[ExI] When the Universe Seeds Life but Civilizations Stay Silent

[Adrian Tymes]

The Fermi Paradox isn't specifically about lack of communication, but
lack of observed evidence that other alien life exists.  For instance,
anyone listening to our earliest radio broadcasts would not be
"communicating" with us - even one-time back-and-forth could only be
done at half the distance that our earliest broadcasts could be
detected at, for the signal to have been received by now.  The vast
distances causing problems with interstellar communication say nothing
about interstellar detection of such radio detritus.

(This also generally rules out the "dark forest" explanation.  You
will have been seen, by emissions from before you conceived of the
possibility of someone out there to hide from.  So, if there are
super-predators out there exterminating all other life, there's no
hiding from them.)

On Fri, Jan 23, 2026 at 7:16 AM BillK via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> Cellular Cosmic Isolation: When the Universe Seeds Life but
> Civilizations Stay Silent
> by Paul Gilster | Jan 20, 2026
> <https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/01/20/cellular-cosmic-isolation-when-the-universe-seeds-life-but-civilizations-stay-silent/>
> Quotes:
> So many answers to the Fermi question have been offered that we have a
> veritable bestiary of solutions, each trying to explain why we have
> yet to encounter extraterrestrials.
>
> The cosmos isn’t hostile to intelligence. It’s just structured in a
> way that makes electromagnetic conversation between civilizations
> vanishingly unlikely—not impossible, just so improbable that null
> results after decades of searching are exactly what we’d expect.
>
> Each civilization, then, is like a cell in a vast organism: seeded
> with the same chemical building blocks, developing according to local
> conditions, briefly active, then transforming or falling silent before
> contact with other cells occurs. Cellular Cosmic Isolation.
> ------------------------
>
> That seems likely to me. Agrees with the evidence so far.
> Some interesting comments at the end of the article as well.
> BillK.
>
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