One problem with the Fermi paradox is that the Drake equation simply multiplies expected values together without regard to the underlying distributions. You can

One problem with the Fermi paradox is that the Drake equation simply multiplies expected values together without regard to the underlying distributions. You can think about it this way: what if the actual mechanisms of the evolution of life result in there being a very high probability of 1 or 2 space-faring civilisations evolving, and a tiny probability of trillions of space-faring civilisations? The expected value coming out of the Drake equation would be large but useless. A few years ago some researchers at the Future of Humanity institute explored what happens if you take distributions into account. It turns out that this makes a surprising difference and results in a substantial probability of no other intelligent life. No need for speculation about great filters, predatory civilisations, etc... . The paper is freely available on ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404