Talk:Fermi paradox

This sort of ignores two huge factors - one, that a civilization might only "accidentally" be observable for a brief period (as with our shifts in communications methods) - sending radio waves into outer space is inherently wasteful; and another, which is while anyone might be curious and look for other life, it's arguable that they would intentionally try to not be visible.

The timing issue is a really big one. Imagine if civilizations equivalent to ours are all over the galaxy/universe, but none of them are within 100 light years of us (which is not very far). The universe could be positively teeming with life, but the signals they are making simply haven't reached us yet, and ours haven't reached them. ħuman 15:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

A variant on the above - perhaps it is only this far into the universe's history that sentience has emerged. Given that we emerged, 'and the universe is a big place, and a number of planets have been found' it is illogical that we are the only senitients (and there are probably many more examples of plankton-soup, and safari-world equivalents (where no sentients have emerged) in existence).

Another government conspiracy - the 'rubbish TV' is a first-line deterrent against hostile aliens (as with the 'rural legend' of the peasants who played being stupid to keep the king from setting up his palace in their locality and inconveniencing them). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

What about the consideration of distance? It's possible that a signal could be received by an alien civilization with advanced enough technology for us to send something back, but it's so far away that it renders conversation incredibly slow? We've only been broadcasting for ~80 years...if some civilization within 75 LY picked up our signal and replied, we won't hear it for quite awhile...--Sethpeck (talk) 19:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Another Thing to Consider

In my opinion, there are three other likely reasons. The first, being quite simply, aliens are scared of us. Perhaps they just think we're too homicidally crazy to contact. The second, we don't meet their standards. A species that can be unified enough to start going to other planets would watch American politics and never want to see this place again. And of course, there's the idea that they are stuck in the same position we are. --PosthumanHeresy (talk) 10:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)