“So there actually is a Great Filter?” “Several, actually, doc. The first is environmental destruction. Regardless of the details, increasing industrialization always has negative effects on the environment. Species that fail to deal with it always poison or heat-death themselves into extinction. The second is nuclear war. Lots of species go down that way. The Uploads have found a ton of planets that are radioactive wastelands. Generally, they’re not usable for a long time, not even by the Uploads. The third is the Singularity, where the species builds an artificial intelligence that ends up
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