Posted: Dec 23, 2016 1:42 pm
solazy wrote:Where are they?
Ah, the Fermi Paradox.
The answer to which is the Great Filter.
Essentially, as a civilisation attains the ability to contact another solar system, it must necessarily develop the ability to destroy itself. Given the systemic risk posed by such an ability, one would expect most such civilisations to fail to pass this test.
It occurs to me that the Great Filter might take another form: a civilisation that fails to free itself from it's planet of origin before that planet's fossil fuels are exhausted, probably just stays there.