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science What are your views on alien life forms?


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13 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

I'll give some reasons as to why I think there is no alien life and that no other planet can sustain it.

1) I think this is illogical based on scientific reasons. Earth is the only planet with oxygen, and we know that because oxygen is produced only through phytoplankton and plants. Plants require carbon dioxide, sunlight, various nutrients, water, and humidity to live, and phytoplankton require sunlight, water, and nutrients to live. Only the planet Earth fulfills all of those requirements; therefore, only earth can produce a sufficient amount of oxygen required for life. Water contains oxygen, without oxygen water wouldn't be water; therefore, we don't see water on any other planet so there couldn't be a sufficient amount of oxygen or the necessity of water on another planet. Earth is the perfect distance from the sun, so a planet must be the perfect distance away from any sun to have the chance to sustain life, which eliminates tons of planets from having that qualification.

2) I also have a religious belief, and this certain belief reduces the possibility of sentient life on other planets. I won't go into it though, as it will bring up more arguments that are off topic.

3) There is no evidence whatsoever that sentient beings can exist in the atmospheres of other planets. There is also no evidence that sentient beings can adapt, or even survive, with the lack of the necessities that only earth has.

4) To believe there is other life out there, and to go to the extreme of saying there is an intellectual sentient race out there, simply holds no ground and is like saying that we are on the flat earth while ignoring the physical pictures, witnesses, and science of the round earth. There is a lot of evidence that sentient life and a "second earth" could not exist because of scientific reasoning and images from satellites and space stations, and the fact that if a human being went into outer space that he would die in a few minutes also disproves alien life.

5) One could bring up the argument that there is the vastness of outer space that has an unknowable end or maybe even no end at all, and will always remain unexplored no matter how "evolved" human intelligence becomes. This isn't proof for the existence of sentient life outside of Earth though, because it couldn't have existed to begin with, since life needs a beginning. If aliens did exist, then they would have been in the universe before or at the same time as us (depending on your belief). We would have seen them by now, or at least seen another planet with the exact same attributes as Earth. Other minor arguments could be made in these areas, but most lead to other debates based on beliefs, which is off-topic.

6) Humans and human brains are rather deceptive, and while the truth doesn't change, our knowledge of it does. The fact that any human being will never comprehend or gain complete knowledge of every single planet and place in outer space places the illogical thought that there could be something out there when it isn't. Just because there is an empty space doesn't mean it will have something we don't know about in it.

These are the reasons why I believe that it is completely illogical to say that sentient life exists outside of Earth. I have more reasons, and I could also do more research and discuss deeper into these areas, but some would lead off-topic and I already covered the main areas. I also don't want to spend too much time discussing this, since it can become a very long discussion. In conclusion, I will never believe in the existence of alien life until I actually receive concrete evidence of it, such as the discovery of an alien itself, not just an alleged discovery of what could be a sign of alien life.

You can believe what you enjoy mate. No one's forcing you to believe something else. But I don't think it's illogical to say that there is life beside planet earth as well. Yes, planet earth holds the power to sustain the life forms we know, but it;d just a scientific stereotype to say that life can only came into existence only and only how it began on earth. I hold a religious belief that there is life outside the planet earth and even sentient and intellectual life as well. 

We can debunk the flat-earth theory because we have a lots to prove to debunk that, but you don't have any proof to debunk alien life  because your reasoning is shouting out loud a single phrase "We humans know all about the existence and no one can question our knowledge because we know everything!" 

If I say life can be evolved from many means other than how it evolves on earth but we just don't know then how one can disprove this now. I don't think we're the greatest creations of the Almighty Creator, but I believe that we're one of His finest creations. So, is that your point by your religious belief that we're the greatest of His creations, it kinda seems like humans have nothing better to do than bragging about how great they're. Now please forgive my bluntness but I just had to say this. 

