Why theano UFOs

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 3:09 AM, sailor.barsoom wrote:
(...)
> Maybe they didn't have a big, nearby moon to pull them into developing
> their capabilities early. Or maybe they did, but didn't have a Cold
> War to speed technological development.
>
> Or maybe no civilization manages to save itself, and neither will we.
(...)

Or maybe we simply don't have enough data to solve the Fermi paradox
and that's why every new candidate hypothesis sounds embarrassingly
unconvincing. Including this new Olduvai-style one about the "end of
industrial civilization".

It is interesting how the fears of each era shape those Fermi
hypothesis. During the cold war, when some major countries had a risk
of being utterly annihilated by nukes, it was fashionable to think
that the answer to Fermi's question was that all civilizations killed
themselves by nuclear war. (Which, by the way, seems a rather unlikely
outcome of a nuclear war, even considering nuclear winter.) Now that
some major nations that remained too dependent on oil are seeing the
Hubert Peak and its accompanying economy collapse coming, it is only
natural to me that I'll hear some people saying "see, that's what
happened to all those poor aliens, they also ran out of oil!".

Bah. Wake me up in the post-oil world running on nuclear and
renewables. I am curious about what Fermi paranoia will become
fashionable then.