The Fermi Paradox says we should have contacted alien life by now
The Great Filter says we haven't because a civilization's capacity for self-destruction increases to certainty over time
I thought for us it would be an exotic technology or scientific discovery that instantly destroys on a large scale
Nope. Far more depressing and mundane
We simply watched ourselves destroy our climate and lacked the will to do anything about it because someone was making money off it
Let's turn the Fermi Paradox inside out:
The life forms on this planet are calling. We're just not answering the phone. We're just destroying their habitat and eating them, too.
Standing outside a while back, watching ISS cross the sky. Had a moment of horrible insight - ISS is not some stepping stone to the stars.
It's a warmup exercise for living on a ruined planet, of airlocks and hard radiation, recycling our own piss.
And the children will sing songs about the tigers. There won't be any, of course.
Extinction can't come soon enough for the human race.
Mankind's greatest talent has always been lying and making excuses for the horrible things he does.
Those post-apocalypse stories are always wrong. We just took 7 million COVID casualties and we're still pretending and shucking and jiving about it all.
Extinction awaits. I hope the primates hold out until we're gone.
@tuban_muzuru nah. even if we nuke everything and kill the climate humanity will carry on. a miserable neolithic existence with increased cancer rates and mass death by occasional heat wave and massive floods. but carry on we will
Heck, we already passed this milestone: science says at one point we got bottled down to maybe only 40 breeding pairs of humans due to the supervolcano Toba. now look at us
Hard to say. I remember explaining climate change to my kids - they had a spinning top, set it in motion. As it began to wobble, I said "That's kinda where we are on this planet."
Then the top fell over and rolled around. "This is the part we can't predict, but we know, sure as hell, that it's coming. This is in your future."
ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES
tuban_muzuru