John-the-cool-guy t1_iudzh0m wrote
Based on very conservative numbers, the Fermi paradox should point to hundreds, if not thousands of life forms relatively close to us. My take on why we don't see them is sheer distance between us and them. Just a few LY of distance makes markers instigating possible life very difficult to detect. Now factor in the 105k or so LY diameter of our own galaxy. A sufficiently advanced race that could possibly travel at near light speed could still take tens of thousands of years to find and visit us, provided they didn't see us as the dangerous parasites that we really are.
Could be that we are seen by other advanced races as barely primordial scum and they don't want to get any of that on their cool space shoes.
Cevvi t1_iueyzzy wrote
Why do people instantly rule out the fact that life might be so rare you'd even be lucky to have just one or two in a galaxy. As huge as galaxies are it's pretty unlikely, I agree, but the signs so far do point to it being pretty rare. I feel we can say life as we know it is rare with certainty. We just dont know how rare.
I agree that the vast distances are huge reason as to why we don't see any even if they are here somewhere. Most finite beings would die on the journey to a distance planet or star as it's just that far away. If there's only a couple aliens in our galaxy it's safe to say we'll never meet, you'd need a multi million year life span minimum and tech that can run even longer.
I think there's so many micro factors that go into it like even how our solar system formed is unique as we have more rocky planets than most and small ones at that. Jupiter played a role in that and so already theres such a hugely specific convaluted factor in how a planet like Earth formed, that I'm sure it rules out most solar systems on that fact alone. Of course this is just for life as we know it already that emerged from water and is carbon based, but that is all we can search for as we don't know anything else.
John-the-cool-guy t1_iuf1a7b wrote
Drake's equation makes it seem likely that life should be abundant in the universe.
The number of observable galaxies times the average number of stars in each galaxy times the number of planets/satellites in what we call the habitable zone of each system equals an astronomical number that I couldn't possibly fathom, even if we kept the numbers that were used very very conservative. If even 1 in 1,000 of those planets harbor life of some sort there would still be millions with life. If only 1 in 1,000 of those had 'advanced' life, there world still be a shit load of them.
The Fermi paradox simply asks the question "where are they?"
One of the widely accepted answers is, "there are none" while another, my favorite, is that there are many many other life forms out there, but there is also one that attacks, kills/harvests other life for food or some type of personal gain and most of the other societies out there know about them and keep their heads down and their mouths shut... But not us. We are here screaming and waving trying to get anyone to notice us while all the others watch and wait for the horror of this planet being ravaged and killed by the murderers.
Another widely accepted answer has to do with The Great Filter, which is some event or obstacle that the life form must overcome to proceed but usually fails, resulting in extinction of said life form.
Or, again, Mayne they see us for the shit-show we are and have no time for our nonsense.
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