# Is COVID-19 the Great Filter? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [May 5, 2020, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158 "2020-05-05T03:13:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dan\_Turk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dan\_Turk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Turk)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/1 "2020-05-05T03:13:24Z")
I’m sure many of you know what the Great Filter is, but if you want to brush up, it’s pretty well summed up on Wikipedia: > **[Great Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)** > > The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox. It posits that in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there exists some particular barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. > The concept originates in Robin Hanson's argument that the failure to find any extraterrestrial civilizations in the observable universe implies that something is wrong... Is COVID-19 the Great Filter? Have we already surmounted the Great Filter? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/2 "2020-05-05T03:14:50Z")
No. In the history of our species this is a minor blip. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/3 "2020-05-05T03:34:32Z")
No. Pandemics can happen to all species, intelligent or unintelligent. No relevance. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/4 "2020-05-05T04:33:16Z")
The OP doesn’t even make any sense as a question. The Great Filter, by definition, prevents life on a planet from getting THIS far. In any event, in the grand scheme of things, COVID-19 won’t slow down the human race at all. It’s not going to even make the All-Star team of plagues. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/5 "2020-05-05T05:01:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > In any event, in the grand scheme of things, COVID-19 won’t slow down the human race at all. It’s not going to even make the All-Star team of plagues. SARS-CoV-2 is an Inland Empire 66er short stop hoping to make the Rocket City Trash Pandas. It’s not even at the top of the minor leagues in terms of mortality potential, much less a potential extinction pandemic. When it can go pitch for pitch with the Plague of Justinian, the 735-737 Japanese smallpox epidemic, or the Black Death, then we’ll talk about trying out for the majors. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/6 "2020-05-05T05:05:39Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The OP doesn’t even make any sense as a question. The Great Filter, by definition, prevents life on a planet from getting THIS far. Not necessarily. Great filters are attempts to answer the “Fermi Paradox”\* IOW the question, “If the universe is so big and so old where are all the aliens?” It is quite possible that we haven’t passed all the filters yet. A number of these “late filters” have been proposed and until humanity expands throughout the galaxy we won’t know if we’ve passed all the filters or not. WRT COVID-19, it probably isn’t. We’ve dealt with worse, as a species. It may be deadly to individuals or (maybe) nation-states, but _homo Sapiens_ will survive. \*It should be called the “Fermi Question” or similar since it isn’t really a paradox, but sometimes we get stuck with bad names for things. Don’t get me started on the “Anthropic Principle” ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-covid-19-the-great-filter/853158/7 "2020-05-05T06:22:17Z")
The answer is no. However biotechnology that allows lethal viruses to be created at a lower and lower cost could be the great filter or a part of it. What happens when a doomsday cult has access to the technology to design a virus perfectly calibrated in infectiousness and lethality to cause maximum damage? It may be possible in a few decades. In general declining costs of creating WMD may be the great filter. All advanced species may reach a point of technological progress where it simply becomes impossible to control WMD technology and the resulting chaos drags the whole species back to pre-industrial levels of technology.