[SilkSnake]

Life (replicating systems) don't require water.
My armchair physicist degree says that life requires a lubricating flexible substance that can exist among a large variety of more rigid substances that have several different physical reactions between each other.
Our base lubrication is water. Some of our common rigid components are carbon compounds, calcium, potassium...etc.

The odds of life appearing at our scope and within our (the popular) field of interpretation are ridiculously high.

I'm tired. Just posting in an interesting topic. I guess what I said is kinda related.

and a clueless population

Side note: I love when people say things like this. Because the majority of the "clueless population" says the population is clueless/dumb.