Billions of Habitable Planets?

cbv writes: "MSNBC has an interesting article about new calculations by Charly Lineweaver and Daniel Grether, both of the University of New South Wales in Australia, which provides an interesting answer to the question on how many potentially habitable planets exist in our galaxy."

Comments

Did they remember to subtract 1?

[blair1q]

Because by the time we can find another one that is, this one won't be.

--Blair
"Keeping up with the Gbrtlrxzes."

Short lived civilizations could be good, not bad

[FreeUser]

3. Such civilizations do not last a long time, and blow themselves up or otherwise fall apart pretty quickly

Or alternatively, civilizations progress at a geometric rate, transcending themselves in a few short generations, so that by the time intersteller travel becomes feasable they have lost interest and moved on to more compelling possibilities (perhaps departing this frame of reference entirely).

Once one hypothesizes a civilization significantly more advanced than our own it becomes difficult to even imagine the technologies they may have, much less what interests they would find compelling, or what goals they might set for themselves. For all we know they are all around us, unrecognized because they operate at levels as far beyond us as we are beyond the simple microbe.