As a species, we're on the downhill slide.
I have another hypothesis to toss out there:
Maybe when a species advances to a certain point, its advances lead to its destruction.
I'll bet your theory is correct. Probably only one in a thousand intelligent species make it past the atomic age to advance enough to unlock the secrets to interstellar travel.
I always had this thought where by the time civilization has split the atom, the clock is ticking to whether they will be able to take off from their planet or they will collapse at some point. Since World War II, we have been in that race. I can’t say for certain but I am convinced that civilization might have risen once or twice prior to our and then they collapsed. It reminds me of the book, “A Canticle for Leibowitz.”
I agree.
> I have another hypothesis to toss out there:
Maybe when a species advances to a certain point, its advances lead to its destruction.
Entirely possible. Look at the current situation. We may end up killing ourselves off within the next few years at this rate...
For the life of me, I can’t remember the title, but I once read a sci-fi short story about that. As I recall, a scientist developed a force field mechanism which could create a dome over cities to keep ICBM’s from getting through. He ended up finally succumbing to the urge to kill himself.
The end of the story either had someone figuring it out, or maybe the “creators” explaining it - we were some sort of experiment, and just as our biologists place poison at the edges of petri dishes to keep dangerous microbes from escaping, the “creators” planted suicidal impulses in anyone who might devise ways for us to cross certain lines.