[extropy-chat] The Drake Equation and Spatial Proximity.

[John K Clark]

Robert Bradbury Wrote:

> as I pointed out at Extro3 -- we don't "talk" to nematodes -- 
>they don't  "talk" to us.

We don't talk to nematodes but every day humans directly effect the lives of
billions of these worms, but ET does squat to us and that is very strange.
Most of the excuses I've heard to explain away this fact are very
unconvincing. It seems to me that if there were a race of beings as far
advanced over us as we are over nematodes their existence would be obvious
to anyone who looked up into the sky. It's not obvious. Why?
This is my list of answers from least likely to most:

1) Maybe after your intelligence reaches a certain point there is no reason
to go beyond because there is a limit to what any intelligence can do; and
the universe just can't be engineered.

2) Maybe there is some hidden catastrophe we know nothing about that always
destroyers a civilization when it advances beyond a certain point.

3) Maybe we are the first, somebody has to be.

    John K Clark