> Imagine if human-like life had evolved a billion years ago, when the reservoirs of petrochemicals were a billion years less developed? Perhaps then we (they?

> Imagine if human-like life had evolved a billion years ago, when the reservoirs of petrochemicals were a billion years less developed? Perhaps then we (they?) would have had time to contemplate the consequences of burning through that massive biochemical battery with wild abandon! > The great filter could work the other way -- we could be the rare success merely by dint of having shown up 'late'. Personally I like the idea of a middle ground between this and the more common inversion: that there's an optimal planetary resource balance wherein a species can develop enough technology to keep the wick from burning out, but energy densities are not sufficient to ignite the same kind of powder keg we have. Filter-traversing civilizations would be even rarer, then. But yeah, super fun to think about.