Many people think about our future of exploring the solar system and perhaps nearby star systems and imagine finding bacterial life or perhaps even fossils or ruins of life that has gone extinct. While this would imply that life exists much more plentifully than expected across our galaxy, it might not actually bode well for the future of humanity.
A visual representation of the Great Filter stopping nearly all developing civilizations.
A caveat to Fermi’s Paradox is often referred to as The Great Filter. This theory suggests that the reason we have no evidence of life outside of our own planet is that there is some obstacle to becoming a galaxy-spanning species which is virtually insurmountable. These obstacles can generally be thought of as the elements of Drake’s Equation. In other words, one of the elements of the equation such as the probability of life becoming intelligent is essentially zero.
Applying this concept to our future exploration, finding the ruins of some other civilization might imply that our species is destined for a very similar fate. Finding fossils of less advanced life, on the other hand, might actually bode well for our eventual colonization of the stars near our home.
Daniel's Astronomy Blog 
To be honest, I had never really evaluated whether or not finding life out there in the universe would be beneficial for humanity on Earth. While it would be exciting to know that we are not alone in space, the presence of other intelligent civilizations out there could mean that similar civilizations existed in other parts of the universe in the past. And since those civilizations haven’t been able to find us, that makes it seem like the probability that our civilization will be able to find other intelligent life out there is pretty bleak.
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