NASA scientists in a new article explain why we have not met with extraterrestrial civilizations

A team of scientists from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory put forward version about why we still have not met extraterrestrial civilizations. It is based on the Great Filter theory and suggests that other civilizations may well have exist throughout the history of the universe, but they all destroyed themselves before they entered into contact with us.

Scientists expand on this theory, noting that we, too, may be on our way to erasing—or “filtering out”— ourselves. But if we humans understand this, or even how other civilizations destroyed themselves, we may be able to avoid the same fate, NASA added.

The Great Filter Theory was first proposed in the late 1990s by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University. Hanson argued that there is something that prevents intelligent, thriving life forms from surviving long enough on their home planet to meaningfully expand to others.

NASA scientists notethat whatever existential threats life on Earth faces, life elsewhere can also contend with them. These threats include uncontrolled events such as an asteroid impact on the planet, as well as nuclear war, a deadly pandemic, climate change, and even out of control of artificial intellect.

This kind of human "dysfunction," the study says, "snowballs into the Great Filter quickly."

And while the extinction could come quickly and furiously, the researchers write, they suggest that increased human maturity may prevent a negative scenario.

According to NASA scientists, increasing mutual understanding on the planet between groups, societies and civilizations is addition to some significant technological progress - should increase our chances of overcoming Great filter.

But Hanson himself disagrees somewhat with this part of the theory. He believes that strengthening centralized control and management will not solve the problem, but speeding up the path to the filter. The more decentralized we are, the more likely it is that some of us will survive catastrophic events, the scientist noted.

If certain groups of people - for example, those who are engaged in private space travel - manage to survive the devastating humanity a pandemic or any other deadly event for civilization, they can theoretically continue to exist as part of colonies on Mars or Moon.

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