Why We Exist

Awhile back I wrote a post about the odds of there being intelligent life in the universe being pretty slim.  Well, today I'm going to expand on that by showing you guys what it took for Earth to advance to the point where you can look at cat memes all day.  Here are just a couple things that took place that allowed us to live, there are probably many more but this what I got for now:

• First of all, the position of a solar system is vital -- if it's too close to the center of the galaxy, everything will get melted by supernova radiation, but if it's too far along the edge of the galaxy it won't be able to support life.
• Then, the star at the center of the solar system can't be too old, too bright, or too big, otherwise complex life won't develop (complex life is very fussy).
• The planet on which said life develops has to be in a perfect orbit. In Earth's case, if the orbit was 5 percent smaller or 15 percent larger we would all freeze or burn to death, respectively.
• The size and location of our moon keeps the planet on a stable axis, preventing rapid and cataclysmic climate changes -- if we didn't have exactly one moon of the exact shape and size orbiting at its exact distance, we would all be superdead (and likely would never have existed to begin with).
• The sequence of geologic eras even plays a crucial part -- if the Mesozoic had occurred before the Cenozoic, for example, the exact conditions needed for human life to develop might never have been met, upsetting the evolutionary order and resulting in a race of dinosaur humans.
• Jupiter plays a huge role in keeping us all live because it acts like a giant defensive lineman by blocking us from cosmic debris and world-ending asteroids like a celestial J.J. Watt.

And that's why the odds of there being another intelligent species in the universe are slim.  Then again, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies which each contain billions of stars all which have numerous planets, so maybe another planet like ours got lucky like us and they are surfing their internet for YouTube videos of a member of their species taking nut shots just like us.

"Thanks, Moon?"