Re:First Ever Image of a Multi-Planet System Around a Sun-Li...
by vl on Thursday July 23, 2020 @02:47AM
(#23924801)
The argument is that on this timescales they would be here for now.
But all this doesn’t really matter since you can’t apply frequentist logic in bayesian situation: what we observe is exactly the same as someone in the long tail of distribution would observe, i.e. we can’t distinguish between this being unlikely situation and being first, or this being proof of Great Filter.
Let's say for the sake of argument that a civilization exists in our nearest neighbor system, Proxima Centauri. Let's assume that it has developed with a similar impact to their system as humans have had to our own -- radio emissions, a handful of interplanetary and interstellar space probes, nuclear tests, etc. Could we detect them? Everything I have read concludes that we currently could not. The concept of being able to receive interstellar TV transmissions is such a sci-fi trope I don't think very many people consider that it is essentially impossible.