Conrad Hodson wrote:
<big snip>

What's the answer to Fermi's paradox?  I don't know, but my personal
guesses suggest that by the time a civilization from an Earthlike planet
learns enough spacefaring skills to make successful sublight leaps to
other systems, they may not care that much about Earthlike planets any
more.  For folk like these, the really signifigant wealth and
opportunities may lie between the Kuiper Belt and the asteroid belt, or
local equivalents.  If so, each new system might offer opportunities for
(wealth, adventure, whatever turns alien explorers on) far more extensive
than those to be found on any single Earthlike world.  This might serve to
knock an order of magnitude or three off the Fermi assumptions about how
fast a colony spawned colonies of its own.

Conrad Hodson

Good point. If a species were to become truly space faring, their attitude
may become "Why would anyone want a filthy planet?"


-- 
Tony Sivori