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Comment by 3pt14159 | Hacker News Reader

This is one of my theories about why there isn't any alien life around. There is some party far in the future with a beacon or message that shouts "JOIN US HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF GALAXY R345Q2 10 BILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE!"

After about 10 thousand years of hearing the beacon and being alone we finally get restless and just build a couple thousand giant spaceships and join the rest of the universe in the most cosmopolitan place ever.

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It's not a party, it's a restaurant :)

> This is one of my theories about why there isn't any alien life around.

Do we need a theory on this yet? I mean... out of all the planets we've explored reasonably thoroughly so far, 100% have had life at some point.

I've not heard that Mars had life at some point in its history. In fact I've not heard mention of any planets hosting life in their past, do you have some sources that you can point me to?

It's about the definition of 'reasonably thoroughly'. We haven't explored much of Mars, having covered only single digit square kilometers up close (and most of that geologically).

Uh, yeah? Von Neumann machines should be everywhere by now; yet there is no evidence of them.

Life yes. Intelligent life, no.

Intelligence might not even bet he end goal of evolution even life is very common, intelligence might not be.

Huh, this is a really fun thought experiment. Does anyone know any scifi books that explores this (or a similar) concept?

As vslira alluded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restaurant_at_the_End_of_t...

Oh, I've read that five part 'trilogy' several times :) I guess I should have said...

Douglas Adams' books have been a major fixture of my life since I was 12. He really was ahead of his time. Actually I don't think said time he was metaphorically ahead of has come yet :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restaurant_at_the_End_of_t...

"A Fire Upon the Deep" explores a related concept.

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