The Aliens are Silent because They're Dead

originally posted by: NoCorruptionAllowed
All these modern theories follow a very precise pattern of denying that life has found us. It is the same as all the governments who are kept silent under an umbrella of corporate global space companies who all cooperate with a flat denial of visitation. NASA does it, and all of their spokes persons. The UK does it, the CIA and FBI and NSA does it.

All militaries go with it. All the released ET flavored documents confirm it.
All semi-public space related companies do it, like SETI and Seth Shostak. "We expect to discover ET life in the next couple of decades"
NASA says the same time frame. Someone is obviously sharing information on what to sell the public, and these academicians at universities are only a product of this multi million dollar a year propaganda campaign, which parrot these same old tired views which pretend that we are not being visited now. And most everyone deep down already knows this is BS.

And yet Ufology has never given us a shred of evidence we can rely on and have conviction in. Instead we have stories, sometimes told by reliable people. They're still stories, even if they're dressed up.

We need something we can pin down and study. Stories don't make the cut. We'll choose a rock and study it over someone's story merely because the rock satisfies this requirement. Boring? It produces real result. There're people who spend hteir life studying rocks.

But honestly I don't think we know just yet. Seti still has a lot of work left to do. Here's a good thread by Jadestar:
www.abovetopsecret.com - Denying Ignorance About SETI: It's Not Just About Radio Anymore...

originally posted by: jonnywhite
And yet Ufology has never given us a shred of evidence we can rely on and have conviction in. Instead we have stories, sometimes told by reliable people. They're still stories, even if they're dressed up.

We need something we can pin down and study. Stories don't make the cut. We'll choose a rock and study it over someone's story merely because the rock satisfies this requirement. Boring? It produces real result. There're people who spend hteir life studying rocks.

I would submit that your expectations of the data are unreasonable. And as a result you fail t look into some very good data.

The kind you can "pin down" and begin to study. But, alas, I find that true of virtually everyone...

As a result of my researches, when the time comes, I will be able to produce a list of stars, many with known planets in the habitable zone to study...with some luck I'll be able to observe the atmosphere of these planets...

All from a more reasonable expectation of the data, and perhaps a better understanding of data in general,

There is, in reality, a plethora of evidence supporting Extraterrestrial life, of all sort, from the simple, to the complex and intelligent, but, you kind of need to have a realistic expectation of the data.

originally posted by: tanka418
There is, in reality, a plethora of evidence supporting Extraterrestrial life, of all sort, from the simple, to the complex and intelligent, but, you kind of need to have a realistic expectation of the data.

The research linked in the OP isn't saying there's no ET life. It says it might emerge commonly, BUT it doesn't survive. Since it doesn't survive, it doesn't evolve intelligence: we have Fermi's paradox.

Here:
www.mso.anu.edu.au - The Case for a Gaian Bottleneck: The Biology of Habitability (p 2)...

Without rapid evolution of Gaian regulation, early extinction would be the most common fate of planetary life. Even if the emergence of life is a common feature of wet rocky planets throughout the Universe, the Gaian bottleneck model suggests that inhabited Earth-like planets would be rare.

Wow I'm not going to try to do another quote. It doesn't copy/paste right. Had to manually edit the formatting.

I still think SETI hasn't conclusively failed to find intelligent life. Honestly, I think it has barely begun to scan our gaalaxy. The only thing evidence--at this moment--suggests is intelligent life isn't widespread (so as to notice) or type III. One recent piece of research lowered the plausibility of type III in our local universe. I think this is the research:
www.astrobio.net - Advanced Alien Civilizations Rare or Absent in the Local Universe ...

Ignore the title of that link because it's misleading. They didn't eliminate type I or possibly some type II. Just mainly shot a big hole in the idea type III are nearby, since htey found no evidence of it. According to known science, a civilization of that scale should be giving detectable signatures of waste heat. This was looked for and not found.

On the Kardashev scale, type III denotes a civilization which will consume a whole galaxy for energy. Type II, by comparison, might consume stars. Type I might consume a single planet. Present humans are type 0.

originally posted by: jonnywhite
The research linked in the OP isn't saying there's no ET life. It says it might emerge commonly, BUT it doesn't survive. Since it doesn't survive, it doesn't evolve intelligence: we have Fermi's paradox.

You should check out the history of "extinction events" here on good ole Earth. It seems that immediately after each one evolution made almost quantum leaps toward greater diversity and complexity. So, creatures like Humans may be rather common...at least on planets that can support that level of evolution.

I still think SETI hasn't conclusively failed to find intelligent life.

For a variety of technical reasons; I don't believe SETI can detect an "intelligent" signal.

On the Kardashev scale, type III denotes a civilization which will consume a whole galaxy for energy. Type II, by comparison, might consume stars. Type I might consume a single planet. Present humans are type 0.

Sorry man, I'm a firm believer that this "Kardashev scale" is simply BS. It seems arbitrary and ill thought.

originally posted by: tanka418

originally posted by: jonnywhite
The research linked in the OP isn't saying there's no ET life. It says it might emerge commonly, BUT it doesn't survive. Since it doesn't survive, it doesn't evolve intelligence: we have Fermi's paradox.

You should check out the history of "extinction events" here on good ole Earth. It seems that immediately after each one evolution made almost quantum leaps toward greater diversity and complexity. So, creatures like Humans may be rather common...at least on planets that can support that level of evolution.

The point isn't that some extinction event would wipe out life.

