For Nutty, in particular; but everyone, really...
If there is indeed intelligent life out there - the Drake equation tends towards zero, and may very well be zero - there exist only two alternatives, with one break point.
The Drake equation speaks to a technological civilization. For the sake of my argument, I have to introduce another factor which speaks to a technological civilization developing interstellar technology. Make it as small as you want: I make it really, really, really really small, but non-zero. Interstellar travel will be conducted over the course of hundreds of thousands generations, or on the basis of a new understanding of the universe.
So, for the sake of discussion, let's call my new equation Swan - or Goose, or Maverick - I don't care...
Remember, of course, that the terms at the left of the Drake equation are ineffably large. But, under any sort of rational examination, Drake yields an astonishingly large number in respect of the Milky Way, only.
Nevertheless, if:
1. pSwan = 0. No interstellar civilization. Go home. Be good to your family. Ask your religion of choice to explain why Heisenberg's Indeterminability Principle is so fundamentally built into the universe. Or buy a cat; Schrodinger had one, I believe.
2. pSwan > 0. Lots of interstellar civilization. And, by the certainty of probability, far in advance of what we can conceive.
- a. They're hostile. They've travelled across the universe using technology we can barely conceive. Dig your own grave, now, or call Will Smith and make a movie.
- b. They're peaceful. How would you announce your presence to a backward planetary civilization which only recently worked out that on-planet xenophobia wasn't necessarily a good thing, to speak nothing of off-planet xenophobia? Hint - Sagan's awful movie Cosmos, and/or a controlled release of evidence into the mainstream. Suitably fuzzy HUD pictures, anyone?
Application of The Razors - Occam's and Hanlon's - says we should be just as careful dismissing the simplistic arguments of social-media rationalism as we are dismissive of the tin-foil brigade. And, as we examine the possibility that we're not alone, Hitchens' Razor identifies the dilemma - no side can prove their case.
I don't instinctively understand statistics - do you? Hint - no-one does: which is why Monaco continues to be so rich on the basis of no intrinsic recommendatory qualities. I'd much rather prefer the beaches of the Sunshine Coast: right handers, and gentle for this gentleman's capabilities...
Look: I wear no foil hat - pointless in my case, anyways, as there are no brainwaves to shield - but the sheer size of the numbers tells me that we are not alone. The only question is whether we are alone, right now - and what we should be doing about it.
Science exists to be proven wrong. For your consideration...