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>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

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