[jade-cat]

In both a universe with few "grabby" civilizations, and a universe with many non-grabby civilizations there would be countless lifeforms, just more or less diversely distributed among civilizations. In either of these universes us here being as early as we are is equally "suspect".

Should I assume humans will soon achieve immortality and stop breeding (or just go extinct) just because it makes me less of an outlier? Cause that seems to lead to the exact opposite conclusions, just by putting the delineation point at an individual rather than a civilization.

"Furthermore, we should believe that loud aliens exist, as that’s our most robust explanation for why humans have appeared so early in the history of the universe." The most robust explanation for humans appearing so early is that yeah, it seems we did appear early, someone had to - since it doesn't assume an entire model of intergalactic civilizations.