The Fermi Paradox: Here Comes Nobody

EPISODE 129 | The Fermi Paradox: Here Comes Nobody

If we are not unique as a species, an intelligent one that builds civilizations, then there must be lots and lots of other civilizations out there in the galaxy and the rest of the universe beyond. But if so, where the hell is everybody?

That’s the question at the heart of the Fermi Paradox. And this has kicked off a chain of reasoning and speculation that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and lets us start to envision, not just what might be out there, but where we ourselves want to go as a global civilization.

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SECTIONS

1. 02:54 - First we feel, then we fall - The Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, the Wow! Signal, space is big
2. 09:22 - End here. Us then. Finn, again! - Abiogenesis, the Pulse-Transient Theory of Industrial Civilization, musings on the galactic situation
3. 18:48 - They lived and laughed and loved and left - The Great Filter, Von Neumann probes, the Berserker Hypothesis; loud, quiet and grabby aliens; the Dark Forest Hypothesis, the technological singularity, the Jevons Paradox and induced demand
4. 27:16 - The cross of your own cruelfiction - The Zoo Hypothesis, the Planetarium Hypothesis, the Deathworld Scenario, A Field Guide to Aliens, Calculating God and other science fiction, the Aestivation Hypothesis 
5. 34:34 - Three quarks for Muster Mark! - The Kardashev Scale, Sagan's addition, megastructures, Barrow's anti-Kardashev scale, Galántai's variation, the Urbanization Hypothesis, Kardashev's six scenarios, what to look for
6. 43:04 - He is cured by faith who is sick of fate - They're here, Greer and UAP folks, MJ-12, the SETI Paradox, we are looking, light is fast but has a limit
7. 47:38 - Let us leave theories there and return to here's hear - Joseph Campbell and where do we go from here?

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info

• Finnegans Wake glosses
• A skeleton key to Finnegans Wake by Joseph Campbell
• ‘It never ends’: the book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake in The Guardian
• Finnegan’s Wake at 80: In Defense of the Difficult at LitHub
• Why Finnegans Wake Is Better than Ulysses
• Fermi’s Paradox on This American Life
• SETI Institute website
• Humanity Responds to 'Alien' Wow Signal, 35 Years Later
• This Is How We Know There Are Two Trillion Galaxies In The Universe in Forbes
• The Great Filter: a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox in Astronomy
• A list of solutions to the Fermi Paradox on It's only chemo
• Are We Alone in the Universe? Article looking at the Drake Equation<