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hnpcc December 13 2007, 22:20:30 UTC
That wasn't so much me as what you were reading. And again, opinions vary as to what "alive" actually means. ;-)

me? this morning? dead.

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reverancepavane December 13 2007, 23:10:36 UTC

If you really want to be pessimistic with the Drake Equation, consider that, given the current evidence, a technologically sophisticated society capable of looking outward can only survive for a very limited time.
Given the only example we have to date.
Then again, there is some nice work in astrochemistry that states even if you have a world capable of earth-like conditions which give rise to intelligent life, the odds are that no technological society will develop at all, as the vast majority of useable metals will be locked in the planetary core (this has to do with the ratio of carbon and oxygen in the region where the solar system forms. We are apparently in a rather rare bubble where the ratios reverse from the galactic norm.

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