So the galaxy is 13 billion years old, hundreds of billions of stars. The math says we should be tripping over civilizations. Where is everyone?

Yeah, that's Fermi's question. And there are the polite answers. Life is rare. Intelligence is rarer. Maybe the radio window closes fast.

Polite. You don't believe any of them.

I believe one of them, just not the polite version.

Imagine the galaxy as a forest at night. Every civilization is a hunter walking through it.

Okay.

You can't tell who's friendly. You can't tell who's stronger. You can't even tell who's listening. So what do you do?

You don't make a sound.

You don't make a sound. And if you hear something move, you shoot first, because by the time you finish saying hello, the arrow's already on its way.

So the silence isn't an absence.

The silence is the strategy. Everyone who didn't figure that out is already gone.

And we've been broadcasting since 1936.