[mnm1]

Pessimism? I think you mean a dose of reality. We aren't even close. That's reality no matter what Musk and others like him say. If anything, it's extreme, unwarranted, delusional optimism that sees us colonizing the planets. And that's just our solar system. We can't even get to Mars and probably couldn't even get to the moon at this point. I don't see why we would assume that other intelligent species would be able to escape, except briefly, their planets. There is nothing at all that warrants that assumption now or when Fermi was alive. Why would anyone assume this even for the future? Progress is not guaranteed and as we have seen throughout history, periods of progress are often followed by periods of decline.