This week on Death by Tech I will be featuring another somewhat obscure death scenario: aliens! Stay tuned…
What is it?
The basis of this idea is rooted in the musings of a number of prominent physicists, astronomers and generally smart people. Here is how it goes: first, there is the argument of scale. The Milky Way contains 250 billion stars, and the universe itself has approximately 70 sextillion stars in the visible spectrum alone. Estimates on how many civilizations we might share the galaxy with – based on the Drake equation (which is controversial, at best) – range from 5 to 5000. Enrico Fermi takes this further, assuming that the nature of intelligent life is to explore and expand, and points out that even with slower-than-light space travel, it would take somewhere around five to fifty million years for a civilization to colonize the galaxy. This may seem like a long time, but on a geological time scale it is relatively insignificant. This begs the question, which Fermi so impertinently asks: Where is everybody?
It's quiet. Too quiet...
This may not seem to have anything to do with death, but bear with me. Theories on why we haven’t seen any signs of alien civilization vary (one of my favorites theorizes that it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself) but most people interested in it figure that it is an interesting theoretical problem that will be solved as our technological capabilities increase. But it could be something more insidious. Here are some of my thoughts on why we haven’t heard from anyone:
Aliens ate their brains. And they're coming for us...
Or…
OM NOM NOM
Or…
ZERGLING RUSH KEKEKEKE
You get the picture.
Likelihood?
Well, we’re not dead yet. There’s no way to tell, but there is certainly something ominous about the oppressive silence of the universe. It could be that we’re just not advanced enough for anyone to take notice of us (or maybe they have their own form of prime directive), so while the threat is pretty low, as we advance our technology, space could get very dangerous very fast.
Pain Factor?
Another unknown. If it’s alien facehuggers, probably pretty high. If earth is just going to be bulldozed to make room for a galactic superhighway, you probably won’t notice.
Tags: Death by Tech, humor, sci-fi