Fermi Paradox: The Solution!

Mangan Reformed the Answer?

Enrico Fermi looked up into the night sky and asked, "Where is everybody?"

He had seen a paradox. No, not Canis Major and Canis Minor! Not a pair of dogs! A paradox! Roughly (not ruffly!):

Given the age of the universe, there ought to be an enormous number of far superior civilizations out there that have mastered the science of hyperdrive space travel and therefore should have the ability to contact us, so why haven't they?

Theorists have postulated a barrier they call "The Great Filter." This hypothesized barrier stops even all great civilizations dead in their tracks.

What could this barrier be?

My old friend Dennis Mangan has an answer, beginning with the current Ebola crisis, about which he asks:

Is Ebola our Great Filter? No, probably not. However many people die, it won't wipe out the earth.

But this whole episode [with its politicization of the disease] suggests another explanation of the identity of the Great Filter. It's leftism. All civilizations eventually become leftist, and after that they accomplish nothing, or even actively die off.

I think Dennis is onto something here. Leftists glorify 'victims,' and what greater victory for victimology than to fail the "Great Filter Test"? "The entire universe is set against us!" they can then complain! Complain to whom is another question, one that would seemingly presuppose some argument from design. Bad design, though, and a culpable designer. A form of Gnosticism with no way out . . .

But anyway, if the best can't pass through the Great Filter, why should we?