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A comment on Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?. Parent comment

Re:Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” H... by sangnoir on Friday July 16, 2021 @02:50PM (#27859782)
> An advanced civilization close to us that is surveying the sky for signs of life would have very likely identified earth as a very promissing candidate due to the presence of methane and oxygen in its atmosphere at the same time.

Signs of carbon-based life - who is to say all forms of life are carbon-based? The universe is vast, what are the odds of aliens being in our vicinity and time (light cone) stumbling upon our galaxy or star?

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Re:Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” H... by joshuahedlund on Friday July 16, 2021 @05:22PM (#27861384)
> Signs of carbon-based life - who is to say all forms of life are carbon-based?

There's a limited number of elements, and their abundance in the universe decreases rapidly beyond the first few. Carbon is by far the most advantageous for life due to its vast ability to form complex molecules. Silicon might be a distant second. If there is other life in the universe, and if there's nothing special about us, it might not all be carbon-based, but it's extremely likely that a large amount of it will be.

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