this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Personally I think it's photosynthesis. Life itself developed and spread but photosynthesis started an inevitable chain of ever-greater and more-efficient life. I think a random chain of mutations that turns carbon-based proto-life into something that can harvest light energy is wildly unlikely, even after the wildly unlikely event of life beginning in the first place.

I have no data to back that up, just a guess.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think it's incompetence.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We're still new to the game, and we have no idea what we're looking for.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

seriously though, I think life on other planets probably just usually evolves underground, so even if they develop some sort of intelligence they're not looking up at the sky so they have no motivation to explore beyond their atmosphere no matter how advanced they get.

there was a planet in The hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universe that had thick cloud cover so that people never even conceived of an existence beyond their planet. when a spaceship crashed there, it never even occurred to them that it might have come from the sky

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Energy needed to leave your planetary system vs energy available on your planet of origin.

We have not yet overcome it and I am not sure that we will achieve it.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I always thought of it as a series of tests or filters. Like a multistage filter. So like nukes is one, responsible environment management is another. Something like photosynthesis is more of a conditions for life to emerge thing to me really. If like can flourish to begin with then mutations are common enough that things like photosynthesis are inevitable.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (6 children)

I don't think there is a great filter. I think there's an easy solution to the fermi paradox that doesn't require great filters, we're just the first intelligence in this galaxy.

Here's my reasoning: intelligent species that manage to develop space travel probably do tend to expand out into their galaxy. When they achieve this level of technology they can settle most of all of their galaxy in a matter of 10,000 years or so. That time period is very brief on an evolutionary scale. It's estimated that life began on earth 3.7 billion years ago. That means it took about 3.7 billion years for earth to produce intelligent life, and then from that point it would take a mere 10,000 years to reach modern day, and 10,000 more years to settle the whole galaxy. That expansion happens so quickly compared to how long it took the planet to develop intelligent life, that the chance of two civilizations rising at the same time becomes very small.

It all boils down to this: there are no intelligent aliens out there in our galaxy, because we are the first intelligent species in our galaxy. We know we're the first because if we were second, then aliens would already have settled this star system.

Probably there are lots of alien civilizations out there in the universe, but they're in different galaxies.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That assumes that interstellar travel is possible. Physically, economically, socially, there's a lot of boxes to check for near-light extrasolar expansion (let alone FTL, which probably is impossible)

I think the easy solution to the Fermi Paradox is that we're stuck in our fish bowl and so is everyone else.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (6 children)

But why are we the first. That's the question. Given the age of the universe, statistically it should have already happened by now. Unless something was stopping it.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Space itself. I believe there are other intelligent life forms out there and some of those happen to be close enough to communicate to each other/discover each other. We just hit the unlucky(or lucky) spot that we are simply too far away.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

evidence of human existence has only gotten what, 150 lightyears out into space?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

It's very very obviously the speed of light.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

There's been at least 5 mass extinction events we are aware of where I think over 80% of all species become extinct. I'd probably guess one or more of those could do the trick.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Personally? Nationalism & nation states. The longer they stay around, the more likely everyone is to think they're more deserving of X, and pull the literal and metaphorical trigger that leads to hitting the filter.

I recognize that individuality is very much our thing, but that will literally only take you so far.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Either multicellular life or that societies that are bent on expansion at any cost tend to destroy their planet's ecosystem before they can establish themselves outside of it. Not making a definitive claim on either, obvs. We have an extremely low sample size after all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I think it would be nuclear warfare. Nuclear fission is a universal development for any advanced civilization. It would be easy to construct a nuclear bomb in an advanced civilization. Once a few rogue/pariah states start making them, everyone's screwed.

Making nukes is easy, the only reason we don't see more nuclear states on earth is because of the international backlash. With a couple more Iran and North Korea's we'll likely meet the filter ourselves.

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