When it comes to the Fermi Paradox, we have an easy third option with a high prior for which a small amount of evidence is starting to accumulate: we are simply not that special in the universe. Life, perhaps even sapient life, has happened elsewhere before, and will happen elsewhere after we have either died off or become a permanent fixture of the universe. There may already be other species who are permanent fixtures of the universe, and have chosen for one reason or another not to interfere with our development.
In fact, I would figure that “don’t touch life-infested planets” might be a very common moral notion among trans-$SPECIES_NAME races), a kind of intergalactic social contract: any race could have been the ones whose existence would have been prevented by strip-mining their planet or paving it over in living quarters or whatever they do with planets, so everyone refrains from messing with worlds that have evolution going on.
As to the evidence, well, as time goes on we’re finding out that Earth is less and less of an astronomical (ahaha) rarity compared to what we thought it was. Turns out liquid-water planets aren’t very common, but they’re common enough for there to be large numbers of them in our galaxy.
Given two billion planets and billions upon billions of years for evolution to work, I think we should give some weight to the thought that someone else is out there, even though they may be nowhere near us and not be communicating with us at all.
When it comes to the Fermi Paradox, we have an easy third option with a high prior for which a small amount of evidence is starting to accumulate: we are simply not that special in the universe. Life, perhaps even sapient life, has happened elsewhere before, and will happen elsewhere after we have either died off or become a permanent fixture of the universe. There may already be other species who are permanent fixtures of the universe, and have chosen for one reason or another not to interfere with our development.
In fact, I would figure that “don’t touch life-infested planets” might be a very common moral notion among trans-$SPECIES_NAME races), a kind of intergalactic social contract: any race could have been the ones whose existence would have been prevented by strip-mining their planet or paving it over in living quarters or whatever they do with planets, so everyone refrains from messing with worlds that have evolution going on.
As to the evidence, well, as time goes on we’re finding out that Earth is less and less of an astronomical (ahaha) rarity compared to what we thought it was. Turns out liquid-water planets aren’t very common, but they’re common enough for there to be large numbers of them in our galaxy.
Given two billion planets and billions upon billions of years for evolution to work, I think we should give some weight to the thought that someone else is out there, even though they may be nowhere near us and not be communicating with us at all.