General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: UFOs explained [View all]PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,848 posts)life is likely to evolve.
It's probably even more hubris not to look closely at what it takes for life to get started in the first place, let alone what it takes to eventually get a technological civilization, and assume they are common.
Something else people conveniently overlook is the time frame involved. Even if a technological civilization lasts a million years, which i would argue is highly unlikely, the possibility of several civilizations overlapping in time, let alone finding each other, is infinitesimally small.
And honestly, if our planet is any indication, chances are a technological civilization will destroy itself fairly early one, long before any chance of going very far from their home planet. Don't assume a benign civilization is what's out there.
And, once again, more than 90% of stars in our galaxy are not at all like ours, which means conditions for planets there will be vastly different from conditions here. It's not as though the entire galaxy is teeming with sun-like stars and Earth-like planets. Far from it.