There are lots of aliens. Heck, there were aliens attending certain underground raves in Seattle in the 90's.
The Fermi Paradox is about the psychology of humans, not the external universe.
As soon as you can psychologically handle communication with other folks it becomes easy to meet and greet them. There are "outreach coordinators" who volunteer to take humans on jaunts within the local neighborhood (nearby star systems, etc.)
Our planet experienced a disaster ("dis": separation; "aster": stars; "disaster" is a separation from the stars) a few thousand years ago (Younger Dryas comet) and we've been recovering ever since. Our neighbors have been helping us for all that time. Psychologically our species is an accident victim and we have been recovering from the trauma, which is why our history is so messed up and violent. Normal sentient beings are mensches. We'll get there.
I guess I just don’t understand this kind of comment. Are you being serious? Can you cite any sort of scientifically verified evidence for these claims? It sounds nice and all, but if you’re legitimately being serious, how are we ever supposed to believe this without hard evidence?
Yes. (Although by bringing this up in this thread I could be accused of trolling, and it would be hard to defend myself. Sorry.)
> Can you cite any sort of scientifically verified evidence for these claims?
It depends on what you accept as "scientifically verified evidence". My whole point is the Fermi Paradox is about human epistemology and belief systems, not the actual contents of human experience (which include UFOs and little green men as well as lots of other weird shit.)
> It sounds nice and all, but if you’re legitimately being serious, how are we ever supposed to believe this without hard evidence?
You're not, evidently. Honestly, I'd settle for folks just getting over their personal problems and returning to a harmonious lifestyle, and if I knew how to do that I would. A lot of the aliens and other people around here are working on the problem, but we're a tough nut to crack and time is running short.
I'll try (and yes, some of this is allegory, or metaphor, or whatever.)
Normal human consciousness is very different from what we have now. Normally we're very hip and mellow and happy. (Cf. G. I. Gurdjieff)
The dimly remembered golden age was just normal life, then there was this accident (maybe it was the still-hypothetical Younger Dryas Comet Impact, maybe not.) There was a global disaster (flood, the oldest human societies have actual oral traditions handed down from the survivors.) In the aftermath of that we fell into a kind of Lord of the Flies scenario and developed agriculture and cities (both pathological aspect of our sundering from Nature/Reality.)
All of what we think of as human history is the story of accident victims recovering from a terrible disaster, rising up out of a kind of nightmare or coma, and returning to normal healthy existence, which feels so good (in comparison to the trauma-filled previous existence) that e.g. Christians call it the Kingdom of Heaven.
As we heal our individual and collective trauma we have rediscovered e.g. the basic structure of the Universe (astronomy, cosmology, the Standard Model) and begun to live in harmony with Nature (e.g. Permaculture and other forms of applied ecology). As a side effect of living in harmony with Nature we can communicate with other intelligent beings around us.
The Fermi Paradox is about the psychology of humans, not the external universe.
As soon as you can psychologically handle communication with other folks it becomes easy to meet and greet them. There are "outreach coordinators" who volunteer to take humans on jaunts within the local neighborhood (nearby star systems, etc.)
Our planet experienced a disaster ("dis": separation; "aster": stars; "disaster" is a separation from the stars) a few thousand years ago (Younger Dryas comet) and we've been recovering ever since. Our neighbors have been helping us for all that time. Psychologically our species is an accident victim and we have been recovering from the trauma, which is why our history is so messed up and violent. Normal sentient beings are mensches. We'll get there.