On the ther hand, it implies that if at some other place these processes happened 1% more quickly, or started 1% earlier, then that civilization would have had

On the ther hand, it implies that if at some other place these processes happened 1% more quickly, or started 1% earlier, then that civilization would have had tens of millions of years head start to us; they'd have rocket launches back long before Earth had its first primates It indicates that if we ever meet someone, it's extremely unlikely that they'd be of remotely comparable tech level, more likely they'd be millions of years behind in evolution (i.e. pre-intelligence) or millions of years ahead in technological development i.e. something that's hard to imagine, our fantasies are mostly about extrapolating a millenium of actual novel development.