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  • Nautilus

    The Great Silence

    by Ted Chiang Aug 15, 2019 5 minutes

    The humans use Arecibo to look for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their desire to make a connection is so strong that they’ve created an ear capable of hearing across the universe.

    But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices?

    We’re a nonhuman species capable of communicating with them. Aren’t we exactly what humans are looking for?

    The universe is so vast that intelligent life must surely have arisen many times. The universe is also so old that even one technological species would have had time to expand and fill the galaxy. Yet there is no sign of life anywhere except on Earth. Humans call this the Fermi Paradox.

    One proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox is that intelligent species actively try to conceal

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