The Fermi Paradox is a question about cosmic civilization and human development, and in order to find the answer to this question, scientists have sent signals to outer space one after another to find extraterrestrial civilizations. However, contrary to expectations, people did not find any traces of extraterrestrial civilizations, and the aliens seemed to be hidden.
Is there life on Mars?
Therefore, human beings gradually gave birth to such an emotion, whether the alien civilization has been destroyed, so it is difficult for people to find it when they exhaust their mental efforts. The Fermi Paradox, on the other hand, reveals the assertion that civilizations are extinct. So, does this indicate that human civilization is also doomed to destruction? Of the four ways of destruction, why is humanity most likely to become extinct?
Fermi's Paradox – Civilization is doomed to extinction
An informal discussion in 1950 gave birth to a theory of horror, the Fermi Paradox. In Fermi's view, the universe is so vast, there are 250 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and this number will increase with people's observations, so when humans have the ability to travel between the stars, then aliens should have reached Earth long ago. But we have not found any traces of alien existence on Earth, is it that aliens do not exist? Does human civilization exist in the universe?
Fermi
To answer these questions, we must first know the birth of life, in the case of human beings, the birth of life requires four basic elements of C, H, O, and N, and these elements are widely present in the universe. In addition to forming the basis of life, there are also suitable environments, such as oxygen and water sources on Earth, and the number of planets located in the habitable zone in the universe has reached hundreds of millions of times after scientists have investigated. So there's no reason to think that humans are special, that Earth isn't the center of the universe, and that the same evolution of life will take place on other planets.
The basic elements of life
But why have we been so slow to discover extraterrestrial civilizations? This is because the universe has survived for more than ten billion years compared to the development of millions of years of human beings, which is like the gap between the lives of ephemera and humans. In the almost boundless universe, a civilization has gradually evolved from a single-celled organism to a higher intelligent creature that masters interstellar navigation technology, but has not yet had contact with other civilizations, because we may "pass by" them.
Morning life death 蜉蝣蝣
They may develop civilizations in distant space, but the distant distance becomes the "graben" isolated from communication. Of course, it is also possible that due to human beings' overestimation of alien civilizations, their forms of existence may be different from ours, so we find them every year. The most terrifying explanation is that the alien civilization has been destroyed, and human civilization has just begun.
The Great Filter hypothesis
Why would an alien civilization that has developed to a certain extent be destroyed? According to the Great Filter hypothesis, there is an invisible hand in the universe, which has been restricting the development of civilization, the so-called "prosperity will decline", when a civilization develops to its peak, it will reach out its hand to interrupt the process of civilization and let it be destroyed. And human civilization, as a member of the cosmic civilization, naturally cannot escape such an ending. So, what kind of destruction scene will the earth usher in?
The sixth mass extinction caused by the climate crisis
Since the new century, with the continuous development of technology, climate issues have gradually been put on the human table. According to the IPCC report, since the Industrial Revolution, the global temperature has risen by about 1.2 degrees in more than 200 years, which is a small but terrible number, because it means that the earth's environment will usher in earth-shaking changes, and our lives will also go unknown in this earth-shaking change.
Changes in the Earth's temperature over the past 50 years
Climate change is not only about melting glaciers and rising temperatures, but also about the extinction of living things. Previously, there have been five mass extinctions of life on earth, mostly natural disasters such as volcanoes and meteorite impacts, but the mass extinctions that are happening today are indeed due to man-made disasters. Under the constant burning of fossil fuels, dumping of garbage into the oceans and deforestation, the Earth's climate is on the brink of destruction.
The last 5 life extinctions
Since the Industrial Revolution, although human beings have obtained new technologies such as trains and airplanes, they have brought about global environmental pollution and climate crisis, with the disappearance of vegetation, marine pollution, and global warming, resulting in the disappearance of a large number of animals such as the Siberian tiger, the Icelandic auk, and the South African spotted donkey, and this speed is a hundred times higher than that of the natural state.