And one last thing to end this. "Scientist don't know everything, neither they can, there will always be something left to know. They only rely on little what they know and other than that they can only make assumptions." :angry:

 

Edited by Totally An Admirer
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17 hours ago, Totally Spicy BronyNumber 2A said:

There is overwhelming evidence that aliens have and do visit Earth. See Project Blue Book Special Report Number 14.

Look at the work by Stanton Friedman. He is a nuclear physicist who had security clearances and worked on nuclear rocket technology in the 1960s. He is a very intelligent man and an expert on the topic. People like him do real research, getting government documents and gathering data. Meanwhile, some jack ass will declare from his couch that aliens don't exist.

I for one, believe that aliens do and visit the Earth. I've always been one of the believers in the more supernatural things.

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My prediction is that, within the next 30-50 years, we will find aliens on Mars, Titan, Enceladus, or Europa. But they won't be like we think. They'll be microscopic single-cell organisms, perhaps similar to the prokaryotic or eukaryotic lifeforms that existed on Earth for more than a billion years.

---

Just to put this into perspective, the Earth has existed for 4500 million years thus far. The earliest evidence of life dates back to 4100 million years ago, so life has existed on Earth for at least 91% of its history. In contrast, the first multi-celled organism didn't appear until just 600 million years ago--a time when the Earth was 3900 million years old. Multi-celled organisms have existed on Earth for only 13% of Earth's history. Intelligent live has existed for such a short time that it's pretty much negligible.

So, here's what this means. If aliens were to come to Earth at any time in Earth's current history, this is the breakdown of the probabilities:

  • No life - 9%
  • Single cell life only - 78%
  • Single cell and multi-cell life - 13%
  • Intelligent multi-cell life - 0.01% (maybe)
Edited by Admiral Regulus
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52 minutes ago, Admiral Regulus said:

My prediction is that, within the next 30-50 years, we will find aliens on Mars, Titan, Enceladus, or Europa. But they won't be like we think. They'll be microscopic single-cell organisms, perhaps similar to the prokaryotic or eukaryotic lifeforms that existed on Earth for more than a billion years.

---

Just to put this into perspective, the Earth has existed for 4500 million years thus far. The earliest evidence of life dates back to 4100 million years ago, so life has existed on Earth for at least 91% of its history. In contrast, the first multi-celled organism didn't appear until just 600 million years ago--a time when the Earth was 3900 million years old. Multi-celled organisms have existed on Earth for only 13% of Earth's history. Intelligent live has existed for such a short time that it's pretty much negligible.

So, here's what this means. If aliens were to come to Earth at any time in Earth's current history, this is the breakdown of the probabilities:

  • No life - 9%
  • Single cell life only - 78%
  • Single cell and multi-cell life - 13%
  • Intelligent multi-cell life - 0.01% (maybe)

If you apply this probability to whole universe you'll still get millions of planet with intelligent life, if not more.

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33 minutes ago, Totally An Admirer said:

If you apply this probability to whole universe you'll still get millions of planet with intelligent life, if not more.

Not necessarily. It's a lot more complicated than that.

My post was intended to illustrate just how long it took multi-cellular life to evolve. Life on Earth arose rather quickly (indicating it is a probable event), but it took a very long time for complex life forms to start to appear. I would wager a guess that this is an exceptionally rare event.

Look at this another way: we have found that microbial life can survive in the vacuum of space, and even the sterilization processes we use on our equipment going into space. While we have very strict requirements for conditions we find habitable, we're continuing to find that there are are microbes that can live pretty much anywhere.

The same ratios for development of life on Earth don't necessarily apply to other bodies. It may be something like an exponential curve, where increasing complexity becomes exponentially less common throughout the universe, due to the requirements for development.

 

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I'm pretty open to the idea of aliens being real. Like it's been reiterated countless times, with our universe being so vast, it's very difficult to imagine human beings being the only intelligent form of life.

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20 hours ago, Yamet said:

So do you really think in the whole vastness of space Earth is the only planet to meet these requirements? Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggestion that every other planet is filled to the brim with various aliens, just that there's a possibility that some planet somewhere have some form of life on it.  

