Odds of intelligent life occuring?

[I_am_not_mafia]

We could use a new power source, but we don't need to keep up with the bacteria-like expansion.

Quite agree but this is the flaw of our economic system. It needs to exponentially increase in size in order to function otherwise you end up with recessions or depressions. General economic opinion is that 2% annual growth is best to aim for to compensate for errors in measuring growth.

This happens because banks need to continually lend money, but they expect it to be paid back with interest. So there is always more debt than money in existence. This is how the money supply grows over time and debt grows even faster. The interest is paid back with future productivity, and if this productivity does not take place because of a lack of growth then the debt gets written off. If this happens too much then you risk bank runs and the collapse of the economic system. Because of fractional reserve banking, banks only have to hold a fraction of the money deposited with them, literally just a few percent. They lend the rest out to be paid back with interest. The system collapses if too many withdraw their money at once.

This has allowed society to expand rapidly, but only works while we're still able to expand. Unfortunately the system won't change until it has to, probably when it collapses.