Luke_A_Somers comments on The Octopus, the Dolphin and Us: a Great Filter tale

[Luke_A_Somers]

That quote doesn’t rule out it being before the earliest thing you mentioned.

[shminux]

Right, of course. My mind inserted “right before” without a good reason.

[Stuart_Armstrong]

And I implicitly did mean “right before”, so your reading was correct.