This is the critical question. If the Great Filter is behind us — perhaps the origin of life is absurdly unlikely, or the jump to eukaryotic cells took a near-miraculous event — then we have already passed the hardest step. We may be among the very few civilizations that exist, and our future could be wide open.

If the Great Filter is ahead of us, the implications are terrifying. It means that civilizations routinely develop technology and then destroy themselves — through nuclear war, climate catastrophe, artificial intelligence, engineered pandemics, or something we have not yet imagined.