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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   3249 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 2026

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Is the Fermi Paradox Debunked?

A new paper is out(https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404) concluding that the Drake equation is poorly designed and humans are most likely alone in the universe:

When we take account of realistic uncertainty, replacing point estimates by probability distributions that reflect current scientific understanding, we find no reason to be highly confident that the galaxy (or observable universe) contains other civilizations, and thus no longer find our observations in conflict with our prior probabilities. We found qualitatively similar results through two different methods: using the authors’ assessments of current scientific knowledge bearing on key parameters, and using the divergent estimates of these parameters in the astrobiology literature as a proxy for current scientific uncertainty.

When we update this prior in light of the Fermi observation, we find a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe (53%–99.6% and 39%–85% respectively). ’Where are they?’ — probably extremely far away, and quite possibly beyond the cosmological horizon and forever unreachable.

TDLR the Drake equation is wrong by dramatically overrating the probability of other intelligent life. We are more likely to be alone than we thought, and my take on this has been for a while that if life was common we'd have experimentally demonstrated abiogenesis by now. But this in turn debunks the great filter arguments people(mainly liberals) make about all sorts of pet issues- the great filter is already behind us.

But this in turn debunks the great filter arguments people(mainly liberals) make about all sorts of pet issues- the great filter is already behind us.

Some rationalists also point to the Doomsday Argument, which says we're all going to die for a completely different reason. I just shake my head in despair whenever Scott brings it up. The argument is completely wrong, as I try to point out every so often. But I'm fighting against Bostrom, against a Wikipedia article guarded by proponents, and against a population of people who enjoy thinking they've learned a secret hidden truth.

I feel like I just wasted a lot of time learning about something very dumb.

It seems like it assumes the conclusion.

The name feels wrong. "the doomsday argument", sounds like an argument that suggests doomsday is coming soon. It's assumption is like 1-10 thousand more years till the end of humanity. I'd call that the "glorious future argument".

The reason for it is dumb. You drop back to this kinda of ballpark statistics when you have literally no other information.not when you have too much information that you just aren't sure how to process. We have too much information about potential ending points for humanity. Nuclear risk, AI risk, asteroids, black holes, nearby supernova, super volcanoes, disease, ice age, etc. It would be way less dumb to just add up all the risk from those things.

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