tectonic planet are rare
It’s simple. We’re the first intelligent life in the galaxy. There is nobody else yet in our galaxy.
Also, probably nobody capable of traveling the stars wants to settle a planet. Once you figure out how to make huge spaceships (which you’ll need to travel interstellar space) you’ve essentially learned how to make cities in space. Our solar system would support a lot of people if we just used the resources available for space habitats, and by “lot” I mean in the quadrillions. And it turns out that all you need to support that population is a star to provide energy, and some planets to source materials from.
So with that in mind, why bother finding another habitable planet?
Or there are plenty of societies at least as advanced as we are, but we can’t find each other because space is big and our stars tend to drown out our own puny EM emissions.
Yeah agreed, there’s no way we’re picking up alien radio broadcasts, not over the noise produced by a star.
On the other hand, if a civilization were creating a Dyson sphere, or other large constructions, we’d be able to see those unusual elements in the light spectrum coming off the star. So it is conspicuous that we haven’t seen anything like that.
There’s a fair question of “would it ever be practical to do such large constructs”. As far as energy capture, between advances in energy efficiency and solar capture, one could imagine having energy beyond our greatest ambitions with no or minimal space based solar energy collection. The resources involved to construct such a thing would involve a mass equivalent to an entire planet to make a super thin shell, and we’d want to be pickier than just any old matter.
Similar to people dreaming of Mars colonization as a workaround for climate change. Anything we could do to make Mars livable would be even harder than engineering Earth’s climate. Now maybe population growth may demand more area one day, or non replacement birth rates become so normal that population just starts shrinking.
There is the possibility that no one can “win” against the physics, and things didn’t get much more advanced in space for any species than they are today for us. If that’s the case, then we shouldn’t be surprised that other hypothetical civilisations cannot be found.
Also, probably nobody capable of traveling the stars wants to settle a planet. Once you figure out how to make huge spaceships (which you’ll need to travel interstellar space) you’ve essentially learned how to make cities in space.
I don’t think it is a valid point. Yeah, if we can build a ship that take us to Alpha Centauri it would lool like a small city, but that does not mean that it can last forever and the traveller would never need to settle on a planet. And looking what the humans did in the past, it seems logic that while a part would want to continue to explore, another part would want to settle on a planet.
Our solar system would support a lot of people if we just used the resources available for space habitats, and by “lot” I mean in the quadrillions. And it turns out that all you need to support that population is a star to provide energy, and some planets to source materials from.
So with that in mind, why bother finding another habitable planet?
Because it is habitable and can be used as a transit point, advanced outpost, refuelling base or any other use you can do of an habitable planet where to do things you have not to fight even with the environment (tourism for example).
Suhweeet! We can be the Old Ones, Chutulu flatghn la!