On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, Brian Manning Delaney wrote:
>
> "J. R. Molloy" wrote:
>
> > I don't see that the rarity of intelligent
> > life lowers the risk that we'll self-annihilate.
>
> Moi, I just meant that it increases the probability that the
> apparent absence of aliens has causes that aren't the
----------------!
> self-annihilation of technical cultures, ergo....
>
The argument that intelligent life is rare or "apparently" absent are totally and completely *specious*.
I dealt with this extensively in SETI@home discussions in mid-late July. Fundamentally it comes down to the fact that we do not have the nano-capabilities to detect nanobots if they are here and we either do not have or only barely have the astronomical capabilities to detect SIs in space and to detect them you would have to look in "counterintuitive" locations (where we don't see stars).
The only statements that can be made with putting yourself squarely in the swamp is: "We don't see aliens that are our size nearby (literally walking around on earth)" and "Aliens do not appear to have restructured or consumed *all* of the stars in the galaxy".
Them's the facts man, just the facts.
Robert