Rob Dekker wrote:

"Colin Jones" <cjspambuffer@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message

 Of course, another reason we may not be picking up alien signals if the
RF era is relatively short lived before a far more reliable means of
communication is found. Even forgetting the possibility of FTL/exotic
communication I think such as Neutrino communication isn't beyond the
bounds of realism.

Neutrino's are notoriously hard to detect, but even if it were possible,
typically intelligent civilisations would not throw away something good,
until they find something better.

When the telegraph came into use in the UK people were saying what was the point of it when there were plenty of good runners to deliver messages. Then came the telephone and people said what's the point when they have telegraph. There is a pattern here.

Some people cant see a good thing because they can't think beyond the limit of the current technologies they have, runners couldn't communicate across continents and so some people saw no need to do so.

Fortunately people grow old and die or we would still be using steam if the powers that were held sway.