I do believe there is other life out there. It just seems likely. But, like you, I don’t believe we’ll ever meet. I also don’t believe that life will be technological. the Fermi equation doesn’t take into consideration how many species have lived on this planet and how many have been technological.

So we do need to grow up and take care of our planet. Spend some time evolving past our primitive ape brains. We have the capacity. We lack the will.

Dolphins and whales are interesting. In time they may be technological, but not as we are. Dolphins are already known to use shells as tools and play with toys. They also use almost twice as much of their brain as we do, percentage wise. In time, they could evolutionarily return to land. Their current form is, in fact, a return to the ocean from their previous form. Also, a way around the environment/phenotype you mention is to develop a symbiotic relationship with another life form that could offset those difficulties, if they had the mental capacity to do so.

I’ve also found racoons to be interesting in this train of thought. They too, play games. They’re highly adaptive omnivores, creative and strategic, have hands very similar to ours in dexterity, etc. What they don’t have is our brain capacity. That could change in time too. Genetic evolution studies have speculated that a disease causes deformity in our early hominids ancestors led to our increased cranial capacity. That led to bigger brains, which led to creative thought and consciousness. That led to the ability to notice that the grass was different all those years ago and something strategic and creative could be done with that, as you described.

We weren’t always able to be technological either. The same thing could happen to another species when (once) we’re gone.

In evolutionary thought, as well as space travel, time is a game changer. They also seem to have an inverse relationship. In evolution, with time all things are possible. In space travel, time is the greatest barrier and challenge to meaningful progress beyond our back yard.

Good article.