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What do you think the Great Filter is? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

247 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

A filter for sure, but not a great one. Call me optimistic, but I don't think that will set us back more than 10.000 years. If humanity can survive, society will re-emerge, and we are back here 2-3000 years into the future.

Is +5°C Earth a good place to be? No. Will the majority of humans die? Absolutely. Will the descendants get to try this society thing again? I believe so.

On a cosmic scale 10.000 years is just a setback, and cannot be considered a great filter.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately we've pretty much used up all easily available resources. Anyone 'starting over' would have a much harder time getting the things they need to really get the ball rolling again.

When humans first discovered gold they practically only had to scoop it out of rivers. You'll be hard pressed to find any streams with such appreciable production anywhere in the world today.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We've already discovered fission and photocells. We're past the point of needing fossil fuels for a new civilization (or existing civilization). Fossil fuels are only hanging around for economic reasons.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Assuming that knowledge and resource locations are retained. Roman's had great concrete. Took a long time to reestablish what Humans already had and mixing raw materials is not complicated.

After the Roman Empire, the use of burned lime and pozzolana was greatly reduced. Low kiln temperatures in the burning of lime, lack of pozzolana, and poor mixing all contributed to a decline in the quality of concrete and mortar

We need a Foundation project to restart society If we want to avoid this. Worst case solar cells becomes myth like Greek fire.

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

I think that is thinking a bit too narrow. A lot of the stuff we use today might just be our bronze to our successors iron - you can build an unstable society on either. And what we do use up today could still work if used more efficiently - we might not have enough rare metals to give everyone a smartphone in the post-post-apocalypse, but I could see us still launching satellites if only big governments had computers - because they did.