perspective, it's very, very unlikely that ALL that space has nothing but a single race of creatures who can contemplate travelling among the stars.

I do however imagine that they and us would have looked somewhat similar in our history. Like how long it took us to reach certain points, such as the industrial revolution, or the computer age. It's like playing an old school game of Age Of Empires.

Every faction had different units and buildings, but they mostly had to do the same things to reach the same level of construction and knowledge. So for me, any race that's been here as long as we have, would probably be close to us in our mindsets and technologies, barring some other things we don't know about.

That's how I feel, and that's why I don't get depressed when we haven't found anything awesome yet lol.

~Tenth

The most logical and likely reason that we have not found evidence or received messages from extraterrestrial civilizations, is that we are simply still to technologically primitive to do so at this time.

We mostly utilize and analyze radio waves and light spectrum which travel at the speed of light, but when talking about the vast distances in space that is simply way to slow.The nearest solar system around the star Epsilon Eridani is 10.5 light years away. It means a signal received today would have left that planet 10.5 five years ago and that is only a single planet system, the nearest multi planet solar system is around the star Gliese 876 and it is 15.3 light years away. and in the distance of space those would be in our general galactic vicinity. The further away, the longer the signals will take.

Listening to radio waves or even looking for light waves which future seti projects have talked about, is like listening for ghosts. Even if by some chance we just happened to be lucky enough to be at the right place and time to receive a radio signal, the signal would be so old we would not really even be able to answer it and the civilization sending it could very well be long gone and dead.

Until we develop some subspace type communication or subspace detection abilities we will probably not ever find evidence of extraterrestrial life. unless of course by some amazing coincidence they buzz by or through our solar system or a near by one.

And as far as aliens having the ability but not coming here well. Why would they come here. We are extremely primitive and our solar system is probably not that rare or interesting to them.

Of course who knows science always advances and at some point we may find some form of subspace communication and then suddenly we might find the whole universe teeming with intelligent life. Like an intergalactic internet.

Just my opinion though

Travelling at light speed, it would take 200,000 years to cross 'our' galaxy from one edge to the other, no wonder we don't see many visitors, this solar system is on the outer edge of an outer galaxy arm, so yes, we are out of the main transport rout's.
Good job too, we have had enough gold stolen from us!