The facts point to the theory of relativity being pretty sound. If there are 40 billions chances for live to evolve, then surely one if those civilizations would have figured out faster than light travel if it were possible. Without faster than light travel, there’s really no point in getting too uptight about it, since even if there is life we’ll never know about it.
Not necessarily. 40 billion chances doesn’t necessarily mean 40 billion species with advanced technology. Even if they ALL have intelligent life we don’t know how many of them got a jump start on us and are ahead of us in the tech curve, how many are behind us, how many “screwed up” when they got to the nuclear stage. And even if some have FTL how many of them are moving in our direction. Our level of detection in the universe is still pretty scant, we’re seeing suns and planets from THOUSANDS of years ago, we don’t really know what’s happening in most of the galaxy now, or even fairly recently.
I claim there is no technologically capable life in the galaxy.
First, you can’t be in the center 2/3 where 95% of the stars are because every billion years or so a solar system wide cataclysm will occur.
Second, your planet needs lots of water or else the climate varies too much.
Third, you need lots of water, but not so much that there is no land or else there is no technology.
fourth, the dinosaurs had 300 million years on earth and failed at technology. Technology is really hard.
fifth, you probably need an unusual moon like ours which stabilizes our orbit (rotating dumbell is more stable than a rotating sphere).
Our moon is really large relative to the planet. It also was likely created by a very unusual collision. This is because the moon is a lot like the earth’s crust and has no iron core so it did not form by acreation. It also means our iron core is bigger than normal and the crust is thinner than normal as the core of the colliding body and earth’s core merged and the crust go blasted into orbit by the collision. This is important or else you get a small core and a thick crust like mars and eventually you get a dead planet.
Our crust is thin and the core is still active so we get outgassing and we get plate techtonics and carbon recycling.
Sixth, mars should support life as it has a good star, is in the habitable zone, in the outer 1/3 of the galaxy, is the right size, used to have a lot of surface water, and it is still dead.
Seventh, under the optimal conditions of planet earth, it still took 5 billion years for tech to blossom here.
ET will not be coming anytime soon I think.
We could communicate with distant civilizations via radio. Low data rates and long message delay times, no doubt. The Milky Way, our “hood” is 100,000 light years across. If we try to communicate with a relatively nearby civilization, say 1000 light years distant, we could send a message today and would not expect a reply until 4013, or about the time between the present and the birth of Christ.
Of course, if you could travel near the speed of light, you could travel to this distant civilization in what for you would seem like a relatively (no pun intended) short time, but by the time you get back, the earth will be 2000 years older, and your mission will be the stuff of ancient legend, no one expecting to ever see you again.
I mostly agree, but we may find evidence of far away (and thereby long ago) civilizations in their transmissions or even by analyzing the atmospheres of their planets. And I don't really know the ultimate limit on our telescope abilities, but we might see some cool stuff within our galaxy.