Strong claims require strong evidence, and the presence of phosphine is nowhere near as strong a piece of evidence as "life on Venus" is as strong a claim.
Also keep in mind that life on Venus is absolutely NOT GOOD for humanity, and the more complex life we find anywhere, the closer we are to extinction. You see, as far as we can tell, we are the only intelligent civilization in existence. If space-faring civilizations were possible, after the billions of years of existence in the Milky Way, surely they'd have probes and such in every single star system, or we'd see evidence of Dyson Spheres and Stellar Engines.
But we don't. Why?
Because something prevents this from happening, something known as the Great Filter. This filter could be some hurdle that makes more complex life so incredibly unlikely that humanity really is unique in the universe, OR this filter is some hurdle in front of us that has doomed and will doom every intelligent species and guarantee that we are killed off before we get to another star system. But, the more life we find, and the more complex it is, the less likely it is that we are unique and the more likely we are about to die. It could be that every single intelligent civilization will, without fail, develop some sort of super-nuke that wipes themselves out. It could be that every intelligent civilization will always develop virtual reality and this results in their own destruction as society decays due to all the workers living a fantasy life instead. It could be that every single life bearing planet is sitting on a clathrate gun, and every civilization in existence will burn enough fossil fuels to cause a runaway greenhouse effect to wipe themselves out.
So yeah, don't get too excited about aliens on Venus.
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@piir2
Strong claims require strong evidence, and the presence of phosphine is nowhere near as strong a piece of evidence as "life on Venus" is as strong a claim.
Also keep in mind that life on Venus is absolutely NOT GOOD for humanity, and the more complex life we find anywhere, the closer we are to extinction. You see, as far as we can tell, we are the only intelligent civilization in existence. If space-faring civilizations were possible, after the billions of years of existence in the Milky Way, surely they'd have probes and such in every single star system, or we'd see evidence of Dyson Spheres and Stellar Engines.
But we don't. Why?
Because something prevents this from happening, something known as the Great Filter. This filter could be some hurdle that makes more complex life so incredibly unlikely that humanity really is unique in the universe, OR this filter is some hurdle in front of us that has doomed and will doom every intelligent species and guarantee that we are killed off before we get to another star system. But, the more life we find, and the more complex it is, the less likely it is that we are unique and the more likely we are about to die. It could be that every single intelligent civilization will, without fail, develop some sort of super-nuke that wipes themselves out. It could be that every intelligent civilization will always develop virtual reality and this results in their own destruction as society decays due to all the workers living a fantasy life instead. It could be that every single life bearing planet is sitting on a clathrate gun, and every civilization in existence will burn enough fossil fuels to cause a runaway greenhouse effect to wipe themselves out.
So yeah, don't get too excited about aliens on Venus.