In June 2016, Putin signed legislation that decriminalized several kinds of “simple battery,” but that law made an exception for violence among “close family members,” introducing the concept of domestic abuse into Russia's criminal code. Social conservatives were aghast, however, complaining that mothers and fathers who use force to raise their kids still risked two years in prison “just for a spanking.” In his yearly press conference in late 2016, Putin sided with Russia's conservatives, saying that parents shouldn't be sent to prison just for slapping their children.

Our main result is to show that proper treatment of scientific uncertainties dissolves the Fermi paradox by showing that it is not at all unlikely ex ante for us to be alone in the Milky Way, or in the observable universe. Our second result is to show that, taking account of observational bounds on the prevalence of other civilizations, our updated probabilities suggest that there is a substantial probability that we are alone. Our third result is that pessimism for the survival of humanity based on the Fermi paradox is unfounded.