Economist Robin Hanson did not invent the Great Filter

Humanity seems to have a bright future, i.e., a non-trivial chance of expanding to fill the universe with lasting life. But the fact that space near us seems dead now tells us that any given piece of dead matter faces an astronomically low chance of begating (sic) such a future. There thus exists a great filter between death and expanding lasting life, and humanity faces the ominous question: how far along this filter are we? Robin Hanson, 1996 or 1998 During the Cold War, it was a commonplace that we might make ourselves extinct or end industrial civilization. After all, humans were lighting navigable rivers on fire, producing mountains of waste with no good plans to dispose of it, and putting weapons more terrible than the Sun into hands with the self-control of an ornery chimpanzee. It seemed very plausible that the Third World War might start, some junior officer would drop a nuclear warhead on an armoured division in Bavaria or Thuringia, and a few days later there would be…