I wonder what tent knows about anything…?
Tent knows all sorts of things, but he doesn’t lose sight that what he knows is conditional and provisional. He also enjoys what ifs, and bouncing the ball off the wall, but doesn’t confuse the two.
Thats only because you post sober. 
we are not alone in the universe, that’s for sure…
look to The Hubble Deep Field on google or youtube, see the numbers how many galaxies there are…
even in the milky way there is aprox. 5*10^11 of stars and each has a posibility of civilization…
imagine how much stars there is in the universe and the idea that we are alone will seem like an absurdity…
in fact the posibility that i will die in the next second is bigger than that of which states that we are alone out here…
P.S. sorry for my english, thats not my inborn language…
You are doing fine. To learn another language is never easy except for the few that can do it easy. It is an accomplishmnet to be proud of. give yourself a well deserved pat on the back.
How vain of man to think that no other sentient life exists within the vast remit of the universe 
We exist, so I find it quite strange when the idea of other sentient life is looked on as a crazed novelty. 
I wholeheartedly and absolutely agree.
I am certainly not saying that there ARE aliens, but I am not going to say that there ARE NOT.
Our own existence is proof that for humanity to exist there has to be a formation a certain distance from a star and a certain size locked in that star’s gravitational pull to such an extent that it orbits said star. That formation also has to have a certain balance of elements.
Now, we have thoroughly explored, what, probably .01% of the Universe that we know to be existent, to leave nothing said for the parts of the Universe that we are not yet aware of?
And in all of this space, how is anyone going to say that a planet that fits similar requirements which contains living organisms is IMPOSSIBLE???
And, the above statements do not even take into consideration the possibility of living organisms existing given a different elemental and atmospheric compound.
i prefer to think of us as the ‘privileged’ ones.
What’s so priviledged about a planet full of sentient beings, who are no better than the animals they eat?
I think that life on other planets may well be in a much more priviledged position than we, as we have a long way to go before we reach a decent level of perfection in our existence…
it’s not probable that we’ll live enough time to confirm such hypotheses, Mag. And I see no problem in that, really.
That may just be because we always think that perhaps the “grass is greener on the other side”.
But remember…we still always have to mow the lawn. (Not my original thought 
)
I wonder why it is…I am not saying that it isn’t…if there are species on other planets…but I wonder why we would think that other planets are far more advanced than planet Earth and her earthlings? 
Is it because hope reigns eternal and we are always looking to be saved from ourselves? 
good question. People are always saying that, but I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that, if there are other planets inhabited by living creatures, they must necessarily be more advanced than us. This is what I call a pathetic example of wishful thinking.
…it’s not that the grass is greener: it’s thinking we are priviledged. 
if we’re alone, we are privileged…in a certain sense, at least
Fabiano,
In most imagined scenarios involving alien species, I think of them coming to us, don’t you? We are not advanced enough yet to go out and discover them on their home planet, so the first thing we think is that any aliens we meet would be coming to us. It’s begging the question, no doubt, but if they come to us, they’d have to be more advanced than us.
I think most would agree that if there is intelligent life on other planets [and surely there must be], then it’s likely there are civilizations equally as or less advanced than us. They’re just not knowable to us right now.
In order to understand the trope of ‘aliens being more advanced’ you need to think about the time period when science fiction was just beginning. Colonialism was in full swing and the vastly more technologically advanced Europeans were dividing the globe between themselves while absolutely trampling the local populations. But there were also some examples of the ‘plucky primitives’ scoring some serious blows against the colonial powers (like the Anglo-Zulu conflict). That set the scene for a reverse colonial experience.
During the Cold War, this shifted slightly and scifi dealt more with various evenly-matched Empires duking it out (think Star Trek).
Now surprise attacks that alter the paradigm of a civilization are en vogue.
Science fiction is a mirror for society, just with absolutely terrible prose and a few gadgets thrown in.
I was thinking about this the other day. I came to the conclusion with aliens that we’d prolly hear them, before we saw them.
Any technologic race, in its early days prior to any ‘stealth’ movement with regard to radio-wave emission would have broadcast a whole bunch of crap into space - just as we have ever since the televised Nuremburg rally.
As long as no-one breaks the light-speed barrier, any invasion will be proceeded by the alien equivalent of One-Tree Hill.
But what if they have found some kind of technologically-advanced cloaking device that blocks out all sensations, all forms of energy, light and sound…that is completely impervious to all of our technology.
Wha do we do then? Hire Will Smith? I could definitely work with him
conjectures, conjectures, and not a single shred of actual evidence.
we and our empty planet.
What it is is a fascinating, entertaining hypothetical, Fabiano, full of possibilities…
Other planets may not have species such as ours…or no species…but our planet being “empty”?..nah.
Earth abounds…