True, but the issues of dark matter & energy are showing us we don’t know nearly as much as we thought. I hold out hope…
Wondering how many “a few stars” within 100 light years would be, I got sidetracked 'cause dang, Wolfram Alpha was a sweet site but is kind of hopelessly slow now, with ads to “go Pro” under every foldout button, so it seems. Shame.
Anyway: I only quickly (and laymanly) googled, and the ‘few’ seems: about 2000 total, with about 500 being spectral type G (ie ‘sunny’ : ).
In the scope of things: few. More than I imagined though.
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I would argue that we are beyond the 100 years now. We are still transmitting, but in different ways. Sure, a lot of it is directional, but a distant receiver in line with the beam will still see it. Our omni-directional transmissions are low power but there are a lot of them so the emitted power adds up.
I don’t agree that we would be impossible to spot at a distance.
It can be safely ignored. Drake’s equation is a useful weathervane - it tells us whether the latest discoveries about (say) the habitable zone of red dwarfs means the change of a nearby civilization is bigger or smaller; but there is so much uncertainty in all the parameters that the final value has little significance. Anyone claiming to have done the calculation to 30% probablity is foolish or fibbing.
For me the greatest fallacy in the Dirac ‘paradox’ is that a species has not only to travel to the nearest stars; they have to carry on for the next 50 million years doing exactly the same thing to build a galaxy-wide empire in order to be labelled ‘intelligent’. The ones that stay in their stellar neighbourhood don/'t get counted. You have to want to go to the stars at least once. But to carry on doing it for so long? Or to build a Dyson megastructure all around your star? That doesn’t sound ‘intelligent’ to me.
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You seem to conclude that our level of evolution is roughly lifes ultimate destiny.
Its very likely that machines or cyber humans of some sort will evolve into self replicating interstellar explorers. Although I would imagine that most humans in their current state would rather retreat into a virtual universe of exotic pleasures than physically travel around a real one of lifeless planets and moons.
But then why not do both at the same time?
Lol i mostly posted that as a joke. Mostly. I’m a cynic but not that much.
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Wish you were there to have my back in the space policy classes I took recently. Space cadets REALLY don’t like this message.
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Elon Musk is a libertarian sociopath. His response to the (human created and entirely fixable if only we had the will) crises that endanger Earth (the only habitable planet in the solar system) is to say “fuck it, people who can afford to should set up a bolt hole on Mars.”
The idea that it’s even remotely possible to set up a viable self-sustaining colony on Mars that could survive a catastrophe that destroyed civilization on Earth is a pipe dream, but it’s popular with the “fuck the poors, I’ve got mine” set because sociopathy, and with the space mad set because Colony on MARS!!1!!.
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The one thing that constantly gets left out of Mars colonization discussions, movies, etc is that the planet has an abundance of Perchlorates everywhere which is highly toxic to human beings. Being able to manage that against dust storms, potential bollide strikes, radiation, and more with a living colony would be a hell of an uphill battle. Not impossible but would be an important factor to overcome, right now there’s no way for a human colony to just go to Mars without significant health risks.
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Sorry, but that looks like another example of the left demonizing anyone who they don’t see as 100% agreeing with them. You need to recognize allies. At least Musk is thinking about the future, unlike the Kochs and 99% of the 1% who figure whatever happens they’ll buy their way out. Do you think Musk could cure poverty if he gave his entire wealth to the poor? It wouldn’t make a dent. He may not have all the answers or any of them, but he’s trying different things, and shaking up the status quo. Maybe the Tesla is not “the People’s Car” and never will be, but he has rattled the industry’s cage enough that they’re all ready to make E-cars. Will the Boring Company ever do anything meaningful? I have no idea, but the paradigm of underground transit costing $3.5 billion per mile does not work for anyone but the construction unions and contractors, and anyone who can change it should be encouraged.
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I’m being alone right now!
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Alone in this dimension 
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New model predicts that we’re probably the only advanced civilization in the observable universe
Wait, what’s this “advanced” shit?
Sounds more like unchecked hubris, worthy of a newspaper headline in the DPRK.
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The equation is fine, it’s just that we don’t have the data for several of the variables.
When you have a good equation and bad data, nonsense abounds. (See: a vast swathe of economics literature)
It could be. That’s my point. We don’t know if those are the correct variables. We have a sample size of one for life, its environment, intelligence, civilization and what communication is. That makes the equation a series of hypotheses, but people treat it as though it’s an established theory. It isn’t. Now a hypothesis is a fine place to start deciding what to test for because you gotta start somewhere, but pop science articles routinely treat it as an established theory backed by empirical evidence. They’re putting the cart before the horse.
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Which I suppose has a different definition than the usual one, seeing that we can see other galaxies with a telescope and there is no way we could receive radio signals from them.
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They’re good variables Brent.
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It’s why I think a lunar colony is going to have to be the first project before heading for Mars. Learning to deal with extreme temperatures and dust (mechanical wear and tear) is going to be the two lessons we’ll need for Mars and Luna is much closer so if SHTF they can return to Earth in a timely manner.
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All science is necessarily speculative. The study in question could be wrong, but lots of scientific hypotheses and theories have been and are wrong. Technically, all of them are – that’s part of science being necessarily speculative.
Also, the study in question does not confidently offer answers. The purpose of the study was to acknowledge the huge amount of uncertainty in many of the parameters of the Drake equation and how you can get vastly different answers by tweaking a them slightly. (Did you read the article?)
Agreed – once we successfully colonize Antarctica we’ll have a much better basis for optimism for efforts to colonize Mars. We’ll still have to solve the whole “breathable air” problem, though.
I see your long arctic night and raise you by subtracting 260 K and a breathable atmosphere and adding deadly ionizing radiation and micrometeors.
I don’t think anyone claimed that. 30% was one end of the range of uncertainties given a certain set of assumptions about the parameters. The study is investigating the actual range of uncertainty – the whole point of the study was to point out that any final value derived from the Drake equation is meaningless.
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