Ah yeah I see. Well I kinda like the fermi paradox, although I don't say it's wrong. Fermi has a point, if there were another civilization around us, there is a good chance we should be able to see it. I'm not too fan of theories stating other civilizations could have evolved to absolutely different technologies, or even evolving to energy-state lifeforms or whatever, so I'm more of those who think if another civilization has higher technologies, we would have some sort of comprehension of them if ever they would explain it to us. Maybe not in the details, but I don't think in a single galaxy you could find such a tremendous difference. Could be wrong, I just think Fermi has a point. After all, the principle of evolutions (and so far it has never been proven wrong) would apply anywhere in the world, and it would have applied to whatever lifeform they are based on, and therefore, the characteristics of "wanting to contact" or worse "wanting to dominate" could be universal as a result. Also, the base of his paradox lies uppon the fact you cannot really leave no footprint as a species when you get to that level. Radio, or other.
If anything, I think Fermi's paradox kinda makes your point. The paradox being presumable real (I don't think the statements it makes from the beginning are wrong, but it's completely up to a debate of course), it leads to the conclusions that life is either rarer than we think (the point you are trying to contradict) or that we have to rethink the universal characteristics of intelligent life (your point, which is that maybe all types of life aren't as willing to communicate as we think they would be). It's all summed up on this sentence : "Since there is no conclusive or certifiable evidence on Earth or elsewhere in the known universe of other intelligent life after 13.7 billion years of the universe's history, we have the conflict requiring a resolution. Some examples of possible resolutions are that intelligent life is rarer than we think, or that our assumptions about the general behavior of intelligent species are flawed."
Also, one of the current limits physics dictate, and so far absolutely nothing has ever contradicted it, is that no information can transit faster than the speed of light, whatever it is (speed of light is not speed of "light" but of all electromagnetic waves). Not even gravitation (there is actually currents of gravitation) is instantaneous and you can indirectly draw that conclusion from the principle that no info can travel faster than light. Therefore, so far, it's safe (or should I say safer) to assume any type of intelligence would communicate through waves of any form because in any case no other type of communication can be more efficient. When they say radio waves, they are not talking radio FM waves, but any range with frequencies good enough to reach long distances or to be practically useful to carry a message, from 0.01 Hz to ultra violet. Waves aren't a human invention, they are a tremendous part of physics itself, for things are either matter or energy, waves or particles. It's considered universal enough to imagine any type of intelligence would at least monitor it/use it. They wouldn't even need to monitor it for exploration purposes, but maybe just for monitoring purposes. Just like we do on some frequencies in modern countries and any anomaly is detected by automatic filters/computers that require a human to come check what the hell is happening. Of course people would say "but what about things we can't even imagine yet" etc etc, yes of course, but even if there were species like that, what about all the other species which are in between us and those evolved ones, surely if there are so many species there should be some who have the characteristics we expect ? So I don't think the fermi problem is uncalled for, it actually raises questions.
I think the beauty of these type of studies, as vague as they are, is that they try to think about what is universal, to create logical theories based on those solely. It's like trying to find the common denominator between us and the potentiel other intelligence, and try to read their minds, and assuming that those ones would be as logical as we are and tried to do the same. I think it's damn interesting, it's too bad it cannot get a grasp on many tangible results.
EDIT : also, what I don't like, is how some people jump right away on the "aliens are too different" or stuff like that, while there are just so many reasons why we couldn't contact them if ever they are there. I like the wiki page that lists so many possibilities to explain the paradox, and to me these sound almost like a complete list, from the "we are not listening properly" to the "they simply don't exists and we are alone" including "they are non-technological" etc etc
uke:
