are we alone in the universe?

[Michael Desch]

You are correct, the ingrained belief (almost a religion) that the galaxy is somehow filled with advanced civilations just waiting to make contact with us is slowly waning, despite the best efforts of the Sagan-Drake proponents. Fermi's paradox (The galaxy should have been completely colonized by now and Earth should have been visited many times. So, where are they?) has never been adequately answered by the 'we are not alone crowd'. More recent info makes Fermi look even smarter because of the solar type stars in the Galaxy, our Sun is one of the youngest by far. The implication is that civilizations as we know it, evolving on solar-type stars, should on average be way ahead of us technologically. So -- where are they?