If you were into engineering or physics.....there's always a problem, and there is a solution.
The geeky guys will proudly say this, and spend hours drinking beer to talk about some electrical equation, or some electrical current movement, or some way of engineering the pyramids to be built without alien help or cranes.
So, there was this guy...Enrico Fermi (yeah, he was an Italian), who said that sometimes.....you have a problem (at least he felt it was a problem) where there was no data to put into an equation, and therefore.....no possible output.
In his mind....you would have a order-of-magnitude situation, and this would translate into calculation of imaginary numbers.
Yes, admissible numbers that seem to have no logic or reason to exist......thrown into this calculation to reach guess.
So the Fermi Paradox got dragged into the discussion of alien civilizations that 'might' exist.
X into the equation.....Y coming out of the equation.
It would be like farmer Jones having a cattle ranch, and being asked one day how many chickens he had. Since he didn't really handle chickens or count them.....he would come up with a Fermi Paradox....to figure 225 acres, with the potential of one-quarter chicken per square yard. Then he'd add a fake equation or two, and eventually tell you that potentially....there could 744 chickens on the farm. Marvin, the oldest son on the farm would respond that coyotes or foxes have killed 44-percent of this group, and some neighbor's dog killed another 16-percent. But to be honest, these were just all made up data points from farmer Jones and Marvin (his son). Maybe there were none ever.
So this Paradox might not be all that factual or having value? Yeah....more or less.
But here's the thing, you really don't want to disturb the engineer folks because when there's some massive chaos on a project, and you need a 'magic number' out of thin air....this Fermi Paradox thinking is the only thing they got going for themselves.
