Physicists Estimate Civilizations Last Five Thousand Years

A team of physicists at Sharif University of Technology (Sohrab Rahvar and Shahin Rouhani) posted a preprint on arXiv estimating technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way last roughly 5,000 years. Using the Drake equation and the ~100,000-year electromagnetic reach of modern radio telescopes, they argue short lifespans explain the Fermi Paradox and list extinction risks like asteroid impacts, climate change, pandemics, nuclear war, and AI.