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Cevvi t1_iue345u wrote

Reply to comment by ChrisARippel in If the Milky Way is located in the middle of a void, does this explain why we see no aliens? by [deleted]

There's nothing to say that life might be even rarer than even 1000 billion stars. I believe the fact that we don't see it in even 400 billion stars to points to life being ridiculously rare. Being in any time of void where the galactic density is definitely less than in 'most' areas of space, would mean that we lack the raw number of galaxies to even get 2 civilizations for example.

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ChrisARippel t1_iue6qxb wrote

I think you overestimate our technology's ability to detect life.

  • We have detected 5000 exoplanets within 5000 light years of Earth.

  • Our technology to see these exoplanets is very primitive.

  • Our current technology could detect Jupiter and Saturn, but not the terrestrial planets in their locations in our Solar System.

  • Since our technology can't even detect Earth, no way could our technology detect life on Earth.

I think you are jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence.

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Cevvi t1_iuexqsu wrote

Would u say that the possibility of a galactic wide civilization is not fully ruled out in our own milky way then. Their technology would have to be way more advanced then us to be able to cover a good portion of a galaxy so it very well could go undetected by our standards. There's a part of me that feels it's impossible for a civilization to colonize a galaxy, they are just so mindboggingly huge and vast. I just think by the time a race got to that point they were capable of doing it they would probably fit our description of a god like bejng and they wouldn't even be interested in doing something like that anymore.

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ChrisARippel t1_iuf9szp wrote

I don't rule out the possibility of advanced civilization in the galaxy. The idea of a galactic civilization seems silly to me. Vastness of the galaxy you mentioned is one point. My point is why?

The Europeans looked for India and China because that is where the good stuff was and they wanted it. I think we imagine aliens would be explorers like Europeans.

The way more advanced Chinese had an earlier age of exploration in giant ships. They were generally unimpressed with what they found. Everywhere else was poorer and less advanced. They halted further exploration. An advanced alien civilization might be like Chinese and see little point in exploring the entire galaxy. The knee-jerk answers are more resources or curiosity.

  • How many planetary systems would an advanced civilization actually need?

  • How many planetary systems does an advanced civilization need to explore before it's been there, done that?

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