Where is everyone? The Fermi Paradox
Most science fiction fans or people just interested in space know the story: Enrico Fermi, while at lunch with some friends, said something along the lines of "where is everybody?" Consequently, this inspired the tagline for this book, given that a large theme is that people are missing.
The Fermi Paradox is really simple: there are billions of stars in the Milky Way, and with each star there are usually several planets, and a great amount of time has passed since their formation. So, why do we not see evidence of aliens? No signs of any megastructures, interstellar ships, or colonies that we've observed. No traces, no ruins, no firsthand observation.
There are number of explanations for why the universe is empty. Lots of explanations have been propelled in both science fiction with sinister explanations such as Three Body Problem's Dark Forest. But, there's also more odd explanations like the Zoo Hypothesis. Then, of course, there's my personal favorite: we've just simply been searching wrong and not that long. But I want to talk about the Fermi Paradox itself.
I don't know if any of you have played Portal 2, but, to quote GLad0s, "the best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one." (I'm sure it's been quoted elsewhere but this is just how I remember it).
Maybe there is no one else in the Universe.
Difficulty of Life in the Universe and the Sheer Numbers Argument
Those who claim that life is plentiful or common usually point to the following as evidence: first, life on Earth started incredibly early on a geological scale, and, second, the incomprehensible number of planets in the Universe must mean that they exist.
The problem with this argument is simple: we have a sample size of one. To date, we have not found even microbes on other planets or celestial bodies. If life was as simple as some purport it to be, why haven't we detected it on other planets like Mars or Venus where, apparently, some bacterias can survive. We've found the necessary ingredients, and if there's smoke where there's fire, where are the microbes? Second, when people argue the sheer number argument, they fail to acknowledge that we very well could be that one in a trillion. We simply don't know if life can form on other planets, let alone exoplanets.
Think of it this way: if something insane happened to you, think getting struck by lightning seven times, like Roy Sullivan. Just because this has happened to one person does not mean that it would happen to everyone on Earth. Stated differently, just because it happened once does not make it the rule, we could be the exception.
I want to end with one line that I'm sure all my fellow science fiction fans have heard: "two possibilities exist, either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both, are equally terrifying."
