The Drake equation

Fifty-odd years ago, S.E.T.I. – the US government funded Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – was founded. Its creation was due in large part to a then recently formulated equation (the Drake equation, to be precise) which, in trying to mathematically determine the number of intelligent civilizations that exist in our galaxy (or as I prefer to refer to it, the infinite inky blackness of space), came up with the conclusion: ten thousand.

So we, as a species, started searching the infinite, inky blackness of space (metaphorically of course, for as both you and I know, space is actually predominantly green in colour).

So we searched it, remember? That infinite inky blackness of space? And do you know what we found?

Well, yes, of course you do. We found nothing.

Nothing in the infinite inky blackness of space. Nothing.

We would have remembered hearing all about it if we’d found something, wouldn’t we, in the infinite inky blackness of space? But we never did.

We found nothing.

In the infinite inky blackness of space; nothing.

And that’s what I love about our planet, the one we cling to. The Earth.

There it is, glittering away. All alone. The only smudge of intelligent life in the whole, infinite inky blackness of space.

That’s us, innit? You and me and them. The inhabitants of, the passengers on, space-ship Earth. Hurtling through nothing at 60,000mph, the only intelligent lifeforms, you may recall, in the whole fucken Galaxy.

And we, all of us down here, really, really fucken hate each other.

The only intelligent life in the infinite inky blackness of space, and we all, as a species, hate each other.

Isn’t that remarkable?

Go us.

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