The Fermi Paradox and you.

I am sure you all are familiar with the Fermi Paradox but if you happen not to be you can watch these two videos. Even if you are familiar with it I would highly recommend watching them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-uI

Now that you are up to speed. Why do you think we have yet to encounter alien life?

Nice 8 bit graphics, there. I really think that animator must have played Traveller.

There are dozens of reason possible for why we haven't had contact with aliens. See the Wikipedia page on the Fermi Paradox for quite a few. I have two opinions on this. The first is theological: Adam was the first man that was created. This happened ~6,000 years ago. Since any other man created would have happened after this, it would seem likely that any such civilization would not have had time to build civilization and then travel the stars to reach us. My second opinion is cold-hearted physics: it is technologically impossible to cross interstellar space in any sort of meaningful way.

Another explanation I've thought about builds off the "space travel is hard" premise. It is really really hard. You know what's less hard? Virtual reality. Here on modern earth while our space program has admittedly declined in overall funding and public interest, online MMO games have flourished.

It may be that civilizations at a certain level of advancement are more likely to vanish into virtual worlds that cater to their idea of a perfect existence than to travel out to the stars.