why havent we seen signs of other civilisations?

Question

considering the sheer size of the visible universe its likely other intelligent beings exist on other planets. is it that our technology is still too primitive?

Answer 1

were a rather war like race. There probably (if there out there ) waiting for us to grow up or blow our selves to pieces.

Answer 2

This question is known as "The Fermi Paradox".

Consider--The universe is much older than it needs to be to support several generations of intelligent species. It is certainly large enough for many to exist at the same time, and assuming life and habitable planets are a natural occurrence given time, energy and building material... and technological societies will survive and want to colonize and explore or at least send robotic spacecraft to the stars... then "where are they?" as Enrico Fermi asked about 50 years ago.

Seems like they should have visited us or we should be easily able to pick up their radio broadcasts.

Many books have been published and many theories advanced to answer the question, but I suspect that interstellar distances are just so huge and travel so difficult it keeps us apart.

Other ideas (and there are DOZENS); perhaps we ARE being visited (UFO's), perhaps we are being observed and they ARE all around us but we are just so primitive that we cannot detect them, or maybe we are in some sort of "wildlife preserve" set up by extraterrestrials so that we are not interfered with until we mature, or perhaps we are such a savage and dangerous race we have been quarantined (...and will soon be exterminated so the threat is eliminated?).

Perhaps as races grow older and survive killing each other off they discover immortality and don't go exploring or contacting anymore as its just too dangerous; they are the "Lotus Eaters" and sit around all day plugged into their computers and contemplating their navels.

...OR, and this is the one that BLOWS my mind... the galaxy is ours for the taking as we are the only intelligent race close by.

Answer 3

That, and very local. We are not - maybe not yet, maybe not ever - capable of discovering things in detail basically beyond the asteroid belt - which is only half our solar system.

Now imagine that the nearest star is over 4.3 light years away, which is... a whole fecking lot. It is also a lot further than the distance between the sun and jupiter.

Now, there are extrasolar systems (planetary systems apart from our solar system) which could hold planets that can harbour life forms, but imagine that not all the stars have planetary systems, let alone a suitable planet to harbour life forms similar to ours, and so chances are very slim that the nearest star would have extraterrestrial life.

So the chance of ever seeing signs of other civilisations is nihil... unless you have a TARDIS at your disposal.

Answer 4

I believe 100% that we are not alone.
Although this assumption is based on unknown, or unproven statistics, I cannot for a moment resist the temptation of other beings out there in the vastness of space.
The distances to these other Worlds are as enigmatic as the Pyramids being built by thousands of slave led Egyptians. The Great Pyramid itself , constructed from some 5,000,000 blocks of stone and quarried from some 200 miles away in Luxor is a truly puzzling phenomenon.
Whilst they were busy building that, space was rushing away from our planet as the Big-Bang continued to push the boundaries of space time back.
As we look up today, we are truly starring at the distant past. If they ever built Pyramids somewhere out there, then they to will be fixed with the same problems.

Answer 5

Absolutely life exists on other planets... but as you mentioned, because of the sheer size of the universe... the chances of us ever encountering one of these other intelligent civilizations is fairly low.

The simple fact that we have not been visited yet creates two possibilities.
1) Faster than light travel is not practical, even for highly advance races.
2) Aliens are not interested in us, and are just downright anti-social.

Both are depressing... but prefer to think its #2. Maybe one day when the human race gets its $%&# together, we can all be friends. Yay!

Answer 6

Yes, I feel confident that we are not alone in this vast universe, but as we are discovering planets on a fairly consistent basis now, and none appear capable of sustaining life as we know it, then the number of habitable planets such as our own must be small. There for the chances of another race stumbling upon us is remote.

Also, why do you suggest our technology is lacking? Based on the current evidence, we may in fact be the most technologically advanced race in the cosmos.

Answer 7

There is life in the Amazon jungles of Brazil we haven't seen yet, and in the oceans. Life exists out there somewhere way way far away. They might travel here but we will never be able to go there without an as yet unconceived power supply is invented or discovered. We are very primitive compared to them.

Answer 8

You pretty much summed it up. Until the last century, there's been nothing that humans did that would indicate we are here at any interstellar disstance. Radio transmissions--still about theonly indicator we are here--have onlly had time to travel about a hundred light years--barely next door on the scale of the galaxy.

Assuming that more advanced civilizations have explored this region of the galaxy, they might well know we are here. But my personal opinion is that we won't hear from them until we learn to behave in a reasonably civilized manner. And we sure haven't reached that stage of development yet.

Answer 9

We have. There is plenty of evidence proving that we are not alone and that extraterrestrial life exists on our planet right now. If you are interested in learning more about the existence of extraterrestrial life and advanced anti-gravity propulsion systems check out the link I have listed for you below. It is a press conference that took place in Washington DC ( I think). The press conference was headed up by Dr. Steven M. Greer who gave up his career as an emergency room surgeon to pursue his true passion; disclosing the existence of extraterrestrial life. He also speaks about the extensive covert government cover-ups known as "Black Book Projects" used to hide this ET information from the public. The press conference is about 1 hr 55 minutes long and consists of a panel of 20 ex-government employees who had first hand knowledge of covert ET projects and advanced anti-gravity propulsion systems. Only twenty were given the opportunity to speak at the short one hour conference. However Dr. Steven M. Greer has approximately 400 retired ex-government witnesses, all of which had a top secret clearance but most of them had much higher security clearances, who are willing to testify under oath to the United States Congress that the information they testifying to is true. Here is the link. YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS!!! Enjoy!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1166743665260900218

-C

Answer 10

maybe you must start to think like an alien... think about how different you are from an arab or a chinese, now think about a whole diferent not place of birth but a whole dif. adn maybe a race that is made not from carbon but silice extremely efficient and they have discovered a new way to comunicate that is far more compresed that a digital tec would. maybe thay started to transmite their thoughts, their ideas, or maybe their odors are they way to comunicate... i think that to find an alien we have to run into them cuz they would be so different that we might be unable to comunicate... maybe our tec is no so primitive but so planetarily diferent, perhaps they didn't discovered the same things we did or they did so long ago that they are looking for some thin else.

Answer 11

In the vastness of space it is selfish to think that the only intelligent life is on earth, but if there was life out there then we almost certainly would have found something.