Re: if we on Earth are indeed the most advanced form of life in the known, visible universe

That is most unlikely.

Here is why. The Universe is 13.7 billion years old and the oldest (recently) discovered galaxy is 11 billion years old. Therefore, even if there is only one planet with life per 1,000,000 galaxies (this is equivalent to a probability of planet life of 1x10^-16) that would still be 10^5 planets with life in this Universe. If this life started 1,000 years apart, the oldest life would be 100 billion years old. Not possible because this is older that the Universe. That is the average time between any two planetary life forming events should be about 100 years or the oldest life form in the Universe is 10 billion years, and still younger than the oldest galaxy.
If it took the Earth about 4 billion years for life to start and evolve to humans, this would suggest that there are about 6 million planets with life that is as evolved as humans or more! SO I am pretty sure we are not the most evolved in this Universe.

Re: Fermi’s Paradox
According to Wikipedia, “the Fermi paradox (Fermi’s paradox or Fermi-paradox) is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations”.

Actually, I did address Fermi’s Paradox, without mentioning it. If we examine Fermi’s Paradox carefully, the implicit axiom is that out technology is at its zenith and all extraterrestrial civilizations must use ‘our’ type of technology and therefore all ‘developed’ civilizations are about the same.

And because these extraterrestrial civilizations are about the same as us and since we cannot detect them even though the probabilities for their existence are high, therefore these civilizations therefore cannot be in existence.

The fallacy in Fermi’s Paradox is that technology cannot evolve to some form higher than we have achieved it. In my book “An Introduction to Gravity Modification” I propose the existence of subspace, and therefore a technology that we are not familiar with and cannot recognize is feasible.

Re: Big picture
Fermi’s Paradox is wrong.

Re: Highly intelligent civilizations
My apologies but I have to ask you this question. Have you tried to teach a cockroach? I guess your answer must be … No. It is easier to let them evolve.

Why do we keep assuming that other advanced civilization must want to interact with us? Especially if there are 6,000,000 other extraterrestrial civilizations who are more advanced than us. But then again, may they are and we don’t have the technology to detect them?

Here’s the counter arguments. We have already looked for life on Mars and it appeared more likely than not that is doesn’t exist. But also, if we do find simple bacteria, it is more likely than not related to the same life that we have on Earth. Whereas this would still be a big discovery, it wouldn’t tell us much about the probability of life elsewhere in the galaxy. If life appeared twice in our solar system, why hasn’t it made its way over the eons to the rather friendly Earth? Likely, uniquely different life doesn’t in our solar system. Besides, if life spontaneously arose twice in our solar system, then it must be so easy to arise that life is common throughout the galaxy. If so, no evidence whatsoever for intelligent life in the galaxy? Hmmm.

Yes, sniffing it out on exoplanets is a lot more probable than finding uniquely different life in our solar system since we would have so many more chances given the innumerable Earth-like exoplanets we’ll be finding. But still, none of those in the entire galaxy developing to intelligent civilizations?

Finally, regarding the closing window of radio transmissions. Highly intelligent civilizations would have to know at least as much as we do. They would likely know that we would go through a phase of easy radio communications before moving on to subspace, lasers, etc. But their technological understanding would be so great that they would have the option to communicate with us by radio communication during our current technological phase IF THEY SO CHOSE. It certainly wouldn’t be impossible for them to do so. Given our current state of sickness, death, poverty, and warfare, why would they choose to let us continue in our current state when they could easily communicate with us by means that could reach us?

There are, of course, many other possible explanations. But I find that a confident calculation of a certain date when we will detect alien life is failing to take into account the bigger picture when that biger picture is readily available to anyone who has thought through Fermi’s Paradox.