I like the "if there's anybody out there, where the bleep are they!?!" side of the question. Even within the limitations of the speed of light, it would take no more than a couple hundred million years for one race of intelligent life to spread throughout the galaxy, the whole galaxy.
Since the galaxy has been around for billions of years, they should be here, or at the very least we should be picking up radio transmission from them: communicating with each other, communicating between worlds or craft within the same system, even radio transmissions that are meant to only reach individuals on the same planet should be making some difference. What is there? Nothing.
The matter may stem from some specific
failure mode, some specific thing that intelligent life does
to itself on a consistent enough basis that it never makes it out of its own solar system. That a bit depressing, as it could be seen as an assurance of doom. Whatever, keep breathing.
[ August 08, 2003, 12:11: Message edited by: Loser ]