In sci.space.policy Joe Strout <joe@strout.net> wrote:

In article <409A7C1D.6000100@somewhere.com>,
 Rich <someone@somewhere.com> wrote:

They need to detect us. If they've not detected us, why would they
waste the time and energy to broadcast in our direction? Would you,
in your attempt to contact ETI's, broadcast to apparently empty
space, or stars with no detected planetary systems? Perhaps you would.
I would focus my efforts on stars with planetary systems.

The problem is that you don't seem to realize that the detectability
issue works both ways. If ET can't detect our planetary system, why
would ET broadcast at our star?

If ET in our galaxy exists at all, it knows darn well that are here, 
because it almost certainly colonized the entirely galaxy many millions 
of years ago.  Yet no ETs seem to be in our solar system, which 

In this regard youare almost as bad as Oberg - while he claims with no
real reasoning that no civilisation will ever do anything significant
in space you have the opposite endency - claiming that its manifest 
destiny of teh first civilisation to conquer the galaxy. Your reasoning is 
no better though.

A fourth proposal, that ETs are out there and much older than us but for 
some reason are all stay-at-homes with no interest in colonizing the 
galaxy, is just as ludicrous.  Civilizations are composed of living 
things, and living things are subject to selective pressure.  Expanding 
into new niches is strongly selected for, and while random 
counterpressures can slow down expansion briefly, no technological 
civilization arising in a resource-rich unpopulated galaxy would stay 
contained for long.

Yes, but this assumes that 'move to another star' is a potential niche
or one that a species can undertake several times, esp in row. Even 
assumingthat the probablity of successfully colonising another system is
50% (which is *EXTREMELY* favourable) - the chances of any significant
colonisation in timelines exceeding that of all but the most stuborn
biological species we know of becomes very hard.

So.  Either ET's not out there, or it's right next door and knows very 
well that we're here (and probably speaks all our major languages too). 
In the latter case, if it wanted to contact us, I don't think it would 
require scanning millions of channels with sensitive detectors -- there 
would be no missing it.

Or maybe they are made up solely of people like you and Oberg and never
actually accomplish anything being for ever locked in a futile discussion
between teh zero and infinity hypothesis.

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-- 
	Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++