Why We May Be Surrounded by Older Alien Civilizations

Very common question I’m seeing here, and indeed honestly a very common question students have in my classes about statistics, is what if one of the oldest civilizations applied this reasoning - wouldn’t they get a totally different and wrong answer? Yes they would, but that’s how statistics works! Not everyone is guaranteed to be right every time. The oldest civilizations in this scenario would be the rarest and thus although they would arrive at the wrong answer, the majority of the sample would arrive at the correct answer. Think of it like this - if you state there’s a 90% chance of an event occurring, you will predict the wrong answer 10% of the time. That’s not a failure of statistics, it’s intrinsic to how it works as everything has uncertainty. All we can do in statistics is make probabilistic statements e.g. this is the most likely outcome, or this happens 90% of the time. Challenging to explain this in a single comment, it takes students a long time to grasp this concept usually but I hope that helps!

He said, “grab a cup of tea” so I paused the video and did just that! This channel is vital for great ideas.

Since I was a kid, I've found astronomy and the possibility of life outside of our solar system to be fascinating. From an auto mechanic in southern Indiana, I thank you for your content. I am making my way through your library, and just cannot get enough, it keeps my dreams of the stars alive.

Among all the crappy channels, you stand out as something very different. no ufos , and ancient alien nonsense. Thank you for intelligent content

I'm working my way through your library. This was amazing, and has started conversations with people around me that have not even considered these questions. Thank you for your time and effort.

The most obvious reason we haven’t contacted another civilization should be obvious - the universe is unimaginably large, and our understanding of physics only allows us to reach a fraction of a fraction of our cosmic neighbors let alone the Milky Way let alone the rest of the universe

Legend has it he's still out there liking comments.

This channel is amazing. I randomly found this channel one day ago and I am hooked. Your ability to merge the technical aspect of science with the romance and beauty of the universe. Well done!

If any aliens are intelligent enough to detect or reach us, they're also intelligent enough to NOT visit us due to the risk of contamination.

Aliens probably lock their doors when they fly near Earth.

"Hunter-gatherer society floating a message to us down the river on a piece of wood" Isn't that similar to what we attemped to do with the Voyager probe?

This content is truly amazing. Having a professor/researcher making videos explaining the incredible complexities of our universe is truly astounding. Whenever he speaks, it's like a cascade of knowledge so well-worded and passionately delivered which is admirably poetic. Honestly, this is an honor. I'm quite passionate for astronomy and this is incredible to me. Probably the greatest channel on YouTube.

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The effect of time causing older civilizations to be more common could be even more extreme when you phrase the question specifically as "which type of civilization are we most likely to find" because older civilizations also are most likely to have spread out among the stars to multiple planets and star systems. Obviously, if they have more territory, we're more likely to run across them (or vice-versa).

I know that Cool Worlds would rather be studying a catalog of discovered exo-moons, but the time being put into this channel is a great gift to all of us viewers. Thanks for the awesome content.

This is extremely smart content that you’ve put into easy to understand terms. You have a talent for explaining this stuff. That’s a good sign that you really know what you are talking about. Thanks for making these videos!

A bit of an odd consequence of this approach, is that the older we get, the older we should assume other civilizations should be on average. I guess that makes sense, since if we are observing our own civilization survive for longer and longer periods, it would be the safest bet (but of course, only a bet) to guess that other civilizations would be tend to survive for that kind of timespan. Here's hoping for a long-lived humanity, so other aliens out there can enjoy similarly long lives!

Narrator : Sit back, have A cup of tea with me. Me : LETS DO THIS... While having a beer & smoking a joint

What a refreshing documentary on this subject!

At first I thought that you are one of those people that like to hear themselves speak. But then I actually watched your videos about aliens. I think you are inspiring a lot of people , like me, that look up and wonder “how the hell are we alone?”. Thank you sir.