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The answer to the The Fermi Paradox could be that space is full of dead aliens
(www.livescience.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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Sort of. The article is making the argument that on a cosmic timescale, one won't even need a "great filter" to explain Fermi's paradox. Any civilization with even a minuscule chance of eradicating itself will eventually do so given billions of years.
The way I understand this is that the Great Filter isn't just about time, as this new theory is and you explained well. It’s about a specific barrier that most civilizations fail to pass.
Going further, none of this explains, of course, some glaring issues (with both theories). Even if civilizations die out eventually, that doesn't explain why we don’t see any signs of them:
If billions of civilizations once existed, some should have left detectable traces, unless we really aren't smart enough (yet?) to actually detect these signs. The “they all died eventually” argument doesn’t account for this.
Also, this new theory (and the Great Filter, really), assumes all civilisations have the same vulnerabilities. What if:
If even a few civilizations overcome existential risks, they could persist. Maybe the rare earth theory holds more water. This all is a topic on its own.
you would have to be pretty advanced even for a space faring to make a dyson sphere around a star. in tng they never found the race that did it, STO doesnt really count.
Would we really be able to see any of these if they weren't right in the immediate neighborhood?
By inventing self-replicating machines, perhaps? :(