C'mon, skylab, I'm trying to have a serious conversation with myself :D. As always you're welcome to join in, as is anybody else, but let's try to be dignified :) when we post. Now ...

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I read a book last summer that plausibly estimated the number of advanced civizations in the universe to be about one per galaxy. (I agree with the author's analytical approach though of course the numerical result could be off by a factor of a million or more either way.)

Since there are estimated to be 100 billion galaxies in the known universe, one per galaxy would be a huge number of civilizations, most of which must be more advanced than our own given that our own is so recent.

What would we talk with such a civilization about? I think we could relate only in the areas of mathematics and science. We could learn about their ways but we would never understand them, in my opinion.

>>>C'mon, skylab, I'm trying to have a serious conversation with myself.

Oh, but I WAS serious. Who or what in their right mind would want to get involved in the mess this planet is in? If they had the ability to know of our existance, they certainly are far more advanced than we will ever become before we destroy ourselves. And being that far advanced precludes their ever trying to communicate or associate with us.

I agree that there are no doubt countless galaxies with some form of life; some that may resemble our own. But none like us or they would not last very long.

It truely amazes me that we have lasted as long as we have with the violence that has existed forever. I'll never understand the need for it.

skylab,

It seems to me ...

Violence is in our genetic makeup and has probably been there for tens of thousands of years. You're worried about mankind self-destructing yet in terms of head count we have survived and prospered in spite of wars and crime.

So violence has some kind of survival value or we wouldn't have 6.5 billion people on the planet. Perhaps it goes back to a species war with the Neanderthals. Perhaps it is simply survival of the strongest in terms of competition for land and hunting resources. Perhaps it's something else.

I'm not condoning violence -- it's probably genetically obsolete now, like body hair. But it must have played some part in our development as a species or it wouldn't be so deeply rooted in our genetic makeup.

... Or so it seems to me.

Oh, but I WAS serious. Who or what in their right mind would want to get involved in the mess this planet is in? If they had the ability to know of our existance, they certainly are far more advanced than we will ever become before we destroy ourselves. And being that far advanced precludes their ever trying to communicate or associate with us.

Maybe they're just watching from a distance much like we keep a distance from the few remaining uncontacted tribes in the Amazon? They could be taking bets on how long we last... ;)

The straight man sets up loki with a lobbed pitch so he can hit it out of the park ...

loki,

I don't think so. Consider ...

Everybody in Primitive Amazonia has T-shirts now, obtained from the civilized world. So where are our alien T-shirts?

loki,

No, I haven't gotten mine yet. I think I'll ask my wife to order the one on the right. (Now I know where Big Daddy Roth got his inspiration.)

Anyway, the one I want says on the back "My mommy and my mommy and my mommy and my daddy and my daddy went to earth and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." :D

(Gee ... You probably don't know who Ed Roth was, do you?)