Quote:
Originally posted by Johnny Rotten
[i]So what Fermi immediately realized was that the aliens have had more than enough time to pepper the Galaxy with their presence. But looking around, he didn't see any clear indication that they're out and about. This prompted Fermi to ask what was (to him) an obvious question: "where is everybody?"</i>
I believe this is a compelling argument for an artificial situation.
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I also worked this out. Another interpritation:
Intelligence is a relatavistic phenomina. Once a certain threshold is reached, intelligence will spread very close to the speed of light across the universe.
If we can "hear" or "see" intelligence via light waves, then the odds are they should already be here.
This means that:
1> We are the first intelligence in this galaxy.
2> Space travel is much harder than we think.
3> Other.
The "reality TV show" interpritation goes under "Other". As does
Sawyer's "intelligent life quickly self-destructs and/or turns completely inward".
Another good one is "intelligent life appeared before, developed a nanotech 'grey ooze' that wiped itself out", where that 'grey ooze' was life as we know it.
(grey ooze refers to a nanotechnology that eats basically anything, and reproduces, consuming entire planets.)
But that's just a varient on "first intelligent life" (ie, second intelligent life, or first intelligent life of this epoch).