Why have we not found signs of other intelligent life? This question – the Fermi Paradox – has fascinated researchers and thinkers for decades. Billions of stars and countless planets would seem to make the emergence of intelligence inevitable, yet the cosmos around us remains silent. One possible explanation lies in the very nature of intelligence: perhaps it is itself a trait that carries within it the seed of self-destruction.
The Danger Zone of Development
When a species reaches higher intelligence, it gains access to technological tools with which it can control its environment with unprecedented power. The harnessing of fire, metals, agriculture, and finally fossil fuels has produced growth and dominance, but at the same time these open a new era: planetary-scale impacts. Intelligence does not yet guarantee wisdom at this stage. A civilization learns to alter its ecosystem faster than it learns to understand the consequences.
This imbalance is worsened by the fact that technological development is often exponential, while intellectual and moral maturity seem to progress much more slowly, often at an almost linear pace. Technology inevitably overtakes culture, and every civilization sooner or later reaches a point where the forces it has created exceed its ability to control them.
The Great Filter
Astrobiology speaks of the Great Filter – the idea that there is a stage which only a few civilizations ever surpass. If most or all species destroy their own living conditions in the early phase of technological ascent, this could explain the silence of the cosmos: intelligence is not absent, but sustainable intelligence is exceedingly rare or completely unreachable.
According to this scenario, the universe could be full of species that managed to ignite the flame of civilization for a brief moment – but whose planets then withered under pollution, climate change, resource overuse, or warfare.
What Does This Mean for Us?
Humanity is right now living in this danger zone. Climate change, the depletion of biodiversity, and nuclear arsenals are proof that we have acquired the ability to alter the fate of our planet, but not yet the certainty to control this ability. Since exponential technological development continues its course without linear moral understanding catching up, the outcome is already sealed.
Intelligence is thus a paradox that unmakes itself: by giving us the means to understand our destiny, but also the power to destroy it. This is precisely why the universe is silent – most or all intelligent civilizations never live long enough to cry out into the cosmos. The question remains: why should we be the exception?
Ignis Aeternus WH 40K campaign notes 