[ExI] Silence in the sky—but why?

[BillK]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> And because it isn't, we're not in anyone's smart* light cone.
>
> (* alive and capable of relativistic travel).
>
> I realize that boring explanations are, well, boring. But it
> doesn't mean we have to confabulate scenarios just because they're
> more exciting. Reality doesn't care for what we want.
>

See:
<http://phys.org/news/2013-07-self-replicating-alien-probes.html>

Quote:
The robotic probes could explore our galaxy and self-replicate
themselves from interstellar dust and gas, after which the parent and
child probes would each set off for a different star, where they would
look for signs of life and then self-replicate themselves again. The
probes would therefore disperse themselves radially across space.

In all the scenarios the scientists looked at, exploration timescales
were reduced when the probes were self-replicating, and they concluded
that a fleet of self-replicating probes could travel at only 10% of
the speed of light and still explore the entire Galaxy in the
relatively short time of 10 million years. This is a tiny fraction of
the age of the Earth and the scientists say the results reinforce the
idea of the "Fermi Paradox."
----------------


So we don't even need a civ capable of relativistic travel. Just fire
off some probes to spam the galaxy. 10 million years is tiny compared
with the billions of years existence of the galaxy.
There should be a traffic jam of probes flying past the solar system.
Unless 'intelligence' decides that is a silly thing to do..........

BillK