Why we might be alone in the Universe

[AFTT47]

Beside all the possibilities of life forming and developing, one thing to think about as far as beings getting detected via electromagnetic emissions is the means of that emission. We went from spark gap Morse Code to digital spread spectrum in a little over a hundred years. We use DSS to help limit detection, along with encryption. Except for stupid shit like "I Love Lucy", we haven't radiated all that much, especially when one considers that it mostly bounces off the ionosphere, and decays at an inverse square law rate when it does leak through. The means of communication through space are rapidly evolving, and mitigate against detection via remote entities.

And just from the perspective of power usage, it is reasonable to limit the spread of any emission you make.

of course, there is also the question of whether EM radiation is the preferred method of communication.

Yup. Our RF emissions have already peaked. We had hardly any RF emissions just 100 years ago. We then rapidly built up a shit-load of them. Then we built up land lines and satellites to more efficiently direct our signals so that now, much less is radiated into space.