McFreedom

Personally speaking, I sat bolt upright in bed the other year and realized that some sort of basic research that accidentally caused solar-system level devestation at our technology level could explain a Drake's Equation result of 0. Something like a superconducting supercolider creating a miniuature black hole. Not that I'm aware of any argument that this specific tragedy is possible, let alone plausible. My point is more that a "forced move" up the technological ladder on the way to developing space travel could ensure that all intelligent species either destroy themselves or never develop the technology to leave their own systems.

Finally, a personal note - work and a death in the family have kept me rather busy of late, so I've not been updating here, much. I should return soon, I hope.