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27 comments

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Quequau
When I was a teen I would have enthusiastically agreed with this but now I understand that it describes me too.
Buffout
How will they contact us? We need Galactical mailbox. And you don't know how to build one unless you already have one.
krapp
Earth's galactic mailbox is located near our local planning department in Alpha Centauri, only four light years away.
tmtvl
We should probably check it out just in case they plan to build a hyperspatial express route through our star system.
hulitu
" ‘I don’t know’ said the voice on the PA, ‘apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all.’ "
schwartzworld
Is this really a new solution to the Fermi paradox? It's a common trope in SF that alien cultures wait for a species to reach a certain level of development before contacting them.

We've had radio for barely any time at all.

seanhunter
Yes. If I recall correctly, this is a major plot element of "Star Trek: First Contact" for example.[1]

[1] I'm not a huge trek person but it's pretty decent as these things go https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731/?ref_=fn_al_tt_20

lofatdairy
The paper seems to be instead arguing that the range of our radio broadcasts has not reached significantly far into space. Not that aliens are waiting for us to develop, so much as the sign that we're even here hasn't even reached them yet.
fullshark
I thought it was because we haven't developed warp travel.
grishka
Does this still assume that the speed of light is a hard limit?
hulitu
You need an updated ulimit utility because the current version does not implement the speed of light.
hoffspot
The aliens must have picked up CSPAN from the Oumuamua probe, translated the proceedings of US congress, and confirmed the absence of intelligence in the system.
[deleted]
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dancingvoid
How about, confirmed the absence of intelligence in a species that allows and support such a system?
unsupp0rted
> even if we had the resources, humanity would not consider sending Rosetta-like missions to every single asteroid in the Asteroid Belt or to every comet in the Oort Cloud.

Of course we would. Not to every single one, but to enough of a random sampling to get a statistical sense of what's there.

schrodinger
Maybe they picked up a broadcast of Fox News and bailed immediately?
Hillberry12
maybe they saw how retarded we are with masks and vax cards
tenpies
I didn't realize this was considered a "new" solution.

I always assumed that there would be no contact because we are utterly uninteresting. We probably lie well within the middle of the pack in every single way as far as species go, not only in current attributes and technology, but also in our trajectory.

If we're lucky, some very bored data-focused alien in the region may discretely drop by just to catalog us.

whywhywhywhy
Think any planet capable of producing art would be fascinating to any species capable of contacting it.
harshalizee
Not if there's a plethora of other civilizations/species that are also producing art. Some higher beings may look at our stuff in the same vein as a 6 year old's drawing of a house. Cute, but uninteresting and there's billions of 6 year olds out there.
sureglymop
Never thought this because I always pictured aliens as some sort of microbial, primitive life forms and not like ET. Not sure why, but that's always how I pictured it.
polishdude20
Either we are unremarkable compared to other lifeforms and thus we'd be ignored.

Or..

We are just like every other lifeforms in space and neither of us has developed a way to travel to eachother or even pick up the others signals.

steponlego
What if there just aren't any aliens? What if they are so small that due to an error of scale their entire fleet was swallowed by a small dog?
euroderf
Jeez Louise, we're still swingin' from the trees.