[ExI] Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

[Samantha Atkins]

> On Feb 4, 2018, at 8:09 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Except there's another couple interpretations:
> 
> * We are indeed the first, however mathematically likely if you make
> certain assumptions that are not necessarily warranted.  (They kind of
> alluded to this in the "filter is behind us" bit, but this is not
> quite that scenario.)

I find that by far the least likely.  The universe is so vast.  Hundreds of billions of planets in this galaxy alone. I would find it easier to believe we are in a simulation arranged for us to be alone.   

I do however think that it is very unusual for an evolved technological species to survive and thrive across the its period of accelerating technologies.  I think the challenge of transcending evolved psychology and species limitations, much less letting go of being intellectual kind of the hill produces such turmoil that it rips many species apart.  

> 
> * The filter ahead of us has stopped others but it won't stop us.
> With literally no data, any filter could be supposed - including one
> which we are the first to cross.  It's kind of Pascal's Wager.

I think the challenges we obviously face now and in the next few decades are a good enough Great Filter.