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Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · 27.9M views · 2018-02-01 · 8:18

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Overview

A short Kurzgesagt animation explaining the Great Filter, the idea that finding alien life might be bad news because it implies something usually destroys civilizations. It connects the concept to the Fermi paradox.

On Hacker News

HN links it as a concise, accessible explainer whenever the Fermi paradox or Great Filter comes up, though one commenter criticized its lack of source attribution.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2018–2024

Topics

Cosmology & astrophysicsFuturism & technology and society
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fermi paradoxgreat filteraliensexistential riskkurzgesagt

What people said

gwd · 2024-10 · Recommendation

How long did it take modern humans to completely colonize Earth, such that there are few places you can go on Earth and not meet any humans? Less than 10k years for sure. If we become a space-faring civilization, how long will it take us to colonize the galaxy, such that there are few places you can go and not find evidence of humans around? Not more than a million years or so. So if intelligent life -- capable of becoming a space-faring civilization -- is common, why is the galaxy not colonized already? Kursgesagt has a good video on this: [VIDEO]

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systemEarth · 2023-10 · Recommendation

There is also a good video from Kurzgesagt explaining the great filter; for if video is more your thing. [VIDEO]

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joshbaptiste · 2018-02 · Recommendation

"Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter" Great short video from Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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