It remains a possibility, nothing more. There is also a possibility for many other ideas, but that doesn’t make them any more true.

20 hours ago, Yamet said:

What makes you think we would have seen them by now? The truth of the matter is that we are unable to fully observe the whole universe with the technology we have today so there's no guarantee that just because we haven't seen it it doesn't exist. 

But it doesn’t mean that it does exist either. So, which one should we go by? I answer in more detail below, but I say we should assume it is false, that it doesn’t exist, because assuming it is true or a possibility would lead to consistency errors or our part.

8 hours ago, Totally An Admirer said:

You can believe what you enjoy mate. No one's forcing you to believe something else. But I don't think it's illogical to say that there is life beside planet earth as well. Yes, planet earth holds the power to sustain the life forms we know, but it;d just a scientific stereotype to say that life can only came into existence only and only how it began on earth.

There is no evidence for me to believe otherwise though, which is why I reject the idea that aliens exist.

8 hours ago, Totally An Admirer said:

We can debunk the flat-earth theory because we have a lots to prove to debunk that, but you don't have any proof to debunk alien life  because your reasoning is shouting out loud a single phrase "We humans know all about the existence and no one can question our knowledge because we know everything!" 

The proof is in the reasoning. The reasoning may sound like it is placing man as having full knowledge, but it isn’t. I’m just going by the knowledge we currently have, and that the knowledge we currently have says nothing about alien life or a second earth’s existence. We have no knowledge or evidence of either, so shouldn’t we assume that it is false? Because if we assume it’s true or a possibility, then we need to be consistent and stop giving objections toward every single other belief out there. That would mean there is the possibility of a Santa Clause, bigfoot, dragons, solid gold planets, so forth. Going by your comment, if we don’t have proof to debunk these beliefs, we can’t label them as illogical because we simply don’t know everything.

7 hours ago, Totally An Admirer said:

And one last thing to end this. "Scientist don't know everything, neither they can, there will always be something left to know. They only rely on little what they know and other than that they can only make assumptions." :angry:

But this applies to all human beings. We all do that.

 

 

 

The belief in alien life has no supportive evidence. Yes, there is the vastness of outer space and the fact that humanity and the scientists will never have full knowledge of anything, but those are not evidence of alien life just as the vastness of the ocean and the fact that we may never will fully explore it are not evidences of Godzilla’s existence.

My conclusion is that we should assume an idea is false until we can obtain supportive evidence of it. Alien life remains a theory and an unsupported belief, nothing more as of now. I would go so far as to say it is illogical as well, because of several reasons that I mentioned in my previous comment, and I think those reasons are still valid due to the lack of reasons to believe otherwise.

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I believe there is other life in the universe as abundant as the stars in the sky, and that much of it is intelligent, with societies, religion, technology and forms of entertainment. Look at the earth and all the diversity of life here, as well as the different cultures among humans. No matter how much they may differ or how isolated some may be, there are always consistencies that seem more or less universal.

I do not think that life in the universe has to adhere to earthy standards such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon on so on. Life can exist anywhere, and to assume it must all thrive in the same environments as life on our own little ball of dust is silly. Look at extremophiles deep in the oceans. There was a time no one would have believed such things could exist, but there they are. Life adapts to its environments and can thrive in the most extreme conditions, whether the narrow views of humanity can account for it or not. 

The universe is not a dead place. Life happens, and I believe it happens often. 

Edited by Dreambiscuit
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19 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

It remains a possibility, nothing more. There is also a possibility for many other ideas, but that doesn’t make them any more true.

At least now you're willing to say "There is an possibility." That's a good start.

19 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

But it doesn’t mean that it does exist either. So, which one should we go by? I answer in more detail below, but I say we should assume it is false, that it doesn’t exist, because assuming it is true or a possibility would lead to consistency errors or our part.

I don't think there is any error in being curious about or even believing in something unknown. Every new thing which is discovered or invented starts in same way, because someone was curious or have a believe. And you said by yourself "It remains a possibility." 

So what is your point here.

