The Filter, in Brief
So, there is this idea of ‘The Filter’, the great divide that separates intelligent species from the galactic civilizations that are their supposed birthright. The reasoning goes as follows:
- All intelligent species exist on the path to developing technology and culture that will enable them to expand to control their planet, and then solar system, and then multiple solar systems, and then spread throughout galaxy
- Given the age of our own galaxy, we would expect other intelligent species to have evolved before humans, and to have already begun this colonization process
- We don’t see any sign of them, and so there must be The Filter, the crisis that prevents intelligent species from moving along this inevitable staircase of development
- So we wonder – is The Filter behind us, and we’re one of the few intelligent species to make it this far, or is The Filter ahead of us, and we’re doomed?
In thinking about what this Filter could be, one can come up with places it could occur starting all the way back with the origins of life:
- It could be that it is very unlikely for life to begin at all, and so on planets in their star’s ‘Goldilocks zone’ we will only find various kinds of chemical soup
- Maybe it is very unlikely for multicellular life to develop, and so that soup will just be filled with simple single-celled organisms
- It could be very unlikely for intelligence to develop (this one is a hard sell for anyone who has looked at the intelligence of non-human animals)
- Perhaps run-away feedback loops like climate chance prevent intelligent species from living long enough, or maintaining a civilization long enough, to colonize their solar system
- Ditto with something like thermonuclear Armageddon, or AI deciding to kill us off, or nanotechnology turning us al into grey goo, etc.
- Or a lack of any faster-than-light travel solution could make colonizing worlds beyond one’s homeworld economically impossible
- Or maybe something crazy, like a FTL-capable civilization wipes out all competition, and they just haven’t decided we are a threat yet
Clearly there are a lot of other options, but those above are common.
Flawed Premise
The problem I see in this formulation immediately (and I’m far form alone, nor innovative in doing so) is that it is founded on the premise that all intelligent life will inevitably lead to something like our own technocratic, hierarchical and exploitative way of life. That is, we take the way we happen to live now as a cosmic given, and then reason from there.
That’s insane. That’s a failing grade on your term paper in Philosophy 101. That’s a huge argument build on a sample size of one, when we even have other intelligent species on Earth to look at for other examples. Why not argue that orca intelligence is inevitable, or cetacean intelligence, or chimpanzee intelligence, or the emergent intelligence of insect colonies? We’re not even the only intelligence here. We’re just the most disastrous for every other living thing.
Conclusion
Maybe there is no filter, and we are just caught in the throes of a suicidal trajectory because we are a particular kind of intelligent life in a particular situation. There’s no reason to assume that all life would be in a similar situation, much less to assume that all intelligent life would inexorably seek to exploit their entire planet, and then solar system, and then multiple solar systems.
Maybe as we find signs of life in other places, that life will be living in approximate balance with its ecosystems, like the various species of human did for hundreds of thousands of years before the last ten thousand or so. Maybe they will have developed means to detect us, and have meetings to decide what to do about this one rogue form of intelligent life out there that seems hell-bent on killing itself and everything around it. Can they somehow contain the damage we do? What do the thousands of other intelligent species on other worlds think?
The galaxy could be empty of star-spanning civilizations because of wisdom and no other reason. The “Filter” could exist only in our thinking about the nature of life, and intelligence, and civilization. It seems that we are catastrophically wrong about how to live on our own planet – it stands to reason that we would also be catastrophically wrong about how to live on multiple planets circling multiple stars as well.
Swooping into office to save the species this week, President Obama started his administration off right by immediately announcing a freeze on publication of all the Bush administration’s last-minute, biodiversity-harming rules not yet put into print. This means the new administration will get a chance to review — and hopefully trash — bad Bush-era policy decisions, including the heinous removal of Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes regions. The freeze will also put stop to Bush’s laughably low fuel-economy standards and a rule that would have injuriously changed the format of the endangered species list to redefine the extent of coverage provided to endangered species.
Filing a final challenge to the Bush administration over its political meddling in almost 60 Endangered Species Act decisions, last Wednesday the Center for Biological Diversity filed seven lawsuits over habitat-protection decisions wronging 18 species, as well as one notice of intent to sue over the denial of protection to the Colorado River cutthroat trout. The San Bernardino kangaroo rat, Arkansas River shiner, Riverside fairy shrimp, 12 Texas invertebrates, and three California plants were all robbed of federal habitat protections on Bush’s watch — in the case of the Riverside fairy shrimp, more than 97 percent of the area of habitat deemed by scientists as “essential” was removed from protection thanks to interference by Bush administration officials. In all, more than 158,000 protected acres are at stake in last week’s seven suits. The Colorado River cutthroat trout was denied protection despite severe range loss, ongoing threats, and repeated Center action.
