Not original but worth reminding people….
There are a number of technological and lifestyle challenges we might assume were universal and culture destroying, that in our experience come right after each other.
1) Nuclear extermination.
2) Pollution and over-consumption lead to massive eco-system crisis.
3) Nanotech wars.
4) Biowar, or escaped engineered bio-constructs with harmful plague effects. Ease, and mass of travel, spreads deadly disease.
5) Putting decisions in the hands of AI or models and not noticing the problems that arise until too late. Independent AI warfare is a possibility. An AI could conclude human population was a major problem, and aim to eliminate that problem.
6) Climate engineering goes wrong, massive droughts, cyclones etc.
7) Physics experiment that could generate a small black hole, that grows.
8) Doctrinally fueled extermination.
9) Fake news epidemics so no one knows what is going on.
10) Ignore impending large asteroid collisions, because of politics, or role back of astronomical research. Maybe a space flight knocks an asteroid out of orbit.
I’m sure people can think of other things, and then there are the dangers we can’t even dream of yet
So one possible reason why we have not detected alien civilisations is that they all may hit a zone of possible self destruction and don’t go through it successfully. Will we be different…?
