Correct. Which is a supporting argument that life and intelligence might be a new thing in the universe, that it took a few billion years to just get through a few cycles of birth and death of stars to create the heavier elements needed. We could be one of the first examples.
Doesn’t rule out the Great Filter as still a thing, new life that expands too quickly and uses up resources can still kill itself in the process.
Oh the great filter definitely has legs to it. It HAS to. It’s only logical that any species could wipe themselves out or get wiped out. It would take a species capable of being literal gods (as far as we define them) in order to not be subject to ‘a’ great filter of some type.
Though IMO, I do not think we’re in a young universe for intelligence (as far as humans are “intelligent”, anyways), but a teenaged universe at youngest. Lots of energy and BS still going on, but enough room for intelligence to start cropping up.
I hope the fact the universe will have trillions of years with red dwarf stars and the like still shining away even as the galaxies get further and further apart means that THEN is the time where organized, self-changing structure gets to shine, but… humanity is kinda’ actively demonstrating that a species can be “intelligent” and yet hellbent on self-destruction.
