[ExI] fermi paradox- weighted summary

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 at 01:32:53PM +0000, BillK wrote:

> No paradox.  That's just the way the Universe is.

That's the way Shostak thinks it is. 
 
> The distances between adjacent stars are measured in tens of trillions

At 0.9 c, the distances are very, very short.

> of miles. The distances between adjacent civilizations, even assuming
> that there are lots of them out there, are measured in thousands of
> trillions of miles – hundreds of light-years, to use a more tractable

Any culture slightly beyond us is expanding in a sphere at almost c.
Such a thing is both impossible to miss, and almost impossible to observe.

> So, the time scales for travel and communication are too long for easy
> interaction with beings whose lifetimes are, like us, only a century

A circular void millions to billions of lightyears is impossible to miss, 
but almost impossible to observe. You'd have to be it, or you'd have to
be just on cusp of being it, while being hit by it. That's not so very
likely.

> or less. So while the cosmos could easily be rife with intelligent
> life – the architecture of the universe, and not some Starfleet Prime
> Directive, has ensured precious little interference of one culture
> with another.

That view was quaint even for 1960s.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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