I feel like "anthropics" has precisely as much explanatory power as "coincidence"; it's a last resort, and yeah insofar as it's metaphysical, twenty years of pondering it hasn't satisfied me
btw i think the "presumptuous philosopher"-like argument you're making for lots of earthlike civs predicts lots of other weird stuff
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if prior of being typical civ is zillions of times prior of being first, then prior for universe having secret civs out wazoo much higher
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also almost certain a priori that 21st century like periods happen countless times in history of earth
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Can you spell this one out a little more? We seem young and alone, so if we're typical then either our hidden-from-each-other civilizations have short lives or they have short memories. Is that it?
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if "my hypothesis predicts more civilizations so it's more likely" is good reasoning then it should work for time too
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depending on how many 21st century like civilizations you can cram into history of earth and how unlikely that state of affairs is ofc
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but then maybe the earth is actually a lot older than it seems! there's not really a limit to the madness
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that ensues if you use "let's act as if everything is way different from how it seems because then population is way way higher" principle
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"there's no limit to the madness" isn't a real argument, of course. but maybe it is of heuristic intuition-building value
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