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Originally Posted by Prof_Sai
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3) But the universe is 20 billion years old! If humans could spread across the galaxy that fast, why hasn't some alien race already done this? With so many suns existing for so long, is it realistic to think that our ordinary planet has produced the first intelligent life form?
4) So where are the aliens? Something must be stopping all alien civilizations from expanding into space. Maybe there is a secret barrier to space travel. Maybe all intelligence ultimately destroys itself. . .
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about point 3. No, it's not realistic. Humans went from bashing each other with rocks to the internet in such a short period of time, relatively speaking.
But then about point 4.
Maybe they got one whiff of what we're like, and they want nothing to do with us. (like in a Red Dwarf conversation: "Ewwww, that planet's got humans! yuck!")
Maybe we don't have the faster than light signal receiving "radios" so we can't hear them talking to us
Maybe they have an agreement not to communicate with species that haven't developed faster than light travel, a common sci fi idea (like in Star Trek)
Or, useful planets are so few and far between that contact between galatic races becomes almost impossible no matter how good the techonology, because it turns out the speed of light really is the limit, and it takes a galaxy's worth of energy to achieve it.
But wait, there's more! Maybe species evolved enough become pure energy, or go to a different dimension.
Someone's been watching too much Stargate. Oh wait it was me.