I think that's just borrowed from modern fantasy tropes. How can humans co-exist on anything even kinda like equal footing with centuries-old magical elves, ancient dwarves who know the secrets of the deep, bloodthirsty and strong orcs and goblins, et c? Oh, humans are more flexible (culturally more diverse; more varied from person to person; develop & experiment faster; are more curious; freer from genetic determinism in their choices and behavior), breed faster, or cooperate better.
Usually one or more of those is the answer given, with the specific question being "how can we have interesting and powerful fantasy species/races and still have humans matter in our stories, without every story just being an upstairs/downstairs thing or otherwise having the humans in some plainly-inferior position?" There are other ways around the problem, but that's the easy way out.
Life shows up and spends a long time doing not much, then exponential growth kicks in, life gets smart and suicides out in 100000 years or so.
The rate of intelligent and communicating planets is going to be low enough; the chance of two such planets within a distance that allowed for bidirectional communication existing simultaneously is dwindling - and even then they'll be at different points in their growth curves.
If ever we meet aliens they'll be cavemen or gods.
On the other hand, only total extinction might be truly "irreparable".
You don't see kids in coal mines in England but you do see people dipping circuit boards in vats of acid without protective equipment in India. We may be investing in renewables in the US and Europe but we still flood parts of Africa and the Sea with crude oil and all that lithium doesn't mine itself.
The "Industrial Age" may be over but the damage is still being done and all the shiny new tech is largely window dressing. It's also not yet clear that the shiny post-Industrialism can easily exist without the rest of the world perpetually playing "catch-up" (i.e. whether it really is catching up) as our quality of living heavily hinges on underpaying other countries for resources and labor.