Realistically speaking wouldn't it be better if we were

I think people are just trying to keep nihilism at bay. People are obsessed about many such things relating to, I suppose, a greater purpose.

>>9059468
That is a possibility. Someone has to be first. Though, statistically, there'd be many "firsts" happening at the same time.

The main problem is that space is fucking huge. Much larger than what most people can even comprehend. It is filled with all manner of debris between the starts and planets. Far more debris than most people can comprehend. The second problem is that attenuation is a real bitch. Any signal sent out will eventually be rendered, not only incomprehensible, but also render so well camouflaged, weak, and distorted that it won't appear to be a signal at all. Then then you have all that debris between you and "them" further soaking up the signal's power. Hell, we may be awash in such signals every day and have no clue. It is much like, using your hand, slapping out a message in the water on one side of the Pacific ocean and hoping someone else on the other side is watching the ripples for the message.

The only way you'd be able to communicate or detect would be using an entire star as your signal device. Literally building a giant mechanism on one side that will block/unblock the star/sun to send out binary/Morse code type communications. That's the very least you need do and still have your signal detectable to everyone on that side of the star. That'd be like detonating an underground nuke to make waves on one side of the ocean so someone on the other side could detect the waves.

>>9059795
>Though, statistically, there'd be many "firsts" happening at the same time.

There is absolutely no basis for that statement -- we have no idea how likely life is to arise on a given planet, nor how likely it is that life will wind up with intelligence and thence with technology.

If the chances of both of those things are decent, yeah, technological civilizations may be springing up all over the place at once. But if either or both is low enough, somebody may well have been alone at first -- and it might be us. Shit, if both are low enough, we may be the only one ever.

Figuring probabilities with no numbers to work with is not something you can really do.

We are all simply put... pattern seeking algorithms

Slowly replaced by more sophisticated versions of ourselves