# Where Are All the Aliens? The [Fermi paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox) basically uses the [Drake equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) to calculate the number of possible intelligent species in the galaxy and asks the question: if there are so many intelligent civilizations how come we've seen so little evidence of their existence? [[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War]] offers a nice summary of the three possible answers: ours is one of the first intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, Drake's equation is wrong, or most disturbingly, advanced civilizations tend to die out. Jay Shapiro summarized the last possibility as such: ![[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War#^no0oym]] Nuclear weapons could be one such technology that once discovered, inevitably leads to destruction of the civilization that discovered it. ![[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War#^qld8qz]] [[Yuval Noah Harari]] agrees: ![[390 – Yuval Noah Harari — Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies#^ac5139]] But his understanding of what a technology is seems to be a bit broader: he classifies the whole industrial revolution as a technology, saying that empires, and new social ideas such as communism and Nazism, are products of that technology. ![[390 – Yuval Noah Harari — Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies#^3eqvgh]] So with all of current technologies we seem to have gotten lucky: ![[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War#^mp8qq0]] But ![[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War#^s1ls28]] (Jay Shapiro) So in order to not end up like the missing aliens (if they are indeed missing), we need global cooperation. But is that possible? ![[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War#^x07ebp]] ![[Making Sense of Existential Threat & Nuclear War#^s7jsl0]]