So our only hope is to find life that is barely advanced, just like algae in a watery planet, or find life that's more advanced than us and say goodbye to our existence. Just like aborigins from America flashing lights to european explorers. We would be extremely lucky to find life in the 100,000 year span that takes species to gain conciousness and develop invisibility. Not that we can't just that's extremely improbable, and dangeorous for there are also more advanced predators watching. That's why we can't find them, they're invisible.
That's my hypothesis.
1. All other intelligent species have the potential to be hostile. Since there are large number of races in the universe, it's guaranteed that there are hostile intelligent species.
2. One is highly unlikely to be or remain the most technologically advanced race in the universe. Even a currently inferior race can suddenly become an existential threat after technology explosion.
3. All intelligent races prioritize their own survival and have reached the first 2 conclusions.
So combining all 3 of those assumptions, one can see the logical step is to assume the universe is a terrifying dark forest filled with dangerous animals. For any resident in such forest it's natural to conceal its own presence, and if anybody reveals their location, they will be immediately eliminated by a more technologically advanced race to insure they will not become a threat. This is true doesn't matter how technologically advanced a race is because there will always be a bigger fish out there somewhere that is trying to do the same thing.
In fact, I can't think of any reasons why we shouldn't take this approach. I'd love to find the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, but I think we are being extremely foolish broadcasting our location to the universe.
I can imagine many quirks of the universe that would moot that point: teraforming is a lot harder & more necessary than we expect, superluminal travel is impossible, civilizations composed of multiple species outcompete single species, ecological niches are distinct enough that there is little competition, advanced technology renders moot our assumptions about scarcity and inherent competition...
When hypothesizing post-seismic shift, the future tends to be orthogonal to our modern expectations as opposed to a simple extension of them. I can see machine intelligences hosted in Dyson spheres chuckling about our space opera sci-fi obsession with capturing planets.
Maybe the best strategy is to make as many allies as possible expecting that some day that would increase the odds of surviving a hostile contact with a other civilizations or other threats...
Our understanding of life and the universe is limited. Our current version of the Drake equation is really off, and we do not have an answer to the Fermi paradox. Collaborate or compete are usually context sensitive decisions. The best thing to do is bounded to our understanding of game theory, which is a field full of open questions.
All the predators we've observed, eat their prey to sate a present (or in the case of hibernators, near-future) hunger. We've recently learned how common planets and suns like ours are. Why would any hungry alien civilization drive past all those resources to get to us? We haven't developed anything particularly tasty yet...
Here are some assumptions:
* Information limitations imposed by the speed of light mean that there is very little reaction time between the development and firing of a near speed of light weapon and any defensive measures taken. This favors pre-emptive strikes even against a far less advanced civilization. Consider two civilizations 100lys away. In 80 years the less advanced civlization could develop and launch such a weapon. Maybe they already built it and fired it at you 20yrs ago. All your information is both incomplete and 100 years out of date. Striking as early as possible is the only way to be sure that you preempt such an attack.
* Technological process may be an S-curve which allows less advanced species to quickly catch up and reach destructive parity with more advanced species.
We can't know until we find out and by then it is too late. Caution is called for in these circumstances. We should listen and lurk until we have enough data to make reasonable risk assessments.
Then, life hasn't evolved to become invisible to predators, it has just evolved to survive. e.g: grass hasn't evolved to become invisible to goats. Then, a predator cannot survive if all the preys die. If they're too efficient at killing or too large in numbers they eventually exhaust their food source, just like the cuckoo birds cannot do their trick in every nest and some parasites are better off by not killing their host.
We're highly optimized for life on earth, and can assume alien life would be the same for their home planet.
Evolution from simple life I think would be the easiest way to colonize. It would take a while but the life that develops would be optimal for that planet's conditions without any terra-forming
If you cut the product to the fraction of those planets, fl, that actually can develop life, you have a much higher probability than the one you get with the full equation, or by accounting {fi} or {fi,fc} too.
So from a strictly statistical p.o.w. that's something more likely to happen.
What has to be considered in the evaluation of the possible threat is that the way our brain is used to think, the interspecific competition model, the r/k strategy are all based on two assumption: limited resources and competition.
Supposing travelling in space is something difficult/time-consuming and supposing each planet may tend towards the emergence of a dominant species, those two constraints would be relaxed: hence the coexistence of not directly interacting species may be circumstantially possibile.
I mean, not saying that because I think we are special, but just wondering what would it mean if we were "the first" (for some relatively-local value of first)?
Are there any hard sci-fi stories about this? or has anyone given any thought about it? or would it be a very boring outcome?
In the best estimate, I suppose you've seen that version of humanity in the various "Ancients" or "Proteans" and other first races in sci-fi.
Like an Earth-like habitable zone planet who's atmosphere was heavily contaminated with fission byproducts.
I think it's much more likely that other intelligent life is observing us.
The wikipedia page has a nice collection of reasons including yours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
Remember that for the Apollo missions, it was a drama of a brave nation working together against the odds, and humble engineers and astronauts.
I also think that this glorification of the wealthy, and the unspoken assumption that it's a sign of merit, is unhealthy for society. I think judging people by their bank book is inaccurate, and pigeon-holes people and ideas into an economic class.
Finally, the less that's paid for by taxes, the more power is shifted to the wealthy. Do we want important decisions made democratically, by taxpayers, or by a few with money. Who gets to say how that new park will look, what medical research we invest in, etc. - the citizens or one guy paying for it?
[0] Maybe an unfair characterization; I've only seen the ads.
The billionaire is revealed near the end, to keep you reading: "For this mission, he has a secret weapon. During the briefings at JPL, Culberson brought a friend with him, the famed Director James Cameron."
I'd delete the comment if I could.
What a bizarre restatement of its battery capacity -- I wouldn't think MacBook Pro power consumption is something people have an intuitive understanding of. Why not an iPhone? Or a light bulb? Or just compare it to the battery capacity of devices deployed on Mars in the past? Seems like the writer just looked around his desk for a good comparison and his eyes settled on the device that he happened to be typing on.
(Mangled Monty Python)
