Why we’ll never meet aliens

qz.com/80907/why…

Hint: it’s not because we don’t want to or they don’t exist.

If you combine all our current knowledge of statistics and astronomy, it’s nearly comical to believe we’re the only intelligent life in the universe. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around—there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. Despite where this article might lead, it isn’t really about science. It’s about thinking big. Big enough to consider that if there are any aliens with the ability to come visit us, they would almost assuredly not care to.