There’s a lot to unpack there and I think it’s missing the point that extreme outliers exist but we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be one. It’s akin to saying so

There’s a lot to unpack there and I think it’s missing the point that extreme outliers exist but we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be one. It’s akin to saying some people win the lottery therefore it’s unsurprising if we do. Yes, some civilization will be first. The odds of it being us are astronomically low based on time and # of planetary systems. Given that it’s exponential growth, it’ll likely either never start or quickly explode. If a capable species came even 0.01% before us, we’d expect to see them. If a species came after us but had even a slightly faster growth rate, we’d expect to see them. The Fermi paradox is puzzling because time is on the side of galaxy colonizing civilizations, not against it. There are many possible explanations to the Fermi paradox, but “we’re the first” is extremely naive.