The Fermi paradox asks: in a universe that seems amenable to abiogenesis and the evolution of life leading to technological civilizations, why haven't we seen definitive evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations? We contend that this question presents itself as a ‘paradox’ because there is an implicit assumption that the trajectory of progress can be extrapolated from the past, i.e. that the future is a linear extension of past and current trends. Specifically, civilizations are projected to attain greater energy harnessing capabilities and greater knowledge of the universe until they spread in an unbounded colonialist manner across the galaxy.

The Kardashev scale is one example of this mode of thinking. This measure of the ‘advancedness’ of civilizations is based on the concept of energy expansions: a Type I civilization uses all of the energy available at the planetary scale; a Type II civilization uses all of the energy available at the planetary system scale and a Type III civilization uses all of the energy available at the galactic scale. It has been argued that once a Type II civilization becomes interstellar, it should spread across the galaxy in a relatively short amount of time. Hence, the lack of evidence of extraterrestrial visitors is widely considered to be consistent with the belief that a Type III civilization does not currently exist in the Milky Way. Additionally, extragalactic observations suggest that Type III civilizations are rare , although this absence may stem from an inability to observe in the appropriate way.

Two important aspects of biology are missing from Kardashev-like frameworks: (i) evolution is not always gradual and linear, but is impacted by major transitions and ‘punctuated equilibria’ and (ii) the dynamics of city-like living systems in which information flows and energy flows result in superlinear scaling and singularity crises.

Perhaps Type III civilizations on the Kardashev scale are in an unreachable part of biotechnological state space because most civilizations face burnout at the planetary/sub-planetary scale. When burnout approaches, if Δtwindow < 0, the civilization will necessarily collapse or regress until it iterates into a new cycle. If Δtwindow > 0, the civilization has a chance to consciously transcend into prioritizing homeostasis; otherwise, it will collapse or regress. Hence, there may be very few or no plausible trajectories through biotechnological state space that connect humanity's present state and the region occupied by hypothetical Type III civilizations