19 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

There is no evidence for me to believe otherwise though, which is why I reject the idea that aliens exist.

I never said we need an evidence to believe something. We can believe in something until we have an evidence to not-believe this. Again you said yourself "There is a possibility." So we can believe in that possibility. 

19 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

The proof is in the reasoning. The reasoning may sound like it is placing man as having full knowledge, but it isn’t. I’m just going by the knowledge we currently have, and that the knowledge we currently have says nothing about alien life or a second earth’s existence. We have no knowledge or evidence of either, so shouldn’t we assume that it is false? Because if we assume it’s true or a possibility, then we need to be consistent and stop giving objections toward every single other belief out there. That would mean there is the possibility of a Santa Clause, bigfoot, dragons, solid gold planets, so forth. Going by your comment, if we don’t have proof to debunk these beliefs, we can’t label them as illogical because we simply don’t know everything.

So, that's your reasoning to debunk my comment. Let me clear myself then: If there is enough evidence to object any belief I'll be first to reject that. Give me single reason to believe that life can come to existence if and only if we've an environment like earth and not otherwise. You're just saying "There none because we've seen none." And that's not a good enough reason for me to believe otherwise. 

20 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

But this applies to all human beings. We all do that.

And you're just another human being doing the same thing.

Now, I am assuming another possibility that you're still not convinced. I will see if my assumption is right or wrong.

 

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14 minutes ago, Totally An Admirer said:

At least now you're willing to say "There is an possibility." That's a good start.

I didn't mean to make it seem that way, because I'm fully convinced that there is no possibility. I should have worded that in a better way.

22 minutes ago, Totally An Admirer said:

You're just saying "There none because we've seen none." And that's not a good enough reason for me to believe otherwise.

Yes, I suppose it isn't a good enough reason as well. However, there are other reasons to believe otherwise.

1) Every single planet we have observed simply does not have the atmosphere to support life on it. There is also no possibility that a second earth could be out there.

2) The Hubble Telescope can see out billions and billions of lightyears away. Other telescopes can do the same, and we have seen many galaxies and stars that are so far away, humanity could never reach them. To tell me that alien life exists on any one of those planets or stars does not convince me, since we can see everything now. If there was alien life, or at least a planet capable of supporting it, I'm sure the Hubble Telescope would have spotted it by now. It even spots the black holes out there, which nothing can survive by the way. We can see millions of stars and planets, yet none of them have alien life?

Regardless, you still have ground to say that there is alien life out there, but only as a theory or belief. I think at this point, it would be good to agree to disagree on our views of the existence of alien life. I apologize if I offended you in any way, because I know how offensive attacks on one's beliefs can get in these types of arguments.

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5 minutes ago, EpicEnergy said:

I didn't mean to make it seem that way, because I'm fully convinced that there is no possibility. I should have worded that in a better way.

Yes, I suppose it isn't a good enough reason as well. However, there are other reasons to believe otherwise.

1) Every single planet we have observed simply does not have the atmosphere to support life on it. There is also no possibility that a second earth could be out there.

2) The Hubble Telescope can see out billions and billions of lightyears away. Other telescopes can do the same, and we have seen many galaxies and stars that are so far away, humanity could never reach them. To tell me that alien life exists on any one of those planets or stars does not convince me, since we can see everything now. If there was alien life, or at least a planet capable of supporting it, I'm sure the Hubble Telescope would have spotted it by now. It even spots the black holes out there, which nothing can survive by the way. We can see millions of stars and planets, yet none of them have alien life?

Regardless, you still have ground to say that there is alien life out there, but only as a theory or belief. I think at this point, it would be good to agree to disagree on our views of the existence of alien life. I apologize if I offended you in any way, because I know how offensive attacks on one's beliefs can get in these types of arguments.

The planets can't even be seen by the hubble space telescope. The best images we would get are dots, which wouldn't tell us anything at all, really. 

Best you will get.

Image result for hubble space telescope exoplanet

Edited by Califorum
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2 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

I didn't mean to make it seem that way, because I'm fully convinced that there is no possibility. I should have worded that in a better way.

