Of course then it all depends on how advanced the advanced culture is. There are, purely theoretical relying heavily on unobtanium, cheats around the light speed limit. If they’re THAT advanced then they could be wiping out civilizations. Of course they still have to find them, and that would still in many ways be hampered by the speed limit (don’t care how fast your ship goes, our radio waves are still “only” going speed of light), so they have to get in the zone.
Which is why I think distance is the true great filter. Every way we have of announcing our presence, or detecting somebody else’s, take a long time to get anyplace and would carry extremely post dated information. The way I think about it is to “assume” there’s another civilization out there 200 light years away growing their technology at an identical rate to us. Their very first experiments in wireless telegraphy haven’t gotten here yet. We’re using very dim flashlights for a very large room.
The Berserker Theory fails on many fronts.
More likely is the "fundamental technology’ that ends civilization" theory. The author wasted speculation on the ridiculous Glowbull Warming idea. How about the discovery of a virulent toxin, chemical or biological, that some crackpot releases and kills all life? Consider the insane things people do like kids attacking their schools, the Jim Jones cult, Muslims and so on so forth.
One intelligent but extremely psychotic nutball gets a hold of a planet-killing technology or substance and executes a plan to employ it. Perhaps neurosis is a fundamental aspect of biological life forms and sooner or later every civilization unwittingly creates the opportunity for one insane individual to wipe the whole thing out.