Alien hunters have spent 60 years finding new solutions for the Drake Equation

Re:Alien hunters have spent 60 years finding new solutions f... by macintux on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @10:57PM (#29400495)

I find the idea that we're alone depressing and even more reason to worry about our future. If we're the universe's only shot at recording/appreciating/exploring/colonizing it, and we blow that shot, that seems like an incredible waste.

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Re:Alien hunters have spent 60 years finding new solutions f... by seibelj on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:08PM (#29400554)

If we are the first ever, it can happen again. And the universe doesn’t know waste from utility anymore than we can judge who is correct about time-well-spent. We are all independent observers, and to something as long and uncaring as the universe, things just are.

Becoming comfortable with death was a multi year process for me. But one thing that helped was considering the universe and how time is not treated the way the human mind does.

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Re:Alien hunters have spent 60 years finding new solutions f... by ravi-delia on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @11:25PM (#29400653)

If we're alone, I'd expect it to be because of our youth. Until the time of the solar system's creation, heavy elements really weren't that common. It would be surprising, but not crazy, if we were the first.

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Re:Alien hunters have spent 60 years finding new solutions f... by duxup on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @12:13AM (#29400926)

Reminds me of this episode of Star Trek TNG

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_humanoid

The speech seemed very sad in a way.

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Re:Alien hunters have spent 60 years finding new solutions f... by GoblinSlayer on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:57AM (#29402313)

That's the age of life, not humans. Humans could easily appear a million years earlier.

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