Yes, I suppose it isn't a good enough reason as well. However, there are other reasons to believe otherwise.

1) Every single planet we have observed simply does not have the atmosphere to support life on it. There is also no possibility that a second earth could be out there.

2) The Hubble Telescope can see out billions and billions of lightyears away. Other telescopes can do the same, and we have seen many galaxies and stars that are so far away, humanity could never reach them. To tell me that alien life exists on any one of those planets or stars does not convince me, since we can see everything now. If there was alien life, or at least a planet capable of supporting it, I'm sure the Hubble Telescope would have spotted it by now. It even spots the black holes out there, which nothing can survive by the way. We can see millions of stars and planets, yet none of them have alien life?

Regardless, you still have ground to say that there is alien life out there, but only as a theory or belief. I think at this point, it would be good to agree to disagree on our views of the existence of alien life. I apologize if I offended you in any way, because I know how offensive attacks on one's beliefs can get in these types of arguments.

I think this is best way to settle to this before it get any bitter, because I am not convinced (and agree with) the statements you presented so I apologize as well. Good day mate.

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37 minutes ago, Olly said:

There is no evidence that intelligent/advanced life exists anywhere outside earth. The End?

There's no evidence to say otherwise either. 

2 hours ago, EpicEnergy said:

1) Every single planet we have observed simply does not have the atmosphere to support life on it. There is also no possibility that a second earth could be out there.

We have also not been able to observe what type of atmosphere exoplanets have either, so this statement makes zero sense. 

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15 minutes ago, Celli said:

There's no evidence to say otherwise either. 

We have also not been able to observe what type of atmosphere exoplanets have either, so this statement makes zero sense. 

I completely agree with your statements. :bedeyes:

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Just now, Celli said:

There's no evidence to say otherwise either. 

 

According to the Drake equation, there are between 1000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in the milky way. That's math and probability though, and we have no way of confirming. 

I don't think we'll discover alien life. But if we do, it'll likely be by finding a true Dyson Sphere. 

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3 minutes ago, Olly said:

 

According to the Drake equation, there are between 1000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in the milky way. That's math and probability though, and we have no way of confirming. 

I don't think we'll discover alien life. But if we do, it'll likely be by finding a true Dyson Sphere. 

But you acknowledge we can't know whether or not there's sentient life elsewhere with our current technology.

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1 minute ago, Celli said:

But you acknowledge we can't know whether or not there's sentient life elsewhere with our current technology.

That's exactly what I was saying :darling:

1 hour ago, Olly said:

There is no evidence that intelligent/advanced life exists anywhere outside earth. The End?

 

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It's a bit absurd to think that earth is the only planet out of the (bare minimum) millions of planets out there in the cosmos with the right combination of factors to create life. Now whether that life is single celled organisms or beings so advanced they can be perceived as demigods is just as much of a toss up as determining which of all the planets in creation has life to begin with. 

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Gonna have to go with this statement: "I would argue that in any habitable zone that doesn't boil or freeze, intelligent life is going to emerge because intelligence is convergent."

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I believe for absolute certain there's intelligent life somewhere in our universe (it's way too big not to). It would not make sense to assume otherwise, to be honest. 

As for what they'll be like, I'm actually more inclined to say that our first encounter will more than likely be a peaceful one. I see no real logical reason for aliens to be aggressive, considering that they have nothing to really gain from conquering our planet or our species. Think about it. The only actual logic that points to an aggressive civilization is that they likely need energy. It's a really weak argument, considering three things: They could just build a Dyson Sphere from nearby uninhabited planets to take energy from their sun, it would actually take a massive amount of energy to conquer to whole of Earth, and that there's likely to be some sort of casualties. Even if they are hundreds or even thousands of years more advanced. It's more likely they'd want diplomatic ties (though it would take time to establish them) and actually allow us to help each other explore the cosmos. The relationship could potentially be mutually beneficial and help out both races without expending the energy or the resources to conquer a planet. There is a hole with this idea, however. That being the language barrier. It would take time, but I believe it could be solved through mutual cooperation to try to translate our languages to each other. Assuming they are highly advanced, it may be easier for them to learn our language than for us to attempt to understand theirs. 

