answer:It’s a good piece, and the overall thesis is worth thinking about. Still, it seems to me that there are several alternatives to the pessimistic hypothesis that intelligent life extinguishes itself. 1. Alien life may not use radio waves. We have no idea whether or not intelligent alien life would follow the same path of technological evolution as we did. Even if a planet is like Earth as far ad conditions of habitability are concerned, after all, it may not be the same in terms of distribution or accessibility of material resources. 2. We may be the first intelligent species to have developed, meaning that other intelligent species may not yet have developed the capability to signal to anyone else that they are nearby. Moreover, technological advancement is in part a result of chance (when geniuses are born, how life inspires them). Thus even a slightly older species could be slightly behind us in certain fields. 3. Radio waves dissipate over time, eventually becoming indistinguishable from the background noise of the universe. If an alien civilization is too far away, then, whatever signals it may be sending our way could have been reduced to nothing before getting anywhere near us. Consider how far away the sun is, then think about how far away a civilization in another solar system—or even another galaxy—would be.