> It seems as if some people try to project "there is life outside of planet Earth". Well, the thing is ... is this question important? You already have life here.

How common the building blocks of life are out in the universe has important implications for open questions like the intersection of the Drake Equation and the Fermi paradox which has likely relevance to our own future here on Earth.

...though I happen to think what we know so far isn't comforting in the sense that the building blocks of life do appear to be very common and the most likely reason that we have to ask "Where is everybody?" in spite of that is that the Great Filter is probably expansionist self-destruction of the sort we are currently speed-running as a society.