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AABoyles comments on [Link] Study: no big filter, we're just too early - Less Wrong Discussion
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Do you really think the probability that aliens have visited our system over it's history is less than say 10^-9?
The 10^19 or so planets that could have independently evolved civilizations generates an enormous overwhelming prior that we are not the first. It would take extremely strong evidence to overcome this prior. So from a Bayesian view, it is completely unreasonable to conclude that there is any sort of Filter - given the limits of our current observations.
We have no idea whether we have been visited or not. The evidence we have only filters out some very specific types of models for future civs - such as aliens which colonize most of the biological habitats near stars. The range of models is vast and many (such as cold dark models where advanced civs avoid stars) remain unfiltered by our current observations.
The Great Filter isn't an explanation of why life on Earth is unique; rather, it's an explanation of why we have no evidence of civilizations that have developed beyond Kardashev I. So, rather than focusing on the probability that some life has evolved somewhere else, consider the reason that we apparently don't have intelligent life everywhere. THAT's the Great Filter.
"They do exist, but we see no evidence" is an alternative theory to the Great Filter, and I believe what Jacob Cannell is using wrt the cold dark model.