I do not believe that we "are alone"
but our current understanding of space and time make a visit to this planet, highly unlikely. Also, if a race of aliens intelligent to master faster then the speed of light travel did come here i suspect the effort expended in travle would not be balanced by meeting a drunk russian in LA.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:45, 1 reply, 14 years ago)

^This
Also, although I am certain that we are not alone, I'm equally certain we'll never actually encounter alien life. And if anything out there is sufficiently advanced to have figured out how to get here, we'd be fucked anyway.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:47, Reply)

^ and then this
Look at what happened not long after the more technologically advanced European explorers "discovered" Africa and the West Indies. Didn't exactly end well for the home side, did it?
(LongJohnBaldry, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:50, Reply)

eeeeer! Dawnt fraw dat bladdy raygan at me!

( sporters I’m sincerely gratitude to you, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:56, Reply)

I'm not certain of anything, but otherwise I agree.
If they ever come visiting either they are peaceful or we are dead/slaves.
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:51, Reply)

Well, yes
'certain' may be overstating it, but notwithstanding my mental deficiencies that mean I can't ever get to grips with the concept of 'infinite space', numerically there ought to be something else out there somewhere, but so far away as to make us, to all intents and purposes 'alone'.

And that's about as far as my brain can take me on this concept.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:53, Reply)

I deal with this by denying the existence of infinity as anything other than a mathematical concept.
Works for me, annoys clever people.
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:57, Reply)

Careful with that one
In theory - and this does depend on whose theory you listen to - there's an infinite amount of empty space, but the universe itself is finite.

It is also, however, fucking massive, so, purely probabilistically, the odds are probably reasonable that there is some sort of "life"-like phenomenon going on somewhere else in the material universe.
(LongJohnBaldry, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 15:00, Reply)