Hello,
Yes i agree with all of that. It would have to be from a planet that evolved just like ours and at almost the same time. And because of that restriction it acts like a constraint to the equation for the probability of success because if they evolved at the same time, then they cant ever receive our signal because of the signal traveling time which is a very very long time. So they would have to have developed 1000 years after us, but if they do reply, then we'll all be gone before we can ever receive their return signal anyway. And if we ever receive one it's the same story, they will be gone before they receive our reply.
So the only thing that works is a totally successful civilization that has succeeded in keeping it's species alive for eons of time.
But in it's defense, i think there are stars that are 4 or 5 light years away, so it would probably have to be one of those where it would only take 10 years for a round trip conversation. But there's no way to tell if they host life either.
The study of exoplanets i think could help most here so we could at least aim in a more probable direction.
I think it might have been Carl Sagan who came up with a formula for the probability of life elsewhere, but im not sure if it included self extinction or even natural extinction in the formula.
So i think it is just too hard to predict, it's like pot luck, or pot unluck might be more like it. If we do make contact, it could be the worst mistake we ever made. Interesting, i posted on a site more than 10 years ago that if we allow ourselves to be 'found' by other intelligent life, we could be in for mass extinction. I was a little sarcastic stating that they might 'eat' us (chuckle) but the post got removed by the site admin. Interestingly, Hawking now states this same thing basically except that they might come for our Earth resources. But i think Rod Stirling was the first to notice that the first encounter could be the worst for us, in one of his interesting episodes of The Twilight Zone, where the aliens brought us a cookbook but it was in their language, and when finally translated it was found to be a cookbook for how to cook man (aka a human) but it was too late as many people already boarded the spacecraft headed for their home planet.
More seriously my thoughts have been that on Earth we always see species fighting each other for survival, and one of the things that allows humans to come about in the first place was the ability of animals to be able to "hide". They dont jump out in front of a predator and yell, "Here i am, are you friendly or not?", because if they are not then it's all over.
True, there are species that co exist, but it's a gamble not a clearly defined concept that they are always friendly and willing to teach us all that they know.
I also stated that i thought that the decision to try to contact other civilizations should be decided by a vote of the people, not a decision made by a minority group of people who are only interested in contact for the pure scientific value.