If we were talking about like an alien population of 50 - 60, then yeah that's a safe assumption.

Human beings are just one species ... and we are sending all kinds of signals in all kinds of formats in all kinds of ranges.

A civilization of any size is not going to be able have 100% top down control over all that.

Unless the civilization was designed on a Star Trek set or something like that.

Which is not where I would put my money.

Because an entire "civilization" is not going to succeed at having 100% control over all the transmissions of its entire civilization.

We should be swimming in intelligible signals if life was self forming.

"SETI only functioned in the RF range... so, it would detect an alien civilization that emitted RF in that range."

Earth gives of signals in all kinds of ranges. And that's just one species !

I think it's HIGHLY likely that there are numerous earth-like planets.

Even if we haven't found any yet.

"The popular press is fond of throwing that term around, but at best, right now about all we can say is "we don't know that it isn't earthlike.""

Since Socrates and Descartes showed that knowledge is not actually a luxury we have in this life, that seems like an excessively high bar.

We don't know the earth has an iron core, but it's fine to say that it does anyway.

That interpretation has an allure to it.

On the other hand, there are so many things that happen that I don't think humans look favorably on.

Also, seems like there would need to be some kind of first cause. The idea of human abstractly isn't expecting that humans should be around.

"The likelihood that there is intelligent life, capable of responding in a meaningful way to human contact, is very, very, very small, even on an Earth-like planet. "

Which implies the odds that we were put here intentionally are : "very, very, very" high.

"What do you mean "earth like"?"

Ship of Theseus questions are not considered to be insightfully interesting.

Feel free to use your imagination.

"How do you know there isn't any life?"

People use "knowledge" as the threshold for things they don't want to accept but anything goes when someone has a craving.

Socrates and Descartes showed that no one knows anything.

Safe to say that science types wouldn't have adopted the Fermi paradox if there were extra terrestrials.

I think Drake is related, but more about how many alien civs exist.

Which is like after why we haven't seen any indication of any.

"maybe they saw that we were looking their way and in the time it took the light to arrive here, they launched their starship battle fleet and are on their way here to erase our planet."

And they built this entire civilization that is broadcasting all kinds of stuff everywhere that we've never picked up on ?

Wouldn't put money on it.

"We don't know that. There could be organisms living on one or more of these planets, but we can't detect them. Maybe it's a type of moss or simply bacteria."

What I said was that there are no signs of life.

We can be pretty sure about that.

Back to your observation, if the only life outside of earth is moss and bacteria, then it seems pretty intentional for us to be here.

"Until we visit these planets, we cannot say with any certainty life doesn't exist on these worlds."

The whole premise of SETI (and its HUGE spending) is that if there is external life, we should be able to detect it.

If the UK couldn't stop pirate radio, the universe should be TEEMING with life.

Indeed. Didn't pan out so well.

Why is it all these earth like worlds exist, but no signs of life ? This is the Fermi paradox.

Maybe it's because life isn't self forming.

Why is it so many universal constants are aligned for humans ? This is the anthropic principle.

Maybe its because we were put here on purpose.

They treated the colonists far better than their own citizens today.

Why do they treat everyone like a suspect ?

Why do they tell everyone every detail about how to live ?

At this trajectory, will have completely different leaders soon.

Sounds like it.

I thought they stopped EM drive because :

1) Degraded Earth's magnetosphere over time
2) Too wimpy

This doesn't give me the good feels.

UK should not be controlling the world's tech companies

geo block that place and keep innovating

"That is very close to the Elon Musk template."

Whaaaat ??

Surely not the Elon Musk who is blasting more into space than the world governments combined ?

Surely you are not saying Schmitt pulled off anything like that

And by the same token :

It's not skin off my nose if Europe gets left behind

The people taking over Europe will not make the same mistake