“There is no Fermi Paradox” Response

I get it, it’s trendy to be contrarian and want to dismantle standardized thinking, but here’s the thing…

[emperorarasaka]

The Denial Hypothesis - There is no Fermi Paradox because Fermi never existed

[pastashack]

I'm really impressed with how much info you condensed into a short video!

[CorwynGC]

I love the inherent hubris involved in the fermi paradox. WE obviously are going to populate the galaxy and make enough ruckus that other civilizations will see us, so why can't we see them?

[geoffreymartin]

Our ability to observe is half the problem. It's not just that we've only looked at one cup of water out of an ocean of stars; we're looking at it without a real microscope or knowledge of microbes, and we kinda need glasses.

[calebo]

l Really find your videos both thought provoking and relaxing. It helped me get through the pandemic❤❤

[Henry-jpmc]

My assumption is that there are about 3 or 4 civilisations existing at any one time in the galaxy. But so far away from each other they never interact.

[christopherwilson]

Time and space is too vast for civilization's to ever meet. This is the simplest explanation.

[jacksonburger]

Honestly, it's not like we've surveyed *that* many stars. We probably just haven't found the correct one yet. Yet.

[TwinSimian]

The biggest hurdle is that until we find extraterrestrial intelligence, we have a dataset of ONE, and that's US. To make predictions based entirely on our own fledgling civilization seems ludicrous to begin with, and frankly UNSCIENTIFIC when you think about it ... we have barely begun to explore even our own solar system, we have yet to achieve Type 1 status as a civilization, we have NO IDEA if we are the first in our galaxy or the latest or somewhere in between, and no reliable way to measure that in a galaxy 13 billion years old. Our knowledge of the evolutionary history of life on our own planet is extremely limited and based on a scarce and fragile fossil record. FACE IT: our smartest "experts" are doing A LOT of guesswork.

[trevorbennett]

The universe is young, and we’re only able to observe the distant past. It’s not surprising that we haven’t seen anything yet.

[grayaj]

Thank you for saying this out loud. Of the two assumptions, I think the second is the weakest.

I think things like megastructures and colony ships and slow galactic expansion are the weak points.

People like to assume that all technological problems will one day be solved, as if it's inevitable that FTL travel and Dyson swarms must be realistic. I don't think they are.

If we're ordinary -- the mediocrity principle -- then the idea that we can get the whole species focused on creating a Dyson swarm for the 1000-odd years it would take to build is IMO preposterous. We can't even keep space programs funded longer than one US presidential election cycle.

I'm assuming that our counterparts are likely to be political to some degree. As much as FTL may not be a solvable problem, so might *politics* not be solvable.

We still haven't proven that civilization was a good idea.

[fajamm]

My hunch is that the false assumption is the second one. We can’t see them due to a prevalence issue. If intelligent life is rare, then intelligent life that is sending signals into space is even rarer. For all we know it could be rare on a scale of one per multiple galaxies. Factor in that civilizations can be destroyed and that intergalactic travel is a huge undertaking, and the paradox dissolves.

[andrewpodmore]

It's assumptions about the speed of light being the limit of the universe, we have einstein, we have relaitivilty - and it's its been very useful, but its not everything, we just don't know enough yet, and for aliens, I think their already here.

[reeves]

There could be an advanced civilization on the other side of the Milky Way, right now, gobbling up stars with Dyson Spheres, and we wouldn't notice the missing light for 10s of thousands of years.

[DeadmaN-]

The argument and explanation you put forth is actually correct regarding the theory itself. However, the biggest problem with this whole thing is that we've never seen a single sign of life anywhere, but here.

I will revert back to my original argument on this matter.
That argument is...
The earth and moon system is closely tied to one another. Because of this, there is a regular exchange of material between the two, yet in spite of the millions of years of these exchanges there is not one iota of life existing on the moon.

Based upon that fact, it is a ridiculous assumption to even make the claim until you at least have a second data set (or instance of life) to compare the first data set to.

Until that moment arises, the whole theory is simply an assumption based upon a gut instinct.
And we all know what assumptions add up to.
More importantly, assumptions and gut instincts are not science!!

But I digress.

[Watcher-ptuq]

Considering the utter scale of the universe and how long it took for a spacefaring civilization to appear on Earth, it's highly unlikely the Silurian Hypothesis produced even an industrial civilization, it would not be all surprising if a single galaxy or several dozen galaxies are home to only a single sapient species.

Of course, there could be so many other reasons as well. We are asking the question of why we haven't encountered or found signs of an alien species after all.

[Djsweepaman]

To me, the paradox assumes that we have looked everywhere, turned every stone, and cant find the aliens. When in reality, all we've done is take a cup of ocean water, looked in the cup and said " where are all the fish?" We really havent even looked. And we assume they follow our technological paths. Its just silly

[WhimsicalShark]

The Fermi Problem doesn't sound as cool as the Fermi Paradox just like how String Hypothesis doesn't sound as cool as String Theory

[aldretaldret]

My intuition is not a Fermi paradox. ❤😊

[robinsarchiz]

There are like 6000 confirmed exoplanets at this point that have been studied, in a radius of around 5000 light years. The galaxy is 110 000 light years in a diameter with at least a 100 billion stars, and it’s thought every star has 10 planets on average. It’s a bit like looking at the ocean waves and saying there are no fish, ”look we even studied a few glasses of water”.