Where are the aliens? It’s pretty clear IMO.
As a PhD physicist who follows the Fermi paradox topic, I think the evidence comes down on the view that, if aliens exist at all, they must either, every single one of them virtually, be non-intelligent or not interested in interstellar travel or communication. Not even robotically.
There’s only two other highly unlikely possibilities.
Here’s why. (And the fact most potential aliens would have millions of years head start of existence on us is only part of it).
Liquid water
It’s because earth’s liquid watery signature should be pretty easy to detect from-a-distance by aliens not too dissimilar in intelligence to us. We’ve just come close to doing this for a planet 26 light years away with the James Webb Space Telescope.
From a distance, we’d look highly attractive to carbon-based interstellar space-faring life.
Aliens should be here.
Even if no carbon-based alien ever truly ‘colonized the entire galaxy’, they should have at least found us, or at least one of the nearby ones should have.
Although our present ability to directly detect large amounts of liquid water on exoplanets is limited, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on Christmas Day 2021, can do it.