Matt Walsh

When do you think the world came into being, Zoe?

Anyway, the world was created in 1900, according to Zoe.

Most serious opinion, however, has now settled on the where is everybody paradox, first framed by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950.

If there is intelligent life anywhere, why has it not sought to make contact?

Well, it's because there isn't.

There's nothing out there except planets infinitely less beautiful than this one we live on.

And blah, blah, blah.

She goes on for a while about why we shouldn't have space exploration.

I mean, first of all, as to her claim that there's no life anywhere, even if that were true, it wouldn't follow that we should not explore space.

But, you know, talk about the Fermi paradox.

Well, the Fermi paradox is pretty stupid.

I mean, it's really quite dumb.

The fact that no life has contacted us and we haven't seen any does not even begin to indicate that we're alone in the universe.

The reason we haven't heard anything, I mean, aside from the fact that maybe we have heard something, I mean, we're assuming we haven't, but fine.

The reason is both distance and time.

You know, the universe is unfathomably vast.

And every time somebody makes this point, well, it's apparent.

If there's something out there, why haven't we seen it?

It's like when people say that, you really have no idea how big the universe is.

Now, nobody has any firm idea, but some people just have not reflected on that at all.