Implications for the likelihood of human extinction from the recent discovery of possible microbial life

post by Mvolz (mvolz) · 2025-04-21T19:15:15.766Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

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You might have seen the recent news that there are signatures that suggest the planet K2 18-b might be the home of microbial life.

The Fermi Paradox asks: if space is so big, why haven't the aliens contacted us yet? 

One possible resolution of the Fermi paradox is simply that the evolution of life itself is disproportionately improbable, and that's why we haven't encountered any evidence of life thus far. 

Each step that reduces the chance of extraterrestrial life leaving evidence we can find is a filter. Hanson posits there is one single step, termed the Great Filter [? · GW], that has the largest impact on this. Whether this filter is ahead of us or behind us has implications for our future. 

If it turns out microbial life did indeed separately evolve on K2 18-b (some say such claims are "premature"), its proximity to us gives us a rough estimate for the probability of life evolving that is relatively high, and suggests the evolution of microbial life is not itself the Great Filter [? · GW].

This means that other explanations for the Fermi paradox increase in probability, even if there is no single one great filter. A few of these are behind us; one is that evolution of complex life is relatively very improbable, or that the evolution of life that can use technology is relatively very improbable. 

But it also increases the likelihood that there is a Great Filter [? · GW] ahead of us, not behind us, and that life capable of technological progress just doesn't tend to last terribly long. 

Of course, maybe there is no microbial life on K2 18-b after all.

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