(November 21, 2021 at 6:15 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: I think Fermi paradox is more easily explained by the supposition that in the course of the development of technology by most extra-terrestrial technic civilizations, the nature of externally detectable signature of technology will evolve quickly and radically on time scale very short compared to the average life span of such civilization. So only during a tiny fraction of life span of any technological civilization would it give off signatures of technology that we currently both have the technology to detect over interstellar distances or the scientific comprehension to recognize as signatures of technology.
I suspect if human civilization has an exact twin 20 light years from earth, identical to us in all ways but for being 2000 years ahead of us in technological development, we currently would be hard pressed to detect it, or recognize a visitation from it if it saw no reason to specifically contact us. And if it finds a reason to contact us, it probably wants something from us, and given that they are just like us, we are doomed.
Agreed.
I've always thought the Fermi paradox was plagued by assumptions. The Milky Way is awfully large. I don't think we can safely conclude anything when we don't even know what we're looking for.
