"Is there anybody out there?"

This postulates that habitable or inhabited planets elsewhere aren't good for us,
for various reasons, all insufficiently explained, and it doesn't say much about the vast distances between here and whatever's 'out there'. But first of all, let's have a look at Enrico Fermi's pet paradox....

Perhaps the answer to Enrico's famous paradox is that being really intelligent, these other civilizations took a hard look at the cost/benefit analysis, and the distances and times involved, and wisely decided to stay home and renovate the old homestead instead. Charity begins at home, and all that.

So, is intelligent life extremely rare? Old 'Uncle Albert' reportedly said, "The commonest element in the universe is not hydrogen, but rather stupidity."
To which I'd be inclined to add, "If we're this smart, why are we doing all these stupid things with such disgusting regularity?" But I'm digressing. Is intelligent life really rare? Or is it being too economically utilized?  Even smart people make stupid mistakes, so it isn't just a question of raw intelligence. It should also include an element of discretion or control. Intelligence without adequate control can be disastrous. Ask any manic-depressive. We could write books about it, and some of us have.

Does intelligent life go extinct too quickly to make any interstellar contacts? Now that's a more likely postulation, I'd say. Look at our own planet. We're reasonably intelligent, give or take a few I.Q. points, and yet we're overpopulating the planet without regard to its ability to assimilate our waste, and we're actually altering its climate in the process. Continued unabated, this will bring civilization as we know it to a screeching halt much sooner than common sense might dictate. And that's very likely what will happen, because doing something else will be too painful and too expensive for the establishment to willingly accept, so the status quo will be maintained until the bitter end. And that will come a lot sooner than it needed to, because we really weren't as intelligent as we thought we were, and that will prove it. 

Added note:
Sending out little spacecraft containing 'Greetings from Earth' is probably a  useless ego trip, because if it ever did stumble into the proximity of another inhabited planet, it might very likely burn up in their atmosphere, like many stray meteoroids do here, without ever being identified correctly. Maybe we've already been sent similar greetings without recognizing it. Visitations from others in space don't require mysterious UFOs containing little bug-eyed aliens. Hollywood, after all, is a local phenomenon. Not everything 'out there' might resemble Forbidden Planet or the scenery in Star Wars; it might more likely resemble When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth or perhaps One Million Years BC, without, of course, the ever-radiant Raquel Welch in her fur bikini.