Peak Oil explains the lack of UFOs

[Speck Tater]

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/05/06/peak_oil_and_ufos/

<snip>

The Fermi Paradox is an attempt to wrestle with the question of why we haven't yet encountered any evidence of alien civilizations. Wikipedia defines the paradox as follows:

The size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.

Such evidence might include radio signals, UFO sightings, or pointy ears. But so far, we got nuthin'.

<snip>

To which list of joyful future scenarios, O'Reilly adds "diminished access to readily available natural resources after a crash of civilization."

In other words, we haven't encountered alien space-faring civilizations because all such alien races that developed the technological capacity for space-flight smacked head on into peak oil and then reverted back to barbarism, or some other form of pre-Industrial Revolution social arrangement.

I like it -- a nice tidy unified theory that connects the price of gasoline to the absence of evidence for alien life.

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Complete article at link

[Beregond2]

1. I thought you were going to say

it's because rednecks can't afford to fill-up their pick-ups and head out into the woods with a case of beer. Hence: no sightings.

[NJCher]

2. that is so effing stupid it makes me want to pull my hair out

First of all, there are plenty of sightings. More than enough sightings. Just the ones reported to the government are at this site:

www.theblackvault.com

These are reports obtained using FOIA.

Now, to the next idiotic premise. This person seems to think all human minds would reason the same about an energy source. Like all planets would have oil. That is not necessarily the case. It would depend on the development of the planet and the way its inhabitants sought an energy source.

I could go on, but why?

Oh and one last thing: he commits my most loathed redundancy: "reason why."



Cher

[phantom power]

3. Sort of a variation on an older theme.

People have been speculating for a while that technological civilizations might commonly self-destruct before they can leave their planet. For a while, the popular cause was nuclear warfare. Still a going concern, I might add. Environmental or economic self-destruction are pretty plausible reasons too.

[klyon]

4. It would take a lot of natural resources and the cooperation of the

entire population of the planet to travel the cosmos. As we see the planet will be destroyed long before that can happen. If not us then, as seen on Discovery Channel, lots of things will wipe our planet before we master inter-galactic space travel. The odds are against any civilization getting off their planet.

[JohnWxy]

5. NOt to be too serious about this but, given the distance of many star systems from the Earth

it would take millions of years for any evidence (assuming conveyed by electromagnetic means: light , radio signals, MTV, etc.) it would take millions of years for such signals to get to us. There could be (or could have been) civilizations out there whose tv shows we won't even see for several tens of millions of years yet. ....unless of course, you're gonnna pull out the ol' worm hole loop hole on us!

The closest star to us, i believe is Alpha Centauri - 4.3 million light years away. Others, are much further.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. You're a bit off the mark, John

the Alpha Centauri system is ~4.3 ly away, not 4.3 million: Setting an arbitrary limit of 100ly (before the inverse square law turns the signal into mush), we'd have a thousand or so sun-like stars to consider.

(Although none them seem to be talking, that we can see)

[JohnWxy]

7. Thanks for the correction. Don't trust me to navigate if we have to moveoff this planet!

YOu are right you don't have to go very far, by interstellar standards, before the signal gets quite attenuated.........

[IDemo]

8. The Inverse Square law would likely explain why no radio signals

Though it's just as likely a sufficiently advanced civilization may use something entirely different than the radio spectrum to communicate with, anyway. Or that they just don't see the value in sending signals to anthills like Earth.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89700174

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Or they don't splurge signals all over the place

Our transmissions are increasingly switching to cable and earth-facing satellites: Big towers pumping out 10kw in every direction are on the wane. Assuming the trend continues, our "here we are!" stage might only last 100 years, if that.

[hogwyld]

9. There's nothing else to gain for them

from further anal probing...

[Strelnikov_]

10. Club of Vogsphere? n/t