Comment Re:Assumptions about ETs (Score 5, Insightful) 221
It all comes back to Fermi's paradox. If there are intelligent (I prefer the term 'sophont') alien life forms out there, why haven't they contacted us?
One solution says 'because they don't want to'. I find that solution very plausible at the current juncture. Odds are that if there is, in fact, a conglomerate of alien nations out there, they've set down a network of powerful signal-dampening sattelites around our solar system (the Oort cloud would be a good hiding place), controlled by a very strong AI which filters the transmissions reaching us, so that only natural phenomena and signals of our own making ever reach us. This could even be standard procedure for worlds below a certain level of technology. This is called the 'Prime Directive' solution, after Gene Roddenberry's Prime Directive from Star Trek.
Of course, another (more Occam-friendly) solution to the paradox is "Because there aren't any"...
One solution says 'because they don't want to'. I find that solution very plausible at the current juncture. Odds are that if there is, in fact, a conglomerate of alien nations out there, they've set down a network of powerful signal-dampening sattelites around our solar system (the Oort cloud would be a good hiding place), controlled by a very strong AI which filters the transmissions reaching us, so that only natural phenomena and signals of our own making ever reach us. This could even be standard procedure for worlds below a certain level of technology. This is called the 'Prime Directive' solution, after Gene Roddenberry's Prime Directive from Star Trek.
Of course, another (more Occam-friendly) solution to the paradox is "Because there aren't any"...
