So it's all the more amazing than we can't find life anywhere.
We grab a sample of asteroid "soil", try to keep it in conditions as hostile to life as possible, and yet within days it's teeming with (terrestrial) life.
So where is everyone?
We grab a sample of asteroid "soil", try to keep it in conditions as hostile to life as possible, and yet within days it's teeming with (terrestrial) life.
So where is everyone?
And intelligence is an even harder step given how much absurdly longer it took to evolve than basic life.
And technology is probably also a hard step where we had tailwinds like massive oil deposits, smallish gravity well, etc.
But it's also kind of crazy to assume that we should be able to detect the techno signatures of advanced aliens or AIs given our small and limited understanding of the universe.
Of course, the oxygenated atmosphere only exists due to life. Otherwise, it would just rapidly oxidize everything else.
As many experienced gardeners with compost piles know, anaerobic decomposition is much slower and messier than aerobic. Regularly turning the compost pile helps aerate it and makes the aerobic decomposers thrive.
And its reactivity is what makes it so useful for powering advanced life. It's an abundant and highly energetic fuel.
The fossil fuels that gave rise to our industry and innovation are also something we lucked into. The right decomposition environment, eg. in the Carboniferous, made these massive deposits possible. This has greatly accelerated our innovation as a species.
The only thing I find truly special about our place is the moon.
The moon is really weird. Same geological material as earth, huge size for a natural satellite, appears the same size as the sun.
It's an unusual set of coincidences that (as far as I know) our solar system formation models, so far, can only explain using an extraordinary event (Theia collision, etc).
It happened 2.4 billion years ago, and wiped out most of the existing life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
Maybe because it destroys itself, then gets blasted out into such far reaches the two races are never within a distance (in terms of space or time) they could communicate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
Doesn't solve the origin of life question, but it would explain the emptiness -- life is rare, and reseeds itself every few very long stretches.
I know this is not directly related to what you say, but we do have right here and now whales to talk to. And elephants too! There is this idea that to find alien minds to communicate with one has to reach out to the far cosmos. But we can't even talk to the alien minds right on our doorsteps. Maybe we should try that before we theorise that communication between two races is impossible due to distance.