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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 10:58am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

...if we believe the PENTAGON.

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John Cole
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 11:10am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

There are forms of communication mankind has not even pondered yet.Maybe we're missing messages daily for thousands of years.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 11:14am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Yeah, studies like this tend to assume "aliens" will close to us, both physically and technologically. But they would only have to be a few decades either side of us to be undetectable.

The answer to the Fermi "paradox" is blindingly obvious, of course. Why aren't they here? Same reasons we're not there!!

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 11:17am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I think we're under galactic quarantine myself. They've just been maintaining radio silence with us all this time.

Or what you said Mr. Byrne, the aliens are at different stages in their own development as we have been and we don't know that there isn't some corner more advanced ones have turned where radio waves or speech are like a caveman beating on a stone and grunting  to us.

But maybe if we hang in there a million years or so we can finally have great conversations with dolphins and gorillas! :^)


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 25 June 2018 at 11:19am
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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Another example of bad science journalism.

The study doesn't claim that we are alone in the universe. What it does claim is that Fermi's paradox need not be a paradox. The Drake equation models that assume life on other planets make certain assumptions about the variables, but there is a lot of uncertainty with regard to those variables. When you apply a range of values for each of those variables in a Monte Carlo simulation, there are more outcomes that show we are alone in the universe and in the Milky Way, than not.

Which is not the same thing as saying that we are alone in the universe. It's saying that based on what we know, it's mathematically probable that we are alone. The caveat being that there is still a /lot/ of uncertainty we can reduce.
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Robert Shepherd
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Rebecca, We are the victims of the Prime Directive..;-)
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Conrad Teves
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I wouldn't read too much into studies that are arguing in near vacuum.  We estimated and simulated all sorts of things for the likelihood of planets around other stars, but "Hot Jupiters" were an outright surprise as a common thing, and the formation of them is still something of a mystery--and yet just physics. 

Speaking of the Drake, there are too many terms (I count 5 of the 7) where any value you put there is flat-out guessing.  Any of the fractional terms that tend toward zero makes the whole thing tend toward zero even if the actual value of the rest of them is "all".

Personally, I'm kinda fond of the more disturbing solutions to the Fermi Paradox.  E.g., that we're the first (somebody has to be), or we're last (less plausible to me, but again sooner or later someone has to be). Another "lonely" solution is considering the fraction of the existence of life on Earth that there has been civilization, it may be statistically unusual for civilizations in the galaxy to exist at the same time.

Note: I don't "believe" any of those (there's nothing there to believe) but I find them entertaining.  They all seem to carry a statement about the preciousness of life.

Right now, this is all fun to think about, but it is just guessing.  If we were to find any form of life anywhere else in the Solar System, that has some pretty profound implications for it arising elsewhere. Rather like when the Kepler spacecraft started discovering enormous quantities of exoplanets staring at one tiny chunk of sky. The estimated number of stars that have planets seems to have wandered toward "all."
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

The sad fact is, no matter how many planets there are, we will probably never reach any of them. Yes, never. Part of it is technology. Part of it is distance. But the big part of the equation is the mortality of our species.

We just ain't gonna live long enough.

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Omni magazine used to have glowing articles in their '70s and '80s issues about how by this point people could expect three hundred year life spans on average. They even spun it off into it's own 'Longevity' magazine title. Other than life span increasing, the sf writers have had to go with generation ships and hibernation technology advances to get 'us' as a species to other solar systems.I guess the average person seeing Star Wars, with it's hyperspace and all kinds of colorful aliens, is going to be very disappointed no matter what. Alien is still relevant in that we could meet up with acid-blooded alien life we are nowhere near handling (maybe Trump saw it recently and thought up his Space Force to feel better about it all). :^|
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Thomas Woods
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

The quickest way to find out if the aliens are watching
over us is to launch all the nukes.

Edited by Thomas Woods on 25 June 2018 at 6:15pm
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Thomas Woods
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

There are forms of communication mankind has not even
pondered yet.Maybe we're missing messages daily for
thousands of years.

---

That strange blinking star made me think maybe they were
trying to communicate that they are there by blocking
their star light somehow.

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Ryan Maxwell
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Posted: 25 June 2018 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

If we have any evidence of life from another planet, someone is doing a damn good job of keeping it from the Ego in Chief.  He wouldn’t waste a second to announce it (and claim responsibility) just so his name would forever be attached to it. 
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