(This is in contrast to the Flake Equation, which posits that there are a lot of people with believable stories about aliens.)
If the vast numbers of smart aliens are indeed out there, one huge question remains - despite SETI, all the Voyagers, all the years intentionally and unintentionally throwing radio waves into space -
Why haven't the aliens contacted us?
Or at least - why haven't we heard or seen any sign of them?
This is the Fermi Paradox - there should be tons of sentient intelligent life in the universe, and some of it should be more intelligent than us, and some of it should be older than us, but there's no sign of anything else anywhere that we've found.
There are lots of theories thrown around about why we haven't heard from our interstellar neighbors. Most of them are somewhat terrifying. The simplest solution, and one of the least likely, is that we are the first and only intelligent life in the universe - cuz someone's gotta be first, right? Why not us?
The opposite is also speculated - because of any of a myriad of unfortunate circumstances, we are the last intelligent beings in the universe and whatever cataclysmic event that killed off everyone else just hasn't reached Earth yet.
The more interesting theories lie somewhere in between and include ideas like fifth dimensional transcendence, arsenic or silicate based life, and Vogonic technological advancement.
Based on human experience, one of the most likely reasons that we have not encountered aliens is the Holodeck Solution to the Fermi paradox, named after the technology in Star Trek that allows the crew of the Enterprise to virtually simulate any situation they can think of. In a nutshell, the Holodeck solution proposes that, before any extraterrestrial intelligent species developed the technology to move between the stars, they developed the means to create increasingly realistic simulations. Essentially, extraterrestrials focus more on creating their own perfect universes and realities rather than exploring the one they are in. Thus, as extraterrestrials focus inwards, fewer signals get sent outwards, and there is even less of a chance of those signals hitting Earth. (1)
This seems to be the way that humanity is going. After the conclusion of the Cold War, governmental spending on space exploration declined and investment in video games, virtual reality, and simulation technology has increased massively. Because of this increased investment, 1080p video is not good enough. Models have been created with millions on billions of variables that simulate everything from nuclear war to the way ketchup gets out of a bottle. Non-reality and reality are coming increasingly close in many ways.
Once those lines become close enough, we will be able to create alternate realities that improve massively on "real life."
And of the dream is better, why wake up?
(1)This concept of the perfect unreality supplanting the reality is explored in books like Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and movies like the Matrix trilogy, among many others.
(1)This concept of the perfect unreality supplanting the reality is explored in books like Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and movies like the Matrix trilogy, among many others.
