Here are the 3 possibilities the writer poses as explanations:
Possibility 1) Super-intelligent life could very well have already visited Earth, but before we were here. In the scheme of things, sentient humans have only been around for about 50,000 years, a little blip of time. If contact happened before then, it might have made some ducks flip out and run into the water and that’s it. Further, recorded history only goes back 5,500 years—a group of ancient hunter-gatherer tribes may have experienced some crazy alien shit, but they had no good way to tell anyone in the future about it.
Possibility 2) The galaxy has been colonized, but we just live in some desolate rural area of the galaxy. The Americas may have been colonized by Europeans long before anyone in a small Inuit tribe in far northern Canada realized it had happened. There could be an urbanization component to the interstellar dwellings of higher species, in which all the neighboring solar systems in a certain area are colonized and in communication, and it would be impractical and purposeless for anyone to deal with coming all the way out to the random part of the spiral where we live.
Possibility 3) The entire concept of physical colonization is a hilariously backward concept to a more advanced species. Remember the picture of the Type II Civilization above with the sphere around their star? With all that energy, they might have created a perfect environment for themselves that satisfies their every need. They might have crazy-advanced ways of reducing their need for resources and zero interest in leaving their happy utopia to explore the cold, empty, undeveloped universe.
What do you think, is he right? Or is there another explanation? Feel free to comment as this is a very interesting topic of debate.
thanks to imgur for the great info
We have only found one earthlike planet, while scanning millions of stars. Also why do we $#%&!@*ume they use radio waves? Perhaps we are listing on the wrong hardware. (Am on an fm radio).
Correction. We have confirmed the existence of one earth like planet out of dozens of potential candidates. And Kepler has only been on the scene since 2009. We have not observed millions of stars using Kepler only several thousand. And as far as hardware goes.. said civilization would have to be within our technological grasp in order to pick up their message. In this you are correct. But you fail to realize that radio waves travel through space at the speed of light and the distance that requires. The milky way galaxy is 100, 000 light years across. Seeing as how we are on the outer arm of the glaxy, it would take 100, 000 years to receive that message. During that time they would have advanced exponentially but we would still pick it up. Have you ever heard of the WOW signal picked up in 1980ish? Look it up. Awesome stuff. But in all reality, they would find us before we find them.
Well you mention reletivly and that opens many new problems. I have heard of the wow signal. My point is, a planet has to have some 200 factors correct in order to ve earthlike. (One of which is having a jupiter like planet in it’s outer system to catch astroids). Even the newest Kepler planet is only a 98% match. I didnt fail to realise anything with the tike requirement for radio waves to travel, that was my point when I mentioned hardware incompatibility. Perhaps they use a system of communication such as quantum tethering which would provide faster than light communication. We would ve compleatly unable to detect that. Benjamin Michael
Or they are watching and we are not ready yet…… BUM!!!! BUM!!!! BUUUUMMMM!!!!