That’s what I think too.
Look at it this way. There are billions and billions of planets that can hold life by the Drake equation. (not that that is the be-all, end-all of the discussion, but its a good starting point for my purposes)
But even billions is a tiny fraction when you take an almost infinite universe/ divided by billions.
Compare that to the Erf.
A comparable tiny fraction of the earth would be minuscule. But let’s say it’s one square meter.
If you zoom in on one square meter of the earth from space most of the time it will be empty. The top of Mount Everest is almost always empty. The middle of the ocean, etc etc.
But we have gone to the top of Mt Everest and will will go there again.
It’s like that. There may be places in the universe teaming with life and we’re on the fringe.
Aliens might have been to this tiny fraction of the universe and could be back. I think there is ample evidence of it, and the 10,000 years or so we know about is nothing compared to the millions of years this planets has been here.
Erosion takes a huge toll. If you look at places that we KNOW once had thriving civilizations we have to sift through dirt to find traces. Civilizations from millions of years ago would be harder.
But we have found iron pots embedded in coal. metal pieces have been found in rocks millions of years old.
Bookmarked.
Might you share some of this "evidence"?
“Look at it this way. There are billions and billions of planets that can hold life by the Drake equation. (not that that is the be-all, end-all of the discussion, but its a good starting point for my purposes)”
This is maybe, but, there are only a few stars around that can actually support the formation of planets. Even fewer that can produce conditions for life.
It took 3.5 BILLION years for multicell life to appear on Earth. Most stars, and, almost ALL the stars we can see at night, are less that a billion. Most will never make it that far.
Just using Earth as a baseline (we don’t have anything else we can go by) you would have to have a star that is relatively stable, capable of existing for more than 4.5 billion years, and, have to have been at least a third generation star to have the elements in it’s vicinity for life to form JUST to get to where we are now.
Personally, I think we would be incredibly lucky just to find a planet out beyond the solar system that is capable of being terraformed to our needs, to say nothing of being able to just plop down and take over an already usable world, or, finding some kind of civilization already there.
I also think we need to start planning to go and look as fast as possible. The Sun is NOT a stable star and one day we are going to wake up and find the Earth is more like Crematoria from the Riddick movies or Hoth. And there won’t be anything Algore can do about it.