Intelligent civilizations rarer than one in a million

Originally posted by Blue Shift

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Then you go out and see another person...he looks fine so far (mars).
Then you look at a 3rd, and its a zombie (your potential 2nd candidate).
At what point do you then say..ok, we got zombies....lets prepare..

We don't have any evidence/proof of movie-type, rising from the dead zombies, either. The minute we find two other alien species, then yes, we can start worrying or extrapolating about how many others might be out there. So far, though, just like zombies, we haven't found any aliens.

Earth = Patient 1 in this example...

How so we know that Aliens are more advanced then us?

Why would any intelligent civilization be sending a beacon to other worlds. I don't understand the nuts who consider that sending communications to outer space is a sign of intelligence. Why don't these people just call their friends and relatives, it's a lot cheaper. :shk:

reply to post by theone88

then there should be a couple in our galaxy then right? maybe 57?

Originally posted by theone88
How so we know that Aliens are more advanced then us?

We are the idiots sending Phonograph records into outer space, does that make us intelligent looking?

reply to post by Connman


I think you just hit the nail on the head. Why would a civilization that is millions of years more advanced want to make contact with a primitive society that cannot even manage the one planet that they do live on? It just does not make sense. There would have to be something special in it for them. I believe SETI is wasting millions of dollars trying to pick up signals from civilizations that don't want them to discover their signals. Do aliens exist? Of course they do. To believe otherwise is either oftly naive or a self centered superiority complex. You are not the only planet with life. There are thousands of other civilations that can live peacefully without blowing each other up like monkeys would do. So, what is in it for the extra terrestrials if they showed up and said here we are? What could humans possibly offer them that they already do not know? It is much more interesting to sit back and listen to humans argue back and forth about that which they should surely agree upon. It reminds me of a few years ago when humans thought that the earth was flat. People that thought it was round were ridiculed. Most did not believe the earth was round until they got solid proof. You will get your proof when you are all ready to accept the fact that aliens exist and move ahead as a species. But right now it is just not important. You need to take care of the place you call home and each other first before finding out how easy it is to weave through space and examine other planets and civilations.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
As discussed in another topic, knowing that there is life on Earth in no way allows us to extrapolate to other planets and say sure there is life on any of them. We could very easily be the only planet in the entire universe with life on it, just as we are the only planet in the entire universe that is the third planet orbiting around our Sun. We are unique in an infinite number of ways, and that uniqueness might carry over to being the only one where a bunch of dead chemicals happened to stick together and create a living thing. Or however life happens. We really don't know.

It's true that we've only started our planetary explorations. But of all the planets and moons and asteroids in our Solar System, we still haven't found life anywhere but Earth. The only way we can really be sure that there is alien life (or civilizations) is to find it. And if we can rule out contamination, then the most we can say is that life happened at least twice. But no more.

It's plausible there are plenty of civilizations out there, but they just can't leave their solar system due to the limitations of physics (namely relativity and conservation laws). Perhaps the many sufficiently advanced civilizations that exist in our own galaxy lose interest in space exploration because of this reason alone after they have fully explored their own star system. IMO, the existence of multiple alien civilizations spread out throughout galaxy is more plausible than practical interstellar travel.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Probably, but what if the first one was real and people created the rest,or most? Oh, the irony! We may be overlooking a message just because people love to prank.

What should really be said is that "Carbon based, magnetically signaling civilizations are
less than one in a million."

Compared to other civilizations, were are still very primitive.

Very likely, we are in quarantine and everyone else is merely watching us.

Originally posted by UMayBRite!
Compared to other civilizations, were are still very primitive.

Possible
Also we are possibly exceptionally advanced to others (if we are taking the entire universe and all forms of civilization into account)

Very likely, we are in quarantine and everyone else is merely watching us.

I like to think of us as about 14 years old. We want to go out, have desires to see whats out there, but we don't really have any plan or knowledge on just how that would help anyhow...so we are stuck at home.

But hey, if we play our cards right, we may one day be old enough to get a car and get exploring...but not anytime too soon it appears.

reply to post by theone88


That is BS.
Right now we know 1 planet out of 9 contains life.
It has at least 2 intelligent civilizations on it.
Us and the ants.

I would like to make a few points here. These are not necessarily my own views, but approaching any subject with a rational mode of thinking is paramount to logical inquisition.

1. From a scientific standpoint, all life does not necessarily have to be carbon-based. Therefore another life form may be silicon-based, etc.

2. The 'advancement' of a civilization is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Native Americans who gazed upon Spanish conquistadors for the first time truly believed they were among gods. The bow and arrow was the pinnacle of weapons technology in its time, inspiring awe by all who beheld its power. In reality all it was was a clever re-engineering of the basic physics that brought us spears and atlatls. These are examples of how a lesser 'advanced' civilization would view technology unknown to it.

3. Human knowledge of energy management and manipulation is modest at best. We may have newfangled gizmos and gadgets released every year, but they all plug in to the same outlet that we have used for 100 years. We would be fools to think that our way of energy management is the only way.

Just food for thought.