Another possible explanation is that interstellar travel is impossible. Perhaps there's too much debris between star systems, and it's not possible to create materials strong enough to make a spaceship that can withstand a collision with the debris at the speeds required.
This doesn't quite explain the lack of communication signals. But if nobody can colonize the galaxy, then there would be less sources of signals.
In a world where interstellar travel is impossible, civilizations can't strike out too far for resources; they must make do with what is nearby. So as they get more and more efficient with their energy usage they'll emit less and less. Compare our solar system with a dyson sphere the size of the solar system, for example.
I'm rather fond of a variant of the "we aren't listening properly" argument. If there exists a medium of which we are unaware, and which can be used to communicate effectively at large distances, perhaps interstellar travel is simply unnecessary, or overly dangerous.
Just one percent of C is awfully fast, but a crawl on interstellar scales. Still, it would be possible to colonize other stars even at such a pace. We can certainly envision accelerating a mass up to that velocity along with a spacecraft in its wake.
I was listening to a talk on The Singularity, and it occurred to me that that might be a good explanation of the Fermi Paradox. (Which is similar to the author's idea, but a bit different.) Basically, our minds are likely to "merge" with the Internet, allowing us to tap into the internet as our personal and cultural memory storage system. But we cannot extend Internet access into outer space, due to latency and the inability to make copies of the entire Internet locally. So the future "us" would be tied to the planet in order to have access to our memories, which would be very difficult for us to live without.
If you want to follow that thought through, the future us would probably like higher fidelity of their memories and recordings, approaching real life quality. The limiting factor in doing this is likely the energy consumption (and in many other ways as well).
The cheapest energy source by far is the Sun, consequently we will need to build Dyson spheres, thus pushing us off the Earth. Once we are at that stage the only way to get more energy (to support further fidelity or population growth) will be the other stars and similar mass concentrations, which will eventually lead to colonization of the galaxy and beyond to galaxy clusters/super clusters. Even the light speed barrier can't prevent such a movement for too long.
A Singularity will likely only hasten the process (there will be nothing else to do).
I used to be a lot like that, and I worked on changing it. So that's my number 1 piece of advice -- work on changing what you want to change. Work on the big things as well as the little things.
I used to put my head down when passing people, to avoid eye contact. Silly as it sounds, I was able to help with that by humming the Argent song "Hold Your Head Up" in my head when passing people.
Another thing I did was to put myself in situations where I HAD to interact with other people. Sometimes this worked, and sometimes it didn't. I found that bars didn't work -- I'd mostly just stand there by myself. Then I'd go home and feel like a failure. (Note that I felt like a failure for NOT putting myself out there and talking to people. To me, that's more regrettable than anything stupid I might have done.)
Joining some clubs where I had an interest helped a lot. At first I just took it in. Then I started offering input during discussions. Eventually, I got to the point where I gave presentations in front of the group, and even larger groups. Now I also run the group (a local LUG). I wrote myself some tips on giving presentations, as well as for others, to share what I learned. My best tip to stop being nervous in this situation is: "Remember that the audience members are just like you, and are interested in what you have to say."
Leverage what you're good at to improve the things that you're not good at. For example, as I said, I was terrible at bars. But I'm good at writing -- and conversation once I know people. So I found that online dating worked really well for me. I got to meet people, but only after I got them interested in me from our written exchanges. At this point, I'd be more comfortable talking to them in person.
Another thing you can do is latch onto a friend that's more outgoing. Make sure it's someone who won't push you out of your comfort zone too far too fast. But have them take you places where you can meet people. They can introduce you and get the conversation started.
Eventually, you'll get to a tipping point where you realize that "failing" isn't so bad, and that "failures" are just learning experiences. Then you'll be able to say "what the heck" and not care so much about what other people think.
I think the point is that negative mass might be an explanation for dark matter and/or dark energy. Scientists don't really have any explanation for what either of those are -- they're really just "fudge factors" to make the theories fit our observations. To fully understand things, we need to figure out why we need the fudge factors.
+1 for FlySpray. It's PHP-based, and pretty easy to install and set up. It does take a few minutes to set it up to add your desired Task Types (TODO, Bug, Feature Request, etc.) and Categories. But once you've done that, it's quite easy to use, and looks pretty good too.
This is the advice I've seen from just about every financial adviser, for anyone not near retirement age.
Another nice thing about a Roth IRA is that you can withdraw all the principal (the part you already paid taxes on) early with no penalty. (Actually, you can withdraw the interest from individual accounts -- you just can't withdraw more than you put into ALL your Roth IRAs.) Although my bank seems to not understand this very well, and the government forms aren't very clear on it either.
Why don't critics of global warming ever present any evidence? That's how scientists do criticism. Any criticism of scientific findings without evidence is useless. Of course, the critics know this, and know that criticism without evidence cannot be refuted.
If you think that there's some sort of conspiracy going on, which is more likely -- energy companies making billions of dollars, or scientists making millions of dollars -- to be spending their money more effectively to change people's minds in order preserve their future profits?
Let's say 9 out of 10 doctors told you that you've got an 80% chance of dying if you don't change your diet. Would you think that those 9 doctors are conspiring against you? Or would you change your diet? That's pretty much the situation we're in here. (Except that the 1 doctor who disagrees also does a lot of work for the snack food industry.)
> which is more likely -- energy companies making billions of dollars, or scientists making millions of dollars
If you want to do motive analysis, you need to look at the full picture. First off, you forgot one player -- governments "making" trillions of dollars, and in need of a project to justify themselves.
How about the doctors funded by tobacco companies who did "studies" and told people that smoking didn't cause cancer, did these doctors/companies commit a crime against humanity? I think it is reasonable to say they did.
Does anyone ever live on the water in the Bay Area? I saw some houseboats in Oakland when I was there last, and thought that it might be cool to live on a boat actually on the bay.
http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/linux/contributewithoutcod...