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there's no reason the Great Filter couldn't be both ahead and behind us. - Life on planets with fossil fuels available advances to an industrial phase and dies

there's no reason the Great Filter couldn't be both ahead and behind us. - Life on planets with fossil fuels available advances to an industrial phase and dies off either from nuclear war or global warming - Life on planets without fossil fuels never advances to even the iron age.

mnemonicsloth 7y ago
You're right that fossil fuels are contingent. They exist because of a big evolutionary coincidence that might not be repeated on other worlds. It's possible, though, that aliens might not need fossil fuels to get to space. If they had more efficient photosynthesis, for example (ours is <5% efficient), living plants could have the energy content of gasoline. They might eat gasoline. All their fuel usage would be carbon neutral (CO2 pulled out of the atmosphere). They would be way ahead of us. Or it's possible that we're the most advanced because fossil fuels are necessary and nobody else got them.
- zepto 7y ago
  How efficient would these plants need to be?
- Brave-Steak 7y ago
  Wait, can you elaborate on that? Cursory glance at google suggests there can be sufficient other sources of hydrocarbons aside from dinosaurs being wiped out by a meteor.
  - aaronblohowiak 7y ago
    Plants evolved lignin well before fungus figured out how to break it down. That gap in time is when most of our coal was formed.
chopin 7y ago
Afaik the iron age depended on charcoal, not on fossil fuels. Europe has seen a wide deforestation due to it. Industrialization might depend on fossil fuels but not an iron age per se.
shoes_for_thee 7y ago
The idea of the 'great filter' isn't that a necessary item's absence prevents advancement -- the idea is that through technological advancement, something happens to destroy most civilizations along the way. but stated it as you have, there's a huge number of filters and requirements, and they are all over the place, and that's definitely true.

mnemonicsloth 7y ago

You're right that fossil fuels are contingent. They exist because of a big evolutionary coincidence that might not be repeated on other worlds. It's possible, though, that aliens might not need fossil fuels to get to space. If they had more efficient photosynthesis, for example (ours is <5% efficient), living plants could have the energy content of gasoline. They might eat gasoline. All their fuel usage would be carbon neutral (CO2 pulled out of the atmosphere). They would be way ahead of us. Or it's possible that we're the most advanced because fossil fuels are necessary and nobody else got them.

zepto 7y ago
How efficient would these plants need to be?
Brave-Steak 7y ago
Wait, can you elaborate on that? Cursory glance at google suggests there can be sufficient other sources of hydrocarbons aside from dinosaurs being wiped out by a meteor.
- aaronblohowiak 7y ago
  Plants evolved lignin well before fungus figured out how to break it down. That gap in time is when most of our coal was formed.

chopin 7y ago

Afaik the iron age depended on charcoal, not on fossil fuels. Europe has seen a wide deforestation due to it. Industrialization might depend on fossil fuels but not an iron age per se.

shoes_for_thee 7y ago

The idea of the 'great filter' isn't that a necessary item's absence prevents advancement -- the idea is that through technological advancement, something happens to destroy most civilizations along the way. but stated it as you have, there's a huge number of filters and requirements, and they are all over the place, and that's definitely true.