Even if life is easy to form and plentiful throughout the universe…
I heard that the process of evolution does not favor intelligence- it favors survivability. Life does not by necessity evolve into something more intelligent. There are other survival staretegies. Our high degree of intelligence and self awareness may be little more than a fluke… unless you want to add divine intervention to the equation.
And our intelligence would mean nothing if we wiped ourselves out in a war.