I think it quite likely that we are the only civilization within several hundred light years; otherwise we would have heard radio waves.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
That would be such a life-changing thing, for us all to know that there are other beings out there who we could potentially communicate with, or maybe we are listening to a signal that they transmitted hundreds of millennia ago.
Ever since the Second World War, television signals (as well as FM radio and radar) have served as Homo sapiens' emissaries into deep space. High-frequency, high-power broadcasts have filled an Earth-centered bubble more than 60 light-years in radius with signals.
In many ways, I think about the possibility that there could still be a Yes in 100 or 200 years from now, just like a live symphony orchestra.
Surely the only sound foundation for a civilization is a sound state of mind.
We probably, as primitive people, made music before we actually had a language, and that's where language comes from.
You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space.
It would be wonderful if I could see the end of civilization during my lifetime.
We live, I think, in the century of science and, perhaps, even in the century of physics.
Give consideration to the fact that alien astronomers could have scrutinized Earth for more than 4 billion years without detecting any radio signals, despite the fact that our world is the poster child for habitability.
I'm really convinced that our descendants a century or two from now will look back at us with the same pity that we have toward the people in the field of science two centuries ago.