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The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?

Robin Hanson argues that either (a) our emergence as intelligent humans on the earth was very, very, very improbable and unlikely, but that our future (at least in terms of expansion of human-settled habitats throughout the universe) is bright, or (b) emergence as intelligent humans on the earth was relatively easy, but that our future is dim (and perhaps that our extinction is all but guaranteed).

The Great Filter: Consider our best-guess evolutionary path to an explosion which leads to visible colonization of most of the visible universe:

1. The right star system (including organics)
2. Reproductive something (e.g. RNA)
3. Simple (prokaryotic) single-cell life
4. Complex (archaeatic & eukaryotic) single-cell life
5. Sexual reproduction
6. Multi-cell life
7. Tool-using animals with big brains
8. Where we are now
9. [Interstellar] Colonization explosion

The Great Silence implies that one or more of these steps are very improbable;