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It might be like a lot if there could have been intelligent civilizations 8 billion years older then us.

I doubt any kind of lifeform can exist for that long, but even if it did, the rest of the objections apply. If it's in the other side of the universe, we will never meet. So it would have to be near, and [rest of my objections].

Seems very unlikely to me.

We're are extremely unlikely by any available measure.

What's the argument you're making?

The universe is huge. Life seems to be unlikely since it's very concentrated. But the universe is very, very big and even if it is unlikely as it seems at the moment, it would be quite weird if it were unlikely to the point of only one living planet existing in 13 billion light years of space and yet we exist.

Fascinating stuff really.

Yeah? But that's an argument against seeing any aliens up close (if you believe in that kind of thing), because presumably they're extremely unlikely too.

They're not there, or they're far away in time and space, with a remaining tiny chance that something incredibly unlikely happened.

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