You think so? Earth and the Sun are only about 5 billion years old, or 1/3 the age of the universe. Life is estimated to have appeared on Earth about 4 billion years ago.

Under the law of averages, life could have independently developed and reached comparable maturity to Earth at least two other, non-concurrent times. We're third generation at best.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Our solar system is built out of the remnants of former stars. The earliest solar systems were comprised hydrogen and helium and created the heavier elements we expect life to require.

Perhaps it's possible for life forms to be hydrogen based but would we be able to recognize them?

There's also the thought that future life will be formed out of even heavier base elements the do not exists in proper quantities at this stage.

If we assume the hypothesis of heat death of the universe is how this all ends, we're still in the first one percent of the universe's existence.

[–] Kyrgizion 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's still comparatively early in the grand scheme of things. I kind of like the idea of us being among the first, but not first.

[–] VoterFrog 1 points 1 day ago

I think when you consider the rate of advancement of any technological species, "roughly the same level as us" basically implies that they got started at exactly the same time. Even an extra thousand years of technological advancement would put them far ahead of us. A million years would put them unimaginably far ahead.

On a cosmic scale, that's nothing. That's a tight window and given the like 8 billion years that planets with the required elements have had to form, I would doubt that no other species had a chance to surpass us.