
Are We Alone?
Well, yes and no. Given the size of the Universe, it seems ridiculous to think that we alone evolved the complexity to realize that we exist. Several really smart people have tried to quantify the probability of alien life in the galaxy by multiplying various factors together. I won’t bore you with those results, but most of them predict we should be swimming in Little Green Men. Where are they?
First of of all, let’s celebrate their non-appearance to date. Looking back through history, meetings between civilizations when one is more technologically advanced than the other, have not gone well for The Other. Given that we have had electricity for less than 150 years and space flight for only 50 years, anyone advanced enough to travel between stars would certainly be able to kick our butts. So being left alone is not a bad thing. Yet, we have been blasting “Leave it to Beaver” episodes out into the ether for 60 years. This means aliens living light-years away may show up on our doorstep any day now, demanding to speak to Jerry Mathers.
But I don’t think that’s going to happen. We realize the Universe is vast in space, but we sometimes forget how vast it is in time. Maybe because we have existed only for the blink of an eye in the geological time of this one planet, it’s hard for us to comprehend how short a time that is. I think there are hordes of Little Green Men out there, but the probability of running into them across all that space and all that time is infinitesimal.
Some people are depressed by this, but I think being killed and eaten by an invading species would be far more depressing. I’m just saying, top of the food chain is not a bad place to be, even if it gets lonely at times.