Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
Time will tell, but I think it's rather inevitable that there is life outside of this planet, one would have to be extremely arrogant to think that we are the only intelligent life in this universe or indeed this was the only planet to contain lifeforms.
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I agree, but I also believe that there is no life outside of this planet that will ever be of any use or interest to us beyond scientific curiousity. If there was any reachable life that could teach us anything useful, we'd have long since detected their communications signals. If such life was capable of reasonable interstellar travel, we'd have long since discovered both their communications signals and possibly the exhaust of their drives, provided they were engaged in the last 30 years or so.
The only thing we will likely ever discover within our very limited reach, which is made so by the laws of physics and sheer practicability, are dead planets and perhaps some primitive life-forms that are not adapted to life on Earth or any planet or moon in our solar system, making them unexploitable.
For all practical purposes, we are stuck here, and nobody will ever know we are here.