Altruism is not just a choice, but a necessity!!!!

The article "where are all the aliens?" talks about the concept of "Great filter".The Great Filter theory says that at some point from pre-life to Type III intelligence, there’s a wall that all or nearly all attempts at life fails. Type III is the most advanced form of intelligence, having the capability of colonizing the whole universe. Given the number of stars and livable planets that exists out there, the most conservative estimates indicates that the number of such civilization must be around 1000 in our "milky way" galaxy alone. Then why don't we see them out there? The article argues that one of the reasons could be that for a civilization to evolve to that level, it has to cross the barrier of "Great Filter", making it the most rarest of rare. The article discusses about "our reference" to the "Great Filter", i.e whether we have crossed it, or will hit the barrier at some point of time in future?

I believe that there are not just one, but many such "Great Filters" that an intelligence life has to cross, before they grow their capabilities of colonizing the whole universe. Some of these "Great filters" are driven by the destruction caused by acts of nature. These events are extremely random in nature which may or may not be in our control. Our earth itself has faced five such catastrophic event virtually eradicating all the life form at that point of time. But, the destruction caused by our own actions, i.e the actions of intelligent life forms can be more devastating than even these random natural events (like huge volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, harmful radiations caused by exploding stars etc). Why? As natural events are random, arbitrary and rare, where as human actions are systematic, with much more increased frequency, as too many among us act independently on account of sense of greed, anger, and illogical beliefs. The impact of these human actions are less intense at the early stage of the evolution on account of primitive technologies used, and limited destructive power of weapons. But, as the power of technology grows (day is not far when nuclear bombs can be easily manufactured by a terrorist organization) , then one cannot afford a single irresponsible move by anyone among us - as the damage it can cause will be catastrophic!!!.

Hence, the test of able to overcome events of "self destruction" on account of irresponsible behavior by our own fellow beings, is the ultimate "Great Filter" that all civilizations have to cross at some point of time of their evolution cycle. Our ability to cross this barrier highly dependent upon the collective behavior of our civilization driven by a sense of responsibility and logic. Irrational beliefs inculcated by the vested interests groups has the potential of contaminating the young and immature minds to play the destructive role. The only hope of managing the situation is by practicing "altruism" in its true sense, otherwise the end of human civilization is imminent and not that far away.