I do like Hanson’s story you link. :) Yes, panspermia possibility does make it non-crazy that there could be aliens close to us despite an empty sky. Unlikely, but non-crazy. Then there’s still the question of why they are so bad at hiding & why their technology is so shitty, and why they are hiding in the first place. It’s not completely impossible but it seems like a lot of implausible assumptions stacked on top of each other. So, I think it’s still true that “the best modelling suggests aliens are at least hundreds of millions of light-years away.”
As Robin Hanson himself notes: “That’s assuming independent origins. Things that have a common origin would find themselves closer in space and time.” See also: https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/ufos-what-the-hellhtml
I do like Hanson’s story you link. :) Yes, panspermia possibility does make it non-crazy that there could be aliens close to us despite an empty sky. Unlikely, but non-crazy. Then there’s still the question of why they are so bad at hiding & why their technology is so shitty, and why they are hiding in the first place. It’s not completely impossible but it seems like a lot of implausible assumptions stacked on top of each other. So, I think it’s still true that “the best modelling suggests aliens are at least hundreds of millions of light-years away.”
We are more likely to be born in a world with panspermia as it has higher concentration of habitable planets.
Good point. I’ll message Tristan, see if he can incorporate that into the model.
Had a post about that.