This is a thought-provoking analysis by Paul Tyma on why the human race will never encounter aliens:

So why else might they [aliens] want to come here? Maybe they want to trade with us. Well, yeah, right. If you’ve gotten this far it’s obvious we have no tech that would interest them. Maybe we’d be able to trade them some local arts and crafts or pottery or something – but other than that, they won’t be interested in our childish technology.

Well, maybe they want to study us? Well, maybe. It seems probable that if they were on a mission to study life forms, we would not be the first planet they would have visited. Chances are, they’ve seen other life forms already. Probably some at least similar to us. Statistically speaking, we might be interesting but not all that interesting.

What do you think?

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(Via Tim O’Reilly)