Acknowledging the fishiness of one more of its scientifically flawed and politically tainted Bush-era Endangered Species Act decisions, last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached a settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity and allies over a rule slashing habitat protections for one of California’s rarest freshwater swimmers, the Santa Ana sucker. The small-bodied, big-lipped fish, though highly adaptable, has suffered serious harm from development, water projects, and other threats and is now reduced to just three populations in the middle part of the Santa Ana River. In response to a Center lawsuit, in 2004 the Fish and Wildlife Service protected more than 21,000 acres of habitat along three of the fish’s four home rivers — only to issue a scientifically unjustifiable decision a year later to reduce the protected area to a measly 8,305 acres, eliminating protections from the sucker’s namesake river, the Santa Ana.
Following almost two years of being ignored by the Bush administration after we petitioned for nationwide laws to protect species from global warming, the Center for Biological Diversity has filed suit against six federal agencies to compel a response to our action. In February 2007, we jumpstarted our Global Warming and Endangered Species Initiative by petitioning the Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, and Environmental Protection Agency to integrate opposition to global warming into all major federal decision-making processes and speed the recovery of endangered species from the American pika to the yellow-billed loon. Our suit, filed last Thursday, demands consideration of the requests of our petition, including reviewing species to spot those especially threatened by warming and prohibiting all federal actions from appreciably reducing the likelihood of a species’ recovery.
To protect one of the most majestic and endangered mammals on hooves, last Thursday the Center for Biological Diversity joined the Lands Council, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Selkirk Conservation alliance in suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to gain federally protected habitat for mountain caribou. Though caribou once roamed by the thousands across the northern United States, hunting, poaching, logging, and roads pushed the entire population into the Selkirk Mountains of northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and British Columbia. Now disturbance from poorly managed snowmobiling threatens to push caribou out of even this last refuge. Conservation groups filed a petition to protect the caribou’s remaining habitat back in 2002, but the next year the Fish and Wildlife Service said it had higher priorities — and went on to ignore the petition.
After the Bush administration issued an 11th-hour decision to let the timber industry decimate public lands in western Oregon, the Center for Biological Diversity and 12 other conservation and fisheries organizations — represented by Earthjustice — filed suit in defense of salmon and old-growth forests. The Western Oregon Plan Revision allows current logging in the area to nearly quadruple, rezoning 2.6 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon tended by the Bureau of Land Management. The Bush administration timber giveaway ignores science clearly showing these dramatic increases in logging will pollute salmon spawning streams, destroy much of Oregon’s old-growth forest, contribute to global warming, and seriously threaten winged residents like the northern spotted owl and marbled murrelet.
When the Bush administration was three months late responding to our petition to protect California’s rare ashy storm petrel, last Wednesday the Center for Biological Diversity officially warned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we’ll sue if it fails to investigate the species’ status. The small, smoke-gray seabird resides in the polluted, development-stressed waters near California’s largest cities and is further threatened by offshore energy terminals, shipping, commercial fishing, and oil spills. Worsening matters, global warming is changing the marine ecosystem of the bird’s home state, leaving warmer, less-abundant waters and causing ocean acidification that depletes the sea of the storm petrel’s prey. In the past 20 years, the largest colony of ashy storm petrels decreased by 42 percent, prompting the World Conservation Union and BirdLife International to list the species as endangered. Still, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to make its decision on our petition to protect the bird, due last October.
Do you have fish guilt? That is, do you care about consuming sustainably but not know if the fish you’re eating is good for ocean health or your own? Don’t worry. Thanks to New York-based nonprofit Blue Ocean Institute, if you have a cell phone you can use what the group has dubbed “FishPhone.” The next time you’re in the supermarket or sushi bar and find yourself at sea regarding what fish to ingest, just send a text message reading “FISH,” along with the kind of fish you’re considering, to 30644. Instantly, you’ll get a reply on how healthy your choice is for you and the planet. If your fish is fishy, it’ll be red-flagged.
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