Has the Fermi paradox been resolved?
Overall the argument is that point estimates should not be shoved into a Drake equation and then multiplied by each, as that requires excess certainty and masks much of the ambiguity of our knowledge about the distributions. Instead, a Bayesian approach should be used, after which the fate of humanity looks much better. Here is one part of the presentation:
Conclusion 2: the great filter is likely in the past
Given the priors and the Fermi observation, the default guess should be that the low -probability term(s) are in the past.
The conclusion can be changed if:
We reduce the uncertainty of past terms to less than 7 orders of magnitude
The distributions have weird shapes
Note that a past great filter does not imply our safety
(The stars just don’t foretell our doom)
And:
Life only actually occurs 8% of the time
It is also noteworthy that most life on earth shares the same genetic system, implying it takes a long time for a particular kind of life, and also intelligence, to evolve.
Those slides are by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler & Toby Ord, “Dissolving the Fermi Paradox,” and the pointer is from Patrick Collison.
Whew! That said, your rate of savings now ought to go up just a wee amount.