Dear War Panda
It's a hunch. but it's from some valid points.
First, I don't like it, but I believe that the Speed of Light is the maximum speed of the universe. If so, that's going to mean that distance alone is going to prevent any alien species from contacting another, because if you work the numbers with the prediction of intelligent live you're going to arrive with distances of 300 to 400 light years between stars, even if you COULD go at the speed of light, it would take so long to get there. Perhaps you can look at it another way, that while there may be other planets with intelligent life, it really doesn't matter if they can't contact or meet each other, for each intelligent planet, they may be "alone" because they can't know of the other. The second is that the existence of humans has been in only the last 60,000 years or so, and our civilization producing signals only in the last 100 or so. That's a mere split second on the galactic scale and you might have lots of intelligent live, but it winks on and off in a second or two and so proximity and the time of their "space wondering and exploration phase" may be vanishingly short.
There are loads of other caveats, but the main point is that there is absolutely no evidence we can find-- ever. Beyond that, the universe was created without human happiness in mind, and it is what it is, and the accidents of it's creation in no way mandate even probability.
There's nothing theological about it, nothing religious, in fact, theology and religion would mandate and desire a multiplicity of worlds with a multiplicity of beings.
You say
"Can you imagine Adolf Hitler being satisfied if he had taken control of the entire planet? Seems like a serious flaw or at the very least a destructive animalistic appetite that can override our ability to be reasonable. Of course there's the view that all we are is an animal thats more intelligent than the rest and I think if you believe that then You are probably right :) Would our ET neighbours necessarily be disadvantaged by this "flaw" or if this is a flaw unique to our condition does it actually allow us opportunities "alien" to other intelligent life? This sentence was at the complete service of the intended pun :)
I think that if were visited, an analysis of the contradictions of our species would be of great interest. A species that in only 100 orbits of their sun can exterminate 200,000,000 of their own while simultaneously striving wholeheartedly to improve their health and well being. I wonder if any invasion of an alien to this planet could be as motivationally complex as an invasion by earthlings to another planet."
Very well. But I counter with, "We are what we are and that's all that we are, we're Popeye the Ontological Sailor." We are what we are and we can do little about that. The problem is that we are evolved animals, but we are very peculiarly evolved animals. We cannot help what we have evolved from, or into- it was not of our choice, and therefore this throws into the trash-can all the snotty and utterly fallacious arguments that involve some form of "there's no intelligent life on earth." That says nothing except that it's an insult to everyone on the planet, for as evolved animals we have done quite well for ourselves.
Most people do not understand what the term "intelligent life" means. That does not mean smart. It means self-aware, that is, that we exist and we can perceive of the world around us as different than from us. That we are an identity in the world and a personality, and not just a seamless blend of matter and energy, and that we know of ourslves as personality. This does not mean intelligent as in "smart" or "brilliant." It means aware. But being evolved animals (especially with humans with their four areas of the brain, all at times at war with each other) this awareness comes to us through sensations, observations etc.
It is not in the intellect that man's genius and his awareness is to be found. It is in the emotions. But at the same time we are sufficiently developed to recognize the different between intelligence or logic and emotions and passions.
Men are driven by the emotions and the passions and only occasionally can the higher intellect or "intelligence" as the critics define it triumph over and rule them. That does not make man unintelligent, it makes him human. Oh to be sure we can be entirely logical and clear headed when it's someone else or something afar off which does not touch us, but when it touches us and ours then we are different creatures entirely. We would be less human, nay less than human if we were. Thus we are beset by the agony of the conflict between what we want and what we know is right or the best.
Let me try and illustrate it with a myth from our long past. What is the name of the tree in the Garden of Eden that Eve eats from and gives to her husband which is the downfall of man. That tree is "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." Not that it is NOT the tree of Good and Evil, but the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. The maturing of mankind in the garden comes with the ability of man to differentiate between those acts which are good and those which are evil, leading one to believe that these terms have no meaning before they are known, and that acts done prior to that are neither good nor evil-- for remember it says that their eyes were opened and they KNEW they were naked! The metaphors are overpowering. At the same time, let us consider why they did this. The serpent plants the seed of doubt, but mankind wishes to "be like God." Is this a bad thing? No, not at all. For what does Eve know of God. She only knows a creature that is loving to them, good to them, provides everything for them, takes care of them, and in fact he is the only creature like them they know. They therefore cannot be blamed for wanting to be like him.
I shall leave out the truth of what the serpent said for another time. It isn't important. The point is that in "the knowing" the eating of the apple we have "when their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked" a metaphor that we know what we are, and what we want, but also that those wants may not be just or good, given our fellow man. That "knowing" creates a yawning chasm between our natures and within our natures that makes us both incomplete, but at the same time better than unknowing animals.
Consider the human vice of Cruelty. We know we can think cruel thoughts about other people, can even be cruel to other people, but only the most reprobate among us can live with his cruelty to the point that he will not see he is being cruel and will think it a matter just of course. The cruel know they are cruel and seek to hide from it an have it not known. But to ourselves we know this. We know we could be better. We can CONCEIVE of ourselves as being better and that we ought to do so, but again, as the carpenter from Nazareth said "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
At the same time we have empathy and sorrow, sympathy and emotion for the sufferings of others, and this is not always apparent from our biology. That metaphorical sundering at the foot of the myth of the tree carries with it the desire to be like God. To be able to with the wave of a wand or the wiggle of a nose, or more prosaic means, help our fellow sufferers and feel for them. It is the ultimate statement of the complex, highly emotional, passionate, and occasionally "intelligent" human nature.
Consider the Aliens of Aliens. Their biology is complete. They are not at variance. There are no oughts or shoulds or mights or might nots. They do what they do and that's all that they do they're @#@# the biological alien. The Moti in "The Mote in God's Eye" are no different, and unable to transcend their biology. But we are. People do the most amazing things. They will throw themselves into an ice-choked freezing river to rescue a dog and it's not even their dog. People hearing of the plight of a poor girl halfway around the world will collect millions to help her. A man tries to kill himself because he is despondant and out of work will be given a dozen job offers and lives happily ever after. A man is beheaded by a bunch of murdering criminals on the other side of the world and people are worked up into a paroxysm of hatred for anyone like them or even close to them. A person is insulted and decides to take it out by on the insultor with a baseball bat, and a woman who's daughter is brutally raped and murdered by a callous criminal will hate and despise them, but will forgive them? None of this is rational, none of this is logical, but it is.
I don't think species which are at peace with their biology will ever develop space travel or even science.
We are a curious species to be at the top of the food chain. We have no natural weapons, we are neither strong, not clawed, nor fanged, or armored, nor specifically long lived or robust. We are in fact "prey" sharing only one physical feature in common with preadtors. (No it's not what you think). We are particularly unsuited to be king of the king of the beasts. But we are. Our technology springs from our unsuitability to the planet. But that too is a part of the equation that "we are not all that we seem."
And this is another reason I think we may be alone. Add to the distance, the timing, this-- that while there may be many many planets teeming with life, it may not be intelligent for it's biology will fit seamlessly with its planet, and there may be no cognitive dissonance to spur the creation of science and technology and space travel and at the same time not impart the need to find out why we are different, why we are the way we are, and a need to touch the creator-- to be like God.
Please not to any out there attempting to use the snarky atheistic argument of creating an invisible magical friend, that you are only digging your own rhetorical grave. It matters not why we created the magical friend, we DID create it, and that only goes to the answering of a divergence between our biology and our environment.
Somewhere we parted ways, and that was our expulsion from Eden.
And we are here now and can neither go back or stand still.
looks at some new terrain products, which use space age technology!
So again when it comes to ETs, 
