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I highly recommend the Three Body Problem trilogy. The second book "Dark Forest" exactly deals with why the universe seems so barren as far as intelligent life

I highly recommend the Three Body Problem trilogy. The second book "Dark Forest" exactly deals with why the universe seems so barren as far as intelligent life goes. The theory is that all intelligent species make the following assumptions: 1. All other intelligent species have the potential to be hostile. Since there are large number of races in the universe, it's guaranteed that there are hostile intelligent species. 2. One is highly unlikely to be or remain the most technologically advanced race in the universe. Even a currently inferior race can suddenly become an existential threat after technology explosion. 3. All intelligent races prioritize their own survival and have reached the first 2 conclusions. So combining all 3 of those assumptions, one can see the logical step is to assume the universe is a terrifying dark forest filled with dangerous animals. For any resident in such forest it's natural to conceal its own presence, and if anybody reveals their location, they will be immediately eliminated by a more technologically advanced race to insure they will not become a threat. This is true doesn't matter how technologically advanced a race is because there will always be a bigger fish out there somewhere that is trying to do the same thing. In fact, I can't think of any reasons why we shouldn't take this approach. I'd love to find the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, but I think we are being extremely foolish broadcasting our location to the universe.

M_Grey 10y ago
I'm more a fan of The Great Filter hypothesis. We're not finding life for the simple reason that in a thousand years, no one will find us; we'll be banging the rocks together again. It might just be that the stage between where we are now, and where we imagine going, is unlikely to be crossed.
- knz 10y ago
  Are the two theories mutually exclusive? A dark forest doesn't imply that we aren't capable of destroying ourselves.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    A dark forest implies that lots of species advance without destroying themselves. One interpretation of the Great Filter basically states that self-destruction to be an inevitable feature of sufficiently advanced life. So yes... for the forest to be populated requires the filter to be altered or discarded.
    - Cookingboy 10y ago
      Given the assumption that there are large numbers of intelligent species out there (the universe is vast), unless the Great Filter guarantees that 100% (not 99%, or 99.9%, but 100%) of intelligent species will self-destruct, then these two theories are not mutually exclusive. Due to the size of the universe (100 billion stars in this galaxy alone), remote possibility has to be treated as absolute certainty, this is why dark forest is such a sound theory.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        It seems extremely unlikely that superluminal travel is possible, so at some point intelligent life becomes like magnetic monopoles... maybe they exist, but we're never going to meet while either species is alive. You're ignoring just how huge space is, and how meaningless it would be if a civilization rose and fell a million or a billion light years away.
        Cookingboy 10y ago
        The Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light years, and there are 100 billion stars in this system alone. If only intelligent life arises 1 out of 10 million stars, we are looking at 10,000 civilizations in this milky way alone. Statistically speaking, even the Milky Way galaxy should be littered with civilizations, with average distances between them measured in dozens of light years, not millions.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        It's not so much intelligent life arising that matters... what matters is that they become galactic explorers. Really, there is no obvious reason why any species would want to do that, least of all resources. Besides... maybe life is more rare than that, or maybe intelligent tool users are very rare. After all, a genius that lives in deep oceans of some kind might as well be a clam for all that it might change a life off their planet. You need a specific formula, and you need to include, "Does not extinguish own existence" at some point between, "Gets tech" and "masters galaxy and becomes threat to all life in universe". That really sounds more farfetched than just... the kind of competitive organisms that make it as far as we do, die off for one reason or another before they dominate a galaxy.
ethbro 10y ago
All of this assumes there's a benefit to being hostile. I can imagine many quirks of the universe that would moot that point: teraforming is a lot harder & more necessary than we expect, superluminal travel is impossible, civilizations composed of multiple species outcompete single species, ecological niches are distinct enough that there is little competition, advanced technology renders moot our assumptions about scarcity and inherent competition... When hypothesizing post-seismic shift, the future tends to be orthogonal to our modern expectations as opposed to a simple extension of them. I can see machine intelligences hosted in Dyson spheres chuckling about our space opera sci-fi obsession with capturing planets.
partycoder 10y ago
What if we decide to invade what seems to be small civilization, and it turns out to be a colony of a much larger civilization or alliance? What if it's a honeypot? Maybe the best strategy is to make as many allies as possible expecting that some day that would increase the odds of surviving a hostile contact with a other civilizations or other threats... Our understanding of life and the universe is limited. Our current version of the Drake equation is really off, and we do not have an answer to the Fermi paradox. Collaborate or compete are usually context sensitive decisions. The best thing to do is bounded to our understanding of game theory, which is a field full of open questions.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >What if we decide to invade what seems to be small civilization... What if it's a honeypot? A plot twist like this would make a movie like "Avatar" very interesting: humans invade a beautiful moon with a seemingly backwards indigenous civilization so they can steal its natural resources, it turns out it's a honeypot (or a protectorate) of some far more advanced civilization, which then decides to wipe out all of humanity. I think this would be a great movie, though there wouldn't be a sequel (at least not one with any humans in it).
- Myrth 10y ago
  Drake equation always bothered me when used in argument of contact probability, because it doesn't take into account time. Yes, there might have been billions of extraterrestrial civilizations, but that doesn't mean there are currently ones that 1) already can communicate or receive EM waves, and 2) not yet deprecated use of EM waves. Oh and there's also speed of light issue.
- Cookingboy 10y ago
  If you actually read the trilogy I mentioned, by "elimination" the author doesn't mean an invasion. The advanced races literally manipulates laws of physics to its extreme to remotely wipe out star systems without ever exposing themselves. The methods range from rudimentary ones like turning the star of a system nova to god like ones like dropping the dimension level of a region of space from 3D to 2D. Yes, it's a fantastic series of reading :)
Entangled 10y ago
Beautiful read, that's my line of thought. Thanks for the recommendation. There is also 'Three worlds collide' that deals with the prisoners dilemma of shooting first, another fantastic read albeit shorter.

