... that was cheerful. Enrico Fermi tossed an intellectual grenade and basically told future generations, "HERE! CATCH!"

But knowing is half the battle, or at least thats what GI Joe said.

... it was still very informative and interesting, if one can detach one's self from the predicted outcomes.
So, thanks for sharing it.

to determine the chances of intelligent technological life elsewhere.
Without that, the Fermi Paradox is just idle speculation.

I am not talking about life on other worlds, or even intelligent life, but specifically intelligent technological life.

... that it was statistically impossible for there NOT to be intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe, but the distances are so incomprehensibly vast as to preclude contact.
Ordinarily, I'd say, "Well, let's wait and see," but I'm too old to have any hope of seeing the final dénouement.
To posterity, good night and good luck!

Intelligent life does not mean technology that will use the elector-magnetic spectrum or develop space flight.
Think of whale like creatures on another planet. They could become extremely intelligent. But they wouldn't need to develop technology.

... then there's that whole opposable thumbs thing that comes in handy when developing technology.

Whales are too cool to need technology!

Humans would probably have been better off if we'd learned to live with other creatures, rather than succumbing to the pathological need to exercise dominion over everything and everyone. Guess it's a little late for that.

"Intelligence may be a lethal mutation"

There it is

nature is hungry

nature is violent

any world that develops technological intelligence is essentially doomed

hence, no alien visitors

Our range for detecting radio waves is pathetic...both in distance and time. The number of explanations is limitless.

some universal "Facebook" where all possible civilizations emit transmissions, throughout the span of "time," (which is a construct unique to our own "civilization" ) that we should all be able to register and detect?

Just because other civilizations don't "live up" to our standards doesn't necessarily mean none exist. Fermi, although brilliant by our standards, was a fairly pretentious dude, if you ask me.

I detest social media and don't partake. What if other civilizations feel the same? Fermi's Paradox seems to be an updated Ontological Argument.

Just my two cents.

Humans are a very destructive and invasive species. Any intelligent life out there would probably just see us as perpetually-enraged murder apes that somehow spread throughout the entire planet. There wouldn’t be much in it for them, and, there’s a very good chance we all would just try to kill any landing party that came here.

Maybe we don’t see them because they don’t want us to see them, or, there’s nothing interesting here. They might not even consider us to be intelligent life or distinct from other animals.

Isn’t DU social media?

Our nature has severe flaws, mainly our desire to dominate, our destruction of the environment around us, and, our absolute short-sightedness. Intelligent alien life would not necessarily be like us at all. They could be so different that our species and theirs would be like us vs. a slime mold, or, even more different.

We expect to see alien ships, construction, etc, but, it could be that intelligent alien life doesn’t need those things.

That, or, we are a bizarre anomaly and 99.99999999999999% of life out there is just one-celled organisms.

doesn't necessarily mean intelligence will evolve, without the asteroid, we would never have come to be.
And intelligent life doesn't mean the development of technology.