Jared Diamond - Why aren't Aliens Already Here?

It seems absurd in a universe with 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars and planets, that we are the only intelligent life. So where are all the others?

Closer To Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[greyeyed]

Discovering green extraterrestrials wouldn't change religion any more than discovering the earth isn't flat, or discovering that the earth isn't the center of the universe, or discovering evolution changed anything. Religious people will either say "God did that too, " or deny it altogether, just as they always have.

[ClassicRock]

It is FAR to soon to ask why haven't we found aliens. It's like a snail traveling 2 inches into the ocean and asking why had he not found a whale yet

[SmartDave]

And the more advanced we become technologically, the more we are a threat to our own existence.

[expeditierobin]

Jared makes good arguments about how small the chance is that intelligent life forms develop, and on top of that also develop space ships and technology. but he doesn't take 2 things into account:
- it is possible that life on other planets has produced a much higher percentage of intelligent life forms, due to the specific and unique developments of life on that planet, and 2: it is possible that there are other forms of space travel that we simply cannot conceive or design because we have a specific sort of intelligence.

[pukulu]

Jared Diamond is a great intellectual but he's overlooking something. Any intelligent being that is capable of traversing space and visiting earth is likely to have managed to sustain a technological society for quite awhile, perhaps 1000 years or more. Such an alien being, if one exists, would have solved most or all of its important ecological sustainability issues on its own planet. I agree that it would look down in a somewhat disparaging manner on human beings but it would in all likelihood not have the same urge to conquer other creatures as humans do.

[Cheefrocco]

my first encounter with jared diamond. i find him to be very intelligent and logical. i find myself agreeing with him on this question

[watercolourmark]

I have always assumed that once you become a super-intelligent race you do two things, shield your planet and conceal your location.

[pushrod]

his argument about earth and there being only one species that evolved to the human level of intelligence makes a lot of sense and I've never thought of it in that manner. I've always thought there has to be more intelligent life out there but I have to agree with this line of reasoning. Great series of interview and thank you for the effort.

[HebaruSan]

Interstellar travel is really, really, really hard. Communication's not too easy either once you get past the nearest few stars.

[geemanbmw]

This gentleman knows no anymore about what's out there in the vast cosmos than the next guy.

[ystoiek]

Finally. Someone I'd like to sit down and have a chat with!

[vincentmack]

problem with humans is we interpret every possible form of life through our lens, extra terrestrial life may be so totally to unrecognisable to us, we keep looking for terrestrial life in outer space

[ameralbadry]

The most intelligent conversation in regards to this subject.

[ffxiarcadius]

Asking Jared why arent aliens here?
*Answer*
Guns, Germs and Steel - of course!

[yackawaytube]

With current human technology, we can travel from 1 end of Milky way to the other end in 2B years (that's 0.005% of light speed). If we can assume advanced civilization can achieve a speed 1000x faster 5% of light speed), then it takes 2M years. Milky way is 13.5B years old, but habitable planets may be 3B to 11B years ago. So what does it all mean? I have no idea

[Theon]

Hey, I'm already here! Greetings from your neighboring galaxy, Andromeda!

[justgivemethetruth]

It's kind of sad that he so calmly talks about humanity destroying itself, and thus any intelligent species is assumed to be almost unavoidably suicidal. That should be the number one discussion happening today all over the world ... how the heck are we doing to keep from destroying our planet and each other?

[alanzom]

We've been sending radio signals for over 70 years, so our footprint in space is a sphere with a diameter of about 70 light years. On the flip side, we've never detected an alien radio signal. So we can say almost certainly that within a radius of about 70 light years from the solar system, we are the most advanced life form.

[lacamila]

"in his or her image" Loved that part.

[michaelmcgarrity]

Jared Diamond is here.
They say there is no Space Aliens.
Diamond is a great Human.