That reminds me of the epilogue to HG Wells Time Traveler:
“ He, I know—for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made—thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so.”
That passage has haunted me since. I often wonder if that is the answer to the Fermi paradox. Civilization might be but a brief spark in the long night, separated from others by both time and distance insurmountable.
“ He, I know—for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made—thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so.”
That passage has haunted me since. I often wonder if that is the answer to the Fermi paradox. Civilization might be but a brief spark in the long night, separated from others by both time and distance insurmountable.