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Comment by czbond | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't a probability model also suggest our universe, galaxies, and solar system are all probably.... typical?

The probabilities of trillions of galaxies suggest it is more likely we are 1 of many, rather than 1 of 1.

Just because, for example, an ancient tribe in Europe lived in the north and might never see others because they're 100's of miles away - doesn't mean the tribe is 1 of 1.

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Some models suggest we might be fairly early, probably somewhere in the first 10-25% of space faring species.

Maybe we are special, for example space around our solar system is emptier than usual, maybe due to a super nova blasting stuff away. But chances are we are not all that special, just in an early part of the game where nobody expanded into our neighborhood yet

>Some models suggest we might be fairly early, probably somewhere in the first 10-25% of space faring species.

I’d like to see some sources for this, because this sounds like unscientific, unprovable drivel.

[1] is the first paper Google spewed out, though I think there is newer work. I'm on mobile though, so can't check. The basic idea is to figured out how many stars that may support space faring civilizations have formed, and how many will form in the future. Add in some delay for planets and life to form, and account for the death of the star, and you can estimate how many such species should spawn over time, and thus tell if we are early or late to the party (assuming all assumptions are somewhat right)

1: https://ouci.dntb.gov.ua/en/works/7PgprAO9/ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.08448v2.pdf

Our star system isn't typical. Most stars are red dwarfs.

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