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What Can’t We Find Evidence for Alien Intelligence?

Why can’t we find evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence? The following video animation by Andrew Park is a fairly basic primer on the Fermi Paradox, but is probably a handy starting point for further discussion of the question of whether we are truly ‘alone’ in our galaxy:

Given the vast number of planets in the universe, many much older than Earth, why haven’t we yet seen obvious signs of alien life? The potential answers to this question are numerous and intriguing, alarming and hopeful.

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    1. from the Thanks-for-all-the-Fish-Dept.
      [quote=red pill junkie]

      Is the Earth Quarantined???

       

      Go on, prove me wrong 😉

      [/quote]

      What, with a sign “Do not open until they get the Joke…”?

  1. We’ve been seeing it for years
    One of the best books in recent years is: Talking To Extraterrestrials. Yes, we’re quarantined until we can stop killing each other.

    Folks wanna put ETs in with horoscopes and religion as stuff only dummies “believe in,” with the same heavy-handed denials they use for anything we don’t understand.

    1. I cringe every time I hear
      I cringe every time I hear the term “conspiracy theorist” bandied about as if it describes a class of people. History is chock a block full of humans behaving in conspiratorial fashion. You might as well call someone an “historian.” That would be more accurate. The term nowadays is used derisively as a shorthand for people who supposedly buy into a tranche of conspiracies all of a piece which is of course just ludicrous. It is to me a sort of racial epithet right up there with saying that all black people like watermelon and fried chicken. I can’t believe supposedly thoughtful people still use such a careless term so unabashedly. The second I hear it I tend to just quit listening to them. It is a form of reverse discrimination for me to be doing that, but it is part of my small, personal protest I suppose.
      I dig Larkin too by the way.

      1. Give it a second chance
        You should give it a second chance. At the end the short delved into really interesting speculations, like for instance that maybe intelligent life ‘evolved’ into microscopic scale —Terence McKenna FTW!— or that even some of our thoughts might have been influenced or inspired by alien intelligences —that’s as close as you’re going to get to the idea of ‘channeling’ from these guys for the time being 😉

        1. I went all the way through
          I went all the way through that because I figured if the guy was good enough to get a TED then he would probably have something interesting to say which he did, but sometimes I fell like writing these people who use the term so loosely and carelessly and giving them what for.

          1. The way I see it…
            The way I see it, if we don’t learn to laugh at ourselves, then we’re already on the losing side 😉

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating letting them promote inaccurate ideas and falsehoods, but we should strive to retain a somewhat light-sided attitude. Because if there’s anything I can’t stand about people in the polarizing sides of these kind of arguments, is that they take themselves too damn seriously.

          2. Try telling that to black
            Try telling that to black dude who has just been asked if he likes watermelon and fried chicken.

          3. from the Narduar-the-Human-Napkin-Dept.
            [quote=emlong]Try telling that to black dude who has just been asked if he likes watermelon and fried chicken.[/quote]

            Beethoven’s fallacy :3

            You ARE a Christian evangelical…I guess growing up in a country suffused with them means that some of it has to rub off on yas…

          4. from the SCP-Foundation-Dept.
            [quote=red pill junkie]The way I see it, if we don’t learn to laugh at ourselves, then we’re already on the losing side 😉

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating letting them promote inaccurate ideas and falsehoods, but we should strive to retain a somewhat light-sided attitude. Because if there’s anything I can’t stand about people in the polarizing sides of these kind of arguments, is that they take themselves too damn seriously.[/quote]

            You’ve got that right :3

            Too many people who are uncomfortable with things that don’t fit within their norms and then blaming others for this…

          5. Trying to pigeonhole me as
            Trying to pigeonhole me as being a “Christian evangelical” just demonstrates how superficial an observer you are. It is the same sort of superficiality that is evidenced by the reckless use of terms like “conspiracy theorist.” I am by all accounts one of the most light hearted and unfurrowed brow person you might ever meet, but I still take issue with fallacies when encountered. A stupid statement is a stupid statement, and I am more likely laughing than shouting when challenging them.

          6. from the Revered-Elder-Dept.
            (HUG)

            I’m teasing & see rjp’s comment above :3

            (no one can pigeonhole you but yourself…and seeing as how I don’t have much social status here at the grail, I really have little effect on affecting people’s opinions here…)

          7. I have always had difficulty
            I have always had difficulty determining when you are just funning and when you are not. I don’t usually have that problem with people.

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