In article <37903382.1566230 at news.demon.co.uk>, ohgs at chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver Sparrow) wrote:
>0: We are wrong about everything and our hypotheses are meaningless.
>1: We are wrong about the chemistry: it actually requires very fine tuning.
> Life is rare.
>2: Life is common, but unique civilisations are not. Thus 'do not
> interfere' is the key rule. We are presently in a cosmic game park (or
> visited by machinery built of the dark matter that makes up 30-50% of
> the universal mass, but which we cannot yet detect. Or whatever.
>3: It is dangerous out there. Keep silent or you attract attention.
> As a subset, societies of a certain density and technical complexity
> always destroy themselves.
>4: Aware biological life has a very short time span of technical
> civilisation before it finds a 'better way to be'. A few hundred
> years, perhaps? Thus brief flickers of radio emissions, thus the
> failure of SETI.
>
You left out:
5: Interstellar exploration is difficult and expensive, and ships will
take centuries to cross distances of a few light years. So nobody wants
to go.
As for radio signals - maybe everyone gives up after 10000 years or so.
You seem concerned after only 50. Some detectable ET you'd turn out to
be! Just because they don't transmit doesn't mean they aren't there.
- Gerry Quinn
