This week, I decided it was time to get back into the Fermi Paradox! This time, I addressed the Firstborn Hypothesis, the notion that humanity may be the first advanced civilization to emerge in our Galaxy. Much like the Brief Window Hypothesis, I’m not sure it’s an official proposal. In fact, I’m pretty sure I assigned a name to a general idea that has been raised many times over the years and is considered one of the more obvious resolutions.
The name itself was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this series, “Firstborn” is the name of the advanced species that was the first civilization to emerge in our galaxy. These were the aliens that created the monoliths and tampered with human evolution in the distant past, and are contemplating whether they made a mistake (and need to correct it) in the present. If true, then humanity has a pretty massive responsibility before it! Tune in to hear more:
Stories by Williams 
Like the zoo hypothesis, this is another answer to the Fermi Paradox that I like more on an aesthetic level than a scientific one. Or maybe it just strokes my human ego to think we’re the first, or that we’re among the first in our galaxy. But as you mentioned, this isn’t really a testable hypothesis, at least not in the near future. Even in the far future, I’d think this would be very difficult to test.