The story goes like this: Sometime in the 1940s, Enrico Fermi was talking about the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligence with some other physicists. They were impressed that our galaxy holds 100 billion stars, that life evolved quickly and progressively on earth, and that an intelligent, exponentially-reproducing species could colonize the galaxy in just a few million years. They reasoned that extra-terrestrial intelligence should be common by now. Fermi listened patiently, then asked simply, "So, where is everybody?". That is, if extra-terrestrial intelligence is common, why haven't we met any bright aliens yet? This conundrum became known as Fermi's Paradox.

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I suggest a different, even darker solution to Fermi's Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don't blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they're too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don't need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today.

I would add to Miller's idea, that while most of us are so busy with our consumerism, televisions, and games, our world is being more and more polluted and unfriendly to our own existence.

If western civilisation collapses, it will likely be because not enough people were paying attention and trying to change course.  If-and-when the fall does come, peoplw won't be able to idle away the hours shopping, channel surfing, or exploring virtual worlds. Instead, we'll be scavaging for a dwindling amount of food on a dying world.

I find it sad that some people seem to care more about how wonderful a virtual world is when our real world is being destroyed. It seems that too few care about the Earth's wilderness, when there is endless virtual wilderness (with orcs!) to explore.