Are we the first, or one of the first civilizations in the galaxy?

[exboyfil]

1. I agree with you

I don't think that evolution necessarily leads to technological life. We need to look no further than our sky to know that our planet is unusual (our moon). Is such a moon a necessary condition for life? The dinosaurs had a long time to evolve into tool users, and they never did.

100 billion stars is a large number, but once you start adding small probabilities in, the Drake equation starts predicting very low numbers. I have heard projections of a trillion year life for our galaxy. Small stars can live 100 billion years. The 100 billion is probably a good estimate for stars capable of harboring life in the Milky Way.

You really can't project with a sample size of one, but you can look at individual probabilities of specific events that led us to this point. Of course ours is probably not the only path to a technological civilization.

What is the lifespan for a technological civilization?