re: It's just stupid how big space is and how small Earth is

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There is life on Earth, so there is other life out there too. It would be a very simplistic view to think that there is only life on Earth. Hell the dinosaurs ruled this planet longer than homo's have been here.

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Let's follow this train of thought, then.

1. The Sun is a typical star, and relatively young. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older.

2. Almost surely, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets.

3. Assuming the Earth is typical, some of these planets may develop intelligent life.

4. Some of these civilizations may develop interstellar travel, a technology Earth is investigating even now (such as the 100 Year Starship).

5. Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years.


According to this line of thinking, the Earth should already have been colonized, or at least visited.

But no convincing evidence of this exists. Furthermore, no confirmed signs of intelligence elsewhere have yet been spotted in our galaxy or elsewhere in the observable universe.


Where is everybody?


This keeps me up at night. The silence from the stars is overwhelming. Suffocating. The longer I think about it, the more horrifying it gets. Are we alone?