Are we alone? This sentence, likely thought by many humans around the world and throughout history in hundreds of languages, brings forth a profound question. Also known as the Fermi Paradox, the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life has captured many minds. If life is so plentiful here on Earth, and there are so many habitable planets in the universe, where are all the aliens? The Fermi Paradox, known colloquially as “Where are all the aliens?” has many implications of its meaning, of which, a few I discuss below:
- Self-destruction
- Known as a “Great Filter”, an unrealized blockage towards space expansion may be the inability to leave our own planet. In our current times, much is driven by scarcity: food, water, and shelter to begin, and anything else a human can “need” next. This scarcity is likely to, and certainly has in the past, brought about conflict – destruction that has only gotten more advanced. A reason that we do not see alien spaceships flying around our solar system may be due to the fact that there are no aliens capable, and this is because they all destroyed themselves in this scarcity driven conflict. For humans to be able to completely solve the problem of scarcity by mining asteroids, or mining other planets, we must first be able to live with and thrive in our current means.
- Type 3+ civilizations
- To make things even more ominous, another implication of the Fermi Paradox may be a civilization that is type 3 or above. This type of civilization would be able to travel across its galaxy within its species lifetime, and has complete control of its galactic sphere. A civilization this advanced may simply wait until an alien species is on the brink of becoming a “type 3 civilization”, and then exterminating the species. This would ensure that no other alien species is able to cause any harm to the extremely advanced civilization.
- Another way of looking at this would be the example of a rainforest. Imagine a Toucan living in the rainforest. Humans regularly harvest wood from rainforests, leaving the Toucans with nothing. To a Toucan, a tree is likely all it needs in life: it may find food if the free has fruit, a tree can certainly support a Toucan’s family, and a tree was where it was born, so it may harbor sentimental value. Like humans coming into the rainforest, aliens could come and harvest the water, rare earth metals, or other resource present on Earth key to human survival. Similarly to the Toucan, we would be left without this resource, and likely perish, and similar to the Toucan, we would not be able to do anything about it.
- The Limits of Technology
- If the previous two implications aren’t the ones holding aliens back, it may be the limits of technology. Until we reach the limits, we will never know where they are, but there are some large issues with intersteller travel:
- Distance
- Traveling hundreds of thousands of lightyears may be possible for light, but it is traveling at the speed of light. Traversing these incredible distances is impossible for any rockets currently developed.
- Length of Life
- Aliens, like humans, may have a lifespan that is far too short for space voyages. For this reason, space travel may be impossible, as our bodies begin to break down far sooner than we reach our destination.
- Distance
- If the previous two implications aren’t the ones holding aliens back, it may be the limits of technology. Until we reach the limits, we will never know where they are, but there are some large issues with intersteller travel:
