Thanks science, thanks for nothing.

Researchers employing a new radio telescope technique to look for alien transmissions were again disappointed by our vast, godless universe as they turned their dishes to Gliese 581, a star with several planets in the 'habitable zone.'

Again we're left with the terrifying notion that the only intelligent life in our
Galaxy is a species that produced not one but four sequels to The Fast and the Furious. 

Above: 3 billion years
of evolution.

That doesn't mean we should give up though, I mean the universe is pretty big and pretty old and we're banking on the presumption that aliens even have god damned radios. Perhaps they've evolved beyond the need to win concert tickets by being the 17th caller. Or maybe we're running into the opposite problem, it took life on Earth 3 billion years to come up with plankton. Assuming for a moment that Gliese or any other planet we probe even has intelligent life, there's a decent chance they're living in the bronze age or something. For all we know they could be sitting around an amphitheater wearing togas and watching Space-Oedipus bang his own Space-Mother, blissfully unaware that we're here, making more The Fast and the Furious sequels.

Behold Newt, First of His Name,
God-Emperor of Gliese 581g.

This is where things like the commercialization of space and space tourism for the ultra-rich scare the shit out of me: what* is to stop Bill Gates or Newt Gingrich or some other one percenter from building himself a warp drive, flying to the Gliese system and waving an iPad at some primitive Gliesenoids? They'd worship him as a god. It was the plot of 7 out of every 10 Star Trek episodes.


It's a well established fact that technologically less advanced cultures will instantly yield to high tech wizardry. Like if I had a time machine and a phone with Angry Birds I would be absolute ruler of the 1970's.

Above: President Nixon handing over executive power to Elvis whom
he mistook for a time traveler from the future. Fun fact: for twenty minutes
in 1970 Elvis Presley had nuclear first strike authority.

*Ok, I suppose the hurdles of working with anti-matter and the face-melting distance between stars are to stop him, but isn't it only a matter of time before someone digs up a Stargate or something?