The graveyard of the world's extinct animals
According to a 2014 study, the global wildlife population has decreased by 50% over the past 40 years, and 3 species disappear every hour. The demise of living things has brought about the rupture of the food chain and the lack of ecological diversity, and where will humans without food go? Humanity has ushered in a new era, but we will also face the worst future, that is, destruction.
Civilization restarts – nuclear war
Nuclear war is also one of the reasons for the possible destruction of human civilization. During World War II, it was the first performance of nuclear weapons, and in this performance it fully embodied the energy of an extinct weapon. Only to see a round arc in the sky, two bombs fell on the land of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then the amazing picture appeared, "bang", two mushroom clouds appeared in the sky, and the city under the clouds had been razed to the ground, and countless people cried out on the ground, but more than that, it heralded the calm of death. This is the power of the nuclear bomb, because it changes the shape of the war and ends the war early.
Atomic bomb explosion
The perfect debut of nuclear weapons has made countless countries fall for it, and since then, countries around the world have begun to make nuclear weapons. Today, there are five known countries in the world that possess nuclear weapons, and some countries are also developing nuclear weapons in secret. According to the world's nuclear weapons reserves today, once there is any global war on the earth, then nuclear weapons will definitely be on the battlefield, and then the earth will usher in the baptism of "nuclear peace", and the entire civilization of the earth will be destroyed in the war.
nuclear radiation
Even if it is a fluke, it is difficult to survive in the nuclear radiation spread all over the world.
Epidemic virus
The epidemic of the virus is especially important as a cliché, especially as we are suffering from covid-19. Human history has experienced many infectious diseases, including plague, smallpox, influenza, and new crown pneumonia. Plague was the first virus to be encountered by humans, having broken out as early as 541 AD and killing hundreds of millions of people over a period of two millennia. Even to this day, the virus has not been eradicated.
plague
In addition to plague and smallpox, which are also viruses that have caused heavy casualties to humans, more than 300 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century alone, but thankfully people have found a vaccine to treat smallpox, and no one has lost their lives since. The flu, the A(H1N1) virus, ravaged in the early 20th century and caused significant deaths and injuries to the people of Europe at that time. The infectious disease, known as the "Spanish flu," has killed nearly 100 million people.
smallpox
Even the new coronavirus, which now has vaccines, has brought more than a million deaths. Although science and technology are developing, but the virus is also advancing with the times, and with the melting of the glacier, a large number of viruses that are sealed in them will also see the light of day, under the impact of new and old viruses, human society will usher in the end under the impact of viruses.
artificial intelligence
In addition to the environmental crisis caused by human beings that led to the extinction of civilizations, it is also possible for humans to destroy their own proud creation, artificial intelligence. As early as the last century, the concept of artificial intelligence was born with the technology of computers. However, due to the limitations of technology, people simply do not have the ability to create artificial intelligence, but by the new century, scientific development is like flying, human beings have been able to make artificial intelligence, deep blue and alpha dogs are the results of human beings.
Nowadays, the Alpha Dog robot has been able to learn deeply, become a master of Go, chess, and shogi, repeatedly defeating human Go champions, it has shown a strong learning ability, so people are worried that with the power of artificial intelligence, it will become super intelligent and will never be controlled by humans. Indeed, artificial intelligence develops to a certain extent, they will show superpowers, perhaps unconsciously will destroy humanity. Of course, it is also possible that self-awareness awakens, which in turn destroys humanity.
epilogue
In short, according to the Fermi paradox, civilization develops to a climax, then it will usher in its own doom and open a new cycle, and the earth civilization as a member of the vast universe is naturally no exception. In the above four crises, artificial intelligence, viruses and nuclear wars are all scenarios for the future, while the climate crisis and biological mass extinction are what we are experiencing, so human civilization is the most likely to be destroyed due to the climate crisis. If human beings do not regroup and improve the environment, they will eventually suffer the consequences of evil and usher in the end.