Individual computers became tiny, but we are now talking about gigantic clusters and data centers, with processes floating somewhere without a definite place or size. Our abstraction level went up a bit. And with civilizations it could happen something similar. The road ahead may be more cultural or of complex enough memes than physical.
At least where speed/fluent enough communication can be established. But space is big, we can't decide if its affordable ever in any future interstellar or intergalactic travel or communication, so far we are stairs makers thinking that eventualmente we could build one to reach the moon, but reality may make that totally impractical. And that could be another solution to the Fermi Paradox.
Another possibility is that intelligent life is common but afraid to be noticed.
Here's an interesting PBS Space Time video [1], "Dark Forest: Should We NOT Contact Aliens?", that goes over some of the game theory that a civilization might want to consider when deciding how visible to allow themselves to be to others.
The recent post is a good read too, even if it got flagged. Stack Overflow has played a huge role in I’m sure a lot of our careers. Nice to see the philanthropy!
These rational arguments stipulate that all reality fall within the scope of human rationality.
This is seems both a necessary pre-condition--what else are we really using?--but it invites the question: what if there is something beyond that scope (however you care to label it) driving what is in view?
All I'm after here is the recognition of the stipulation.
I think there's probably life out there but once they ditch the shackles of religion they're overcome with ennui and they just end up whiling their time away on their celestial couches in VR with their AI life partners.
I mean, if interstellar travel requires practically infinite energy OR time, what's the point? You're not going to spend a solar system's worth of resources to go mine a planet. And if you've already figured out what's out there, nobody is going to sign up for living on a thousand year generation ship cruising the cosmos hoping you don't get annihilated by running into interstellar litter at near light speed.
If there's life out there, they're probably just sending probes. And if they're sending self-replicating swarms out into the cosmos (why?), you probably don't figure it out until it's too late and they show up and swiftly sterilize your planet.
At least where speed/fluent enough communication can be established. But space is big, we can't decide if its affordable ever in any future interstellar or intergalactic travel or communication, so far we are stairs makers thinking that eventualmente we could build one to reach the moon, but reality may make that totally impractical. And that could be another solution to the Fermi Paradox.