Fermi Paradox Predicting Humankind's Future?

An anonymous reader writes "The Fermi paradox says that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, at least one of them should have colonized the entire galaxy by now. But since there is no evidence of this, humankind must be the only intelligent life in the galaxy. The Space Review has an article on how the Fermi paradox can be applied to human civilization. It says that, like the extraterrestrials, humans have three choices: colonize the galaxy, remain on Earth, or become extinct."

Comments

"The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?"

[Jerf]

For what I consider a much better treatment of this topic, see: The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?

This stuff is a big deal, and the Great Filter paper actually manages to draw some useful concrete conclusions from the question, or at least useful concrete questions.

Also related, albeit a little more tangentially, is "Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?". "We're in a simulation and there are no extraterrestrials in the simulation" must be considered one of the leading possible answers. (I'm not advocating it either way, I don't have an answer. Nor do I consider this post anywhere near a complete list, just some relevant pointers.)