The so-called Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation were both silly naive nonsense that no one should ever have taken seriously. The picture painted in the article is actually much worse: we know nothing about how often analogs to eukaryotic life may arise (it happened exactly once here on Earth in more than 3.5 billion years of evolution). Worse still, life is almost certainly mostly aquatic, and you can't smelt ore in a liquid environment. So even if occasionally eukaryotic life does emerge, chances are there won't be technology. Here on Earth we see cetacians and cephalopods that have very high levels of intelligence but.... no technology, because you can't create complex technologies in a liquid environment. Thus, given the vastness of the universe (both in space and in time) and the impediments to technological development, we are certainly completely alone. If we weren't so stupid we'd value what we have. Instead, we'll destroy it.