Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6255802" data-attributes="member: 22424">Planets capable of sustaining intelligent life as we would recognise it are rarer than Fermi imagined. Of those, planets that actually sustain life are rarer still. And those that sustain intelligent life are much rarer still.Still, that still leaves a huge number of candidates out there.However, for any given intelligent life form, there is a race against time - can they get to a point where they have a meaningful off-world presence before either (1) and extinction-level event wipes them out, (2) they wipe themselves out, (3) they pollute the planet to the extent that it can no longer support them, or (4) they run out of the required resources. Thus far, we've managed to avoid #2, just, but #3 isn't looking too good.Worse, until recently, the main driver of our technological advancement has been our desire to kill one another. (It now appears to be entertainment.) That suggests to me:- if a lifeform is similar to us, in that they expend a lot of time killing one another, their technology will advance very quickly... but they'll almost certainly wipe themselves out before getting off-planet.- if a lifeform is less aggressive than us, they'll be less likely to kill themselves off, but their technology likewise won't advance at the same rate - they may never get to the point where they have the ability to go off-planet.Add to that the fact that going off planet is going to be hideously expensive, hugely dangerous, and has no prospect of a better life at the other end (unless and until we develop FTL and can travel to another Earth-like planet), there's very little incentive to actually do so. Living on the moon, or Mars, or probably anywhere else in our solar system is going to suck. And yet, that's a necessary first step before we can really consider a mission outwith the solar system.Basically, I think there's probably plenty of life out there, but I doubt we'll ever establish meaningful communications, never mind physically visiting (or being visited by) them.</blockquote>

Verification