Black Rain from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Whoa!

I’ve been thinking about the Fermi Paradox, which is the observation that high estimates for extraterrestrial civilizations are inconsistent with a complete lack of evidence for them. What got me thinking about it, was current issues with space exploration. Getting to Mars seems like an incredible challenge. Several years in space, a completely hostile environment, followed by landing on Mars, which is only slightly less hostile, followed by a return trip that seems likely to fail. Extending that challenge to interstellar distances seems impossible.

From there, I think about a civilization capable of such a feat of interstellar travel. What interest would such a civilization have in diving down into the gravity well of earth? What could they possibly learn from Earth or us, after pulling off such travel? Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen them, because they have no reason to come here. The Fermi Paradox depends on the notion of our own self-importance and the failure of our imagination to grapple with the true scale of the universe.

Deep in the earth, there might be a tiny damp crack with a colony of microscopic organisms wondering about why we’ve never visited them, when it seems so likely we must exist. It really doesn’t occur to them that we just don’t care.