The original post: /r/aliens by /u/Sindy51 on 2024-10-03 18:56:29.
Is it more probable that advanced alien civilizations are aware of Earth than not?
I’ve been thinking about this question for ages: Is it more likely that life far superior to humanity exists and is aware of Earth, given how long we've been giving off biosignatures and, more recently, unnatural technosignatures (like radio waves and pollution?
Life on Earth has been detectable for over 2 billion years thanks to oxygen, methane, and other biosignatures and in the last century or so, we've been beaming radio waves into space and broadcasting a radio wave bubble that could be detected by advanced civilizations who could detect it beyond our understanding. The sheer amount of time Earth has been broadcasting life makes me wonder. If civilizations far more advanced than us are already aware of our planet?
Think about it: If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, it’s entirely possible that civilizations out there are millions or billions of years older than us, giving them a huge head start on us. Maybe they’ve developed technologies far beyond our understanding, allowing them to detect planets like Earth with ease, and from distances unimaginable to us.
There could be planets the size of our entire solar system, with abundant resources that allow them to bypass the issues that hold us back—like greed, war, and cruelty. Without the existential threats we face (like asteroids or the Oort cloud), these civilizations might advance rapidly without the fear of extinction-level events making them more enlightened and void of the concept of evil.
With this in mind, isn’t it possible that some of these civilizations are aware of Earth? Maybe they've been observing us for millennia, maybe they have advanced our species, or perhaps we’re too primitive to warrant their attention. They could even be following some “prime directive” or “zoo hypothesis,” where they intentionally avoid interfering with less advanced species like us.
What do you all think? Is it likely that there are civilizations out there who know about Earth, but choose not to interact? Or is it more plausible that we’re just not interesting enough for them to bother?