Finding Alien Life Could Be the WORST News in History

If we ever discover alien life on Mars, it might be the worst news humanity has ever received.

Across billions of stars and billions of years, almost no one seems to have reached the stars. Something is stopping them.

One idea is the Great Filter. Somewhere on the road from lifeless rock to a galaxy-spanning civilization, there may be a step so hard almost nothing makes it past. The question is where that filter sits. If it's behind us, in the rare spark of life or the leap to complex cells, then we're among the lucky few who made it through, and our future is open. But if it's still ahead, it means civilizations keep destroying themselves before they spread.

That's why finding even simple life on Mars could be terrifying. It would suggest life is easy, so the deadly filter probably isn't behind us. It's waiting, somewhere in our future. By this logic, the emptier the universe looks, the better our odds.

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