... that was cheerful. Enrico Fermi tossed an intellectual grenade and basically told future generations, "HERE! CATCH!"

But knowing is half the battle, or at least thats what GI Joe said.

... it was still very informative and interesting, if one can detach one's self from the predicted outcomes.
So, thanks for sharing it.

to determine the chances of intelligent technological life elsewhere.
Without that, the Fermi Paradox is just idle speculation.

I am not talking about life on other worlds, or even intelligent life, but specifically intelligent technological life.

... that it was statistically impossible for there NOT to be intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe, but the distances are so incomprehensibly vast as to preclude contact.
Ordinarily, I'd say, "Well, let's wait and see," but I'm too old to have any hope of seeing the final dénouement.
To posterity, good night and good luck!

Intelligent life does not mean technology that will use the elector-magnetic spectrum or develop space flight.
Think of whale like creatures on another planet. They could become extremely intelligent. But they wouldn't need to develop technology.

... then there's that whole opposable thumbs thing that comes in handy when developing technology.

Whales are too cool to need technology!

Humans would probably have been better off if we'd learned to live with other creatures, rather than succumbing to the pathological need to exercise dominion over everything and everyone. Guess it's a little late for that.

we have absolutely no idea what the odds are of intelligent life evolving on a habitable planet. All we know, because we are here, if that the odds are not zero and, that the chances are not equal to 1 (i.e. a certainty). Therefore the actual odds lie somewhere between those two extremes but we have no idea at all of where.

For instance, if the odds of intelligent life developing on a habitable planet were 0.1, then, given the number of inhabitable planets we have discovered, the galaxy should be teaming with intelligent life. OTOH, if the odds are extremely low, say one in a trillion, then the odds are that we are the only ones in existence and, maybe the only ones that ever have existed.

It may also be that the chances of even primitive life (organisms capable of reproducing and evolving) developing are relatively high but, the odds of such life becoming "intelligent" i.e. enough to develop technology, may still be extremely low.

Calculations BTW, such as the famous Drake equation, to estimate the amount of intelligent life out there somewhere are therefore pretty meaning less as the calculation involves multiplying together a number of probabilities, one of which is the odds or intelligent life developing on a habitable planet. Such a calculation is no more accurate than the least accurate odds estimation therefore the not uncommon supposition that intelligent life must be prevalent is quite meaningless and, the Fermi paradox is not really the paradox it seems.

in the 4 billion years of life on Earth, Intelligence only developed during less than .01% of that period. And then only because of a series of extinctions that let other life forms evolve.

"Intelligence may be a lethal mutation"

There it is

nature is hungry

nature is violent

any world that develops technological intelligence is essentially doomed

hence, no alien visitors

Lord knows we here on earth have come perilously close on several occasions to reaching that point.

IMO it is a major miracle that we have lasted as long as we have.....

Our range for detecting radio waves is pathetic...both in distance and time. The number of explanations is limitless.

some universal "Facebook" where all possible civilizations emit transmissions, throughout the span of "time," (which is a construct unique to our own "civilization" ) that we should all be able to register and detect?

Just because other civilizations don't "live up" to our standards doesn't necessarily mean none exist. Fermi, although brilliant by our standards, was a fairly pretentious dude, if you ask me.

I detest social media and don't partake. What if other civilizations feel the same? Fermi's Paradox seems to be an updated Ontological Argument.

Just my two cents.

Humans are a very destructive and invasive species. Any intelligent life out there would probably just see us as perpetually-enraged murder apes that somehow spread throughout the entire planet. There wouldn’t be much in it for them, and, there’s a very good chance we all would just try to kill any landing party that came here.

Maybe we don’t see them because they don’t want us to see them, or, there’s nothing interesting here. They might not even consider us to be intelligent life or distinct from other animals.

We wouldn't want to join any club that would have us as members. 😉 My apologies to Groucho Marx.

Isn’t DU social media?

Social media is considered to be sites such as Facebook, X, Reddit, etc.
DU isn't as interactive as true social media.

Our nature has severe flaws, mainly our desire to dominate, our destruction of the environment around us, and, our absolute short-sightedness. Intelligent alien life would not necessarily be like us at all. They could be so different that our species and theirs would be like us vs. a slime mold, or, even more different.

We expect to see alien ships, construction, etc, but, it could be that intelligent alien life doesn’t need those things.

That, or, we are a bizarre anomaly and 99.99999999999999% of life out there is just one-celled organisms.

doesn't necessarily mean intelligence will evolve, without the asteroid, we would never have come to be.
And intelligent life doesn't mean the development of technology.

Last edited Tue Jun 2, 2026, 04:29 PM - Edit history (1)

...which is smart enough to conceal itself from other civilizations (meat or silicon-based) , and has no reason to leave its home system looking for resources unless its star is dying.

Life on Earth developed fairly early once the conditions were right.
But in the 4.5 billion years of life on Earth, intelligent life forms (us) that could use technology only existed less than .01% of that time.
And we only happened because of several mass extinctions that allowed other life to evolve.