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I don't think there is a great filter. I think there's an easy solution to the fermi paradox that doesn't require great filters, we're just the first intelligence in this galaxy.
Here's my reasoning: intelligent species that manage to develop space travel probably do tend to expand out into their galaxy. When they achieve this level of technology they can settle most of all of their galaxy in a matter of 10,000 years or so. That time period is very brief on an evolutionary scale. It's estimated that life began on earth 3.7 billion years ago. That means it took about 3.7 billion years for earth to produce intelligent life, and then from that point it would take a mere 10,000 years to reach modern day, and 10,000 more years to settle the whole galaxy. That expansion happens so quickly compared to how long it took the planet to develop intelligent life, that the chance of two civilizations rising at the same time becomes very small.
It all boils down to this: there are no intelligent aliens out there in our galaxy, because we are the first intelligent species in our galaxy. We know we're the first because if we were second, then aliens would already have settled this star system.
Probably there are lots of alien civilizations out there in the universe, but they're in different galaxies.
In my sci Fi that I've been working on has this theory being true but I also play with asking what is the point of colonization. In my story humans have colonized mars to study the fossils and what life used to be like on Mars. However the people there after a few generations separate from earth. Earth doesn't do anything about it because not only can mars use telescopes to see our ipbm years before it arrives and have that time to shoot our ipbm before it arrives but invasion will destroy the fossils we care about. And that's all assuming history won't just repeat itself. Eventually the mars colony expands until it breaks into different nations all fighting echother to become the first martin superpower. So everything that earth cares about gets destroyed by war anyway and earth is pointless to mars without life and water. Eventually the sun becomes so old that everyone feels the need to move their populations to another solar system. And only then de humans discover alien life. Only to discover that it's currently 900 billion years beyond 2024 and aliens are just now figuring out radio waves and rockets and are more concerned about developing eugenics than discovering humans.