Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

In last month's three-hour long, Form a Paradox Companion episode, slash Isaac Arthur, and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

In last month's three-hour long, Fermi Paradox Companium episode, I added a new solution called the Hermit Shoplifter Hypothesis.

A lot of folks asked in the comments on that episode that I expand on the idea as it was

a brief entry, as among 100 others, even three hours doesn't give a lot of time

for discussion.

Folks also asked what I thought the top 5 or 10 Fermi Paradox solutions were, and this

idea is one of them, so I thought it would be a good topic for our December-2020

exclusive.

The solution came to me after a question on our monthly live stream Q&A about neurohacking,

directly stimulating various emotions or feelings in your brain, and that could be a

Fermi paradox solution.

The name itself is meant to be tongue-in-cheek in that we're mostly assuming the person's

engaging in this behavior are grabbing up

unused resources and running off into deep space, not actively stealing or shoplifting

them, but our core concept here is that people might run for the proverbial hills with

all they can carry and are not interested in being socially responsible or law-abiding

unless it raises their odds of success.

The concept isn't too hard to explain, but how it would roll out and why deem it a more

...