Antinatalism is the reason we are alone in the universe

I posted this in the childfree subreddit but I think it might fit this sub even more.

I am going to make two big assumptions here, but cosmology is pretty much built on assumptions since we don't have many data points to base out theories on.

1. Struggle and suffering is the foundation for all life.

All life forms on Earth must compete with each other for limited resources in order to reproduce and evolve. There is no victory in altruism: you can either eat, or be eaten.

Living things also tend to dislike their lives ending. If they didn't, they would have no motivation to carry on forward, ending the species for the benefit of another species. Any injury or disease that brings them closer to death causes suffering.

Therefore, the species that are able to either inflict (see: humans) or withstand the most suffering are the ones that come out on top and carry their genes forward.

2. Any sufficiently intelligent species will object to the suffering of their offspring.

Nobody wants to see their child be in pain, either physically or mentally. Nobody wants to see their children dying. That is, however, the grim reality - everyone's children will eventually suffer, and die.

Where people see cute little faces and hear funny jibberish talk, I imagine an elderly person in a hospice being told how little time they have left; or someone broken, lost and sleeping on the street. It's comfortable to ignore these thoughts when we are still young (and most likely to have children), but as education gets better, we also tend to consider them more often.

So here's my theory: Antinatalism is one of the Great Filters.

Any species intelligent enough to invent space travel will eventually come to the conclusion that, well, maybe this big project we're working on, that we won't see the result of in our lifetime, is not worth sacrificing more sentient beings for.

Generation ships are a scam. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.