 

But hey, some people will find reasons to believe it's unlikely for a civilization far more advanced than ours will actually be able to use their freaking brain...

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Overall, I think the usual error with trying to deal with the Fermi paradox isn't space - it's time.

Whether planets exist that can support life in our galaxy is a non-question, answered by sheer brute force statistics. There might even be planets or satellites that support life in our immediate stellar neighborhood, if not the very solar system. There might even be planets that have life.

So what?

The thing is, we tend to conflate "life" with "civilization", and while you certainly can't have the latter without the former, there's a major difference between algae and spaceships.

According to an admittedly lazy search, the first cells as we know them kicked off about two billion years ago. Reptiles showed up about 350 million years ago, then mammals 160 million years ago. Hominids showed up on the scene a whopping two and a half million years ago and, let's be generous, we've had civilization in some form or another for the past ten thousand years. So, if we assume a roughly same rate of evolution and development as Earth, there'd be about one in two hundred thousand chance that we'll hit upon someone at roughly same level of evolution as ourselves, and that goes the same for any alien civilization looking for someone like us.

If we find a planet that has life on it, odds are that it will be nothing more than self-replicating organic soup. Maybe there'd be some simple organisms. But, speaking on that scale, the moment sentience and selection pressure through social structures thought start to develop, a species has become a civilization and will either have destroyed itself, transcended such simplistic concepts as space exploration or developed to such Lovecraftian degree that beings on our technological and biological level are not meaningfully different than the aforementioned algae and worth about the same amount of curiosity.

So, in short, there is life out there and it is either uninteresting, or uninterested.

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5 hours ago, Quinch said:

According to an admittedly lazy search, the first cells as we know them kicked off about two billion years ago. Reptiles showed up about 350 million years ago, then mammals 160 million years ago. Hominids showed up on the scene a whopping two and a half million years ago and, let's be generous, we've had civilization in some form or another for the past ten thousand years. So, if we assume a roughly same rate of evolution and development as Earth, there'd be about one in two hundred thousand chance that we'll hit upon someone at roughly same level of evolution as ourselves, and that goes the same for any alien civilization looking for someone like us.

Still when you apply this probability on whole of universe then you'll still get more than millions of planets with intelligent life. 

 

5 hours ago, Quinch said:

So, in short, there is life out there and it is either uninteresting, or uninterested.

I'd like to go with latter. 

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I think when people say the Universe is MASSIVE, most people are not actually able to visualize how MASSIVE it actually is. The Milky Way is one Galaxy out of millions and people believe that out of all these Galaxy's, out of all the Solar Systems in these millions of Galaxies, and then out of all the Planets in these Solar Systems, that Earth is the only Planet with life on it? I mean life may be rare but I don't think it's that rare!

This is an amazing video I watched that really helped me visualize how big the Universe actually is (Watch from 5:15 to understand the full scale of the Universe):

It also goes over the radius of our communications and it's basically nothing! If you think we've only had the tech to send signals over long distances for less then 100 years now which is no time at all, so it makes sense why we've discovered no Aliens yet.

It may be that our signals have actually reached Aliens but it's either that they're too primitive to actually understand them or even see them (Single celled organisms or primitive aliens that are in the tribal age for example), Or our signals have reached aliens that are far more advanced then us but we're sending signals that are highly primitive so neither can they understand them/see them.

I really don't think it needs to be a concern at the moment since as mentioned, we've only been sending signals for less then 100 years. Maybe in 1000 years time it'll be more of a concern that we've still not discovered Aliens but for right now, it makes sense why we haven't. I think what we've sadly got to understand is it's unlikely we'll ever see Aliens in our life time. Or at least not the type of Aliens you expect (Likely just single celled organisms)

 

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