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ttkciar t1_jd101o4 wrote

I will add to this that the lifespan of a civilization after its industrial revolution might be quite short.

Our own industrial revolution has given rise to two existential crises so far -- the threat of global thermonuclear war, and the threat of climate change. The first seems to be behind us, mostly, maybe, but there were some really close calls during the Cold War. We came this || close to going out forever. The second has yet to fully play out.

Those are just the existential crises which have emerged in the 260 years of industrialization, which in the cosmological timeframe is less than the blink of an eye. If we survive this one, there will doubtless be more.

For all we know, all civilizations in the galaxy follow the pattern of a long pre-industrial existence (3.4 million years, in our case), followed by a very short industrial period, ending in annihilation.

If that's typical, then technologically advanced civilizations would only account for about 0.008% of all alien civilizations.

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jilljackmuse OP t1_jd10gwi wrote

Or perhaps almost no other intelligent alien species go through this process of "civilisation". Consider other intelligent human species and how they didn't have an agricultural revolution or civilisation. If Homo Sapiens hadn't arisen, would we be a planet with no intelligent species?

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