M_Grey 10y ago

I'm more a fan of The Great Filter hypothesis. We're not finding life for the simple reason that in a thousand years, no one will find us; we'll be banging the rocks together again. It might just be that the stage between where we are now, and where we imagine going, is unlikely to be crossed.

knz 10y ago
Are the two theories mutually exclusive? A dark forest doesn't imply that we aren't capable of destroying ourselves.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  A dark forest implies that lots of species advance without destroying themselves. One interpretation of the Great Filter basically states that self-destruction to be an inevitable feature of sufficiently advanced life. So yes... for the forest to be populated requires the filter to be altered or discarded.
  - Cookingboy 10y ago
    Given the assumption that there are large numbers of intelligent species out there (the universe is vast), unless the Great Filter guarantees that 100% (not 99%, or 99.9%, but 100%) of intelligent species will self-destruct, then these two theories are not mutually exclusive. Due to the size of the universe (100 billion stars in this galaxy alone), remote possibility has to be treated as absolute certainty, this is why dark forest is such a sound theory.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      It seems extremely unlikely that superluminal travel is possible, so at some point intelligent life becomes like magnetic monopoles... maybe they exist, but we're never going to meet while either species is alive. You're ignoring just how huge space is, and how meaningless it would be if a civilization rose and fell a million or a billion light years away.
      - Cookingboy 10y ago
        The Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light years, and there are 100 billion stars in this system alone. If only intelligent life arises 1 out of 10 million stars, we are looking at 10,000 civilizations in this milky way alone. Statistically speaking, even the Milky Way galaxy should be littered with civilizations, with average distances between them measured in dozens of light years, not millions.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        It's not so much intelligent life arising that matters... what matters is that they become galactic explorers. Really, there is no obvious reason why any species would want to do that, least of all resources. Besides... maybe life is more rare than that, or maybe intelligent tool users are very rare. After all, a genius that lives in deep oceans of some kind might as well be a clam for all that it might change a life off their planet. You need a specific formula, and you need to include, "Does not extinguish own existence" at some point between, "Gets tech" and "masters galaxy and becomes threat to all life in universe". That really sounds more farfetched than just... the kind