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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 9078817" data-attributes="member: 58197">The point of the Fermi paradox is that the amount of searching we've already done should be more than enough. If there were significant numbers of intelligent aliens capable of interstellar travel, and just one of them were inclined to expand and colonize, that species would have filled up the galaxy. Forget other star systems, they should be right here in ours, and their presence should be blindingly obvious. They should have resculpted our solar system just as we have resculpted our planet.There are many ways to explain the absence of such aliens, but it does require explanation, and that explanation has to work for 100% of aliens. If 99.99% of aliens don't colonize the galaxy, the remaining 0.01% do, and they should be here.I enjoy coming up with hypotheses as much as the next science fiction reader; my favorite is that aliens are here, but they are so advanced and ubiquitous that we perceive them as natural laws -- some part of what we call physics is actually the interaction of inconceivable alien beings. (I am quite sure we will never find aliens by poking around looking for radio signals and the like. Look at the changes in human society in the last 100 years, extrapolate that over 10 million years, and whatever comes out the other end is going to be totally beyond our comprehension.)But the simplest answer is that they just don't exist.</blockquote>