It is that life needs to develop to the point that the life itself is able to regulate planetary conditions:

Here, we present an alternative Gaian bottleneck explanation: If life emerges on a planet, it only rarely evolves quickly enough to regulate greenhouse gases and albedo, thereby maintaining surface temperatures compatible with liquid water and habitability. Such a Gaian bottleneck suggests that (i) extinction is the cosmic default for most life
that has ever emerged on the surfaces of wet rocky planets in the Universe and (ii) rocky planets need to be
inhabited to remain habitable. In the Gaian bottleneck model, the maintenance of planetary habitability is a
property more associated with an unusually rapid evolution of biological regulation of surface volatiles than with
the luminosity and distance to the host star.

The hypothesis is that, when life arises, it's got to evolve quickly or it will simply die out.

Harte

originally posted by: Harte
The point isn't that some extinction event would wipe out life.

It is that life needs to develop to the point that the life itself is able to regulate planetary conditions:

Sorry you failed to understand...

One of the earliest "extinction events" was the "great oxygenation event"...about 2.5 billion years ago. Until that time Earth's atmosphere was, for the most part, toxic to life as we know it today. The cause of this event was the life that had evolved...in that it consumed the toxic atmosphere, and produced Oxygen, which was toxic to it...it sort of killed itself off. But, in the process provided an atmosphere ore conducive to further evolution of life...toward what we see today.

The hypothesis is that, when life arises, it's got to evolve quickly or it will simply die out.

Harte

Yes, I'm sure.... however, in the only place were data can actually be collected easily; that hypothesis finds rather little support...The notion that these "stressors"(extinction events) make for better, more diverse and complex evolution would seem to be a much better observation upon nature, and with the available data, would support the elevation to theory long before hypothesis which has rather little support.


But, then again; what is "quickly" on a planetary evolutionary time scale?

Back in the day; the early lifeforms lasted for 2 billion years, and it took that life killing itself off to bring about the first significant evolution. 2.5 billion years have passed, and the last significant "stressor" was 500,000 years ago...these time frames don't seem to be "quickly"...

I realize our sample population is rather small.

You could be right. However, the authors disagree with you.

Harte

a reply to: Phage

It is also why cockroaches have survived mass extinctions, the dinosaurs and an asteroid impact. As a result, it can be argued that they are a more successful species than we are.

They saw this and left.

this is short response compared to my other lengthy posts. Just because we are able to explore our solar systems doesn't mean they're are not advanced civilizations like our own on other unreachable solar systems that we can't get to yet. I don't think they're dead just because we humans are so unpredictable and at times war mongers - we will start a war or start a fight with anyone who makes our own selves feel threatened. So perhaps "grays" are wisely selectively choosing whom and where to communicate with and or when to be present or show their presence. Just my two cents.

originally posted by: gortex

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: gortex

Do the Nordics, Pleaidians, Dracos, Greys, etc. know they are dead?

Do they actually exist ?
There are many story's but I've seen no proof.

That would be in the pudding.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Sure, given billions of galaxies and many many trillions of stars, intelligent life almost certainly does exist. However, the idea here is that in a given finite amount of space, perhaps intelligent life might be very rare.

I don't know. I just learned yesterday on ATS that slime mold can see just like we do. There is water on the comet they landed on and an atmosphere and it even has it's own moon.

originally posted by: openminded2011
a reply to: Phage

It is also why cockroaches have survived mass extinctions, the dinosaurs and an asteroid impact. As a result, it can be argued that they are a more successful species than we are.

Interesting thing that will all of their time they have not become more what we view as intelligent. This seems to me a peg for intelligent design.

originally posted by: SeaWorthy

originally posted by: openminded2011
a reply to: Phage

It is also why cockroaches have survived mass extinctions, the dinosaurs and an asteroid impact. As a result, it can be argued that they are a more successful species than we are.

Interesting thing that will all of their time they have not become more what we view as intelligent. This seems to me a peg for intelligent design.

Or maybe intelligence is not necessarily an evolutionary advancement when it comes to a species being biologically successful -- i.e., a successful species being one that can pass along its genes to the next generation, over and over for millions or hundreds of millions of years. Some of the most successful species on Earth (those that have been around for millions of years, virtually unchanged by evolution because further change is not required) are not intelligent.

That doesn't mean that intelligence still can't be an evolutionary change -- evolution can still create intelligence if intelligence is a "niche" evolutionary advancement. However, intelligence may not necessarily make a species more biologically successful. I think in primates, evolution found a niche in which intelligence could help it. having said that, our species is extremely young, and there have been species with virtually no intelligence that have been around for much longer than humans, and will probably still be around after the human species dies off.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

I constantly hear intelligence equated with time. Aliens will be older thus more advanced and so on.

I feel pretty sure we are not as intelligent as we think in the first place, intelligence may see that staying primitive serves the environment and themselves better over the long term and most technological advances are harmful.

originally posted by: pske4
this is short response compared to my other lengthy posts. Just because we are able to explore our solar systems doesn't mean they're are not advanced civilizations like our own on other unreachable solar systems that we can't get to yet. I don't think they're dead just because we humans are so unpredictable and at times war mongers - we will start a war or start a fight with anyone who makes our own selves feel threatened. So perhaps "grays" are wisely selectively choosing whom and where to communicate with and or when to be present or show their presence. Just my two cents.

The article is concerned with the question of fantastic technology that would be presumed to exist if we assert that some alien civilization was able to persist for a very long period - a hundred thousand years or so - after their initial technological revolution.

It is a suggested explanation for why we don't find evidence of such a species - even though they may have existed at some point in the past - when we look.

It's not trying to say there's no other intelligent life in the Galaxy. In fact, it asserts basically what you are saying - if they're out there, they're probably not advanced enough for us to easily detect them. That could mean that they haven't been a technological species for long enough to establish some kind of galactic presence that we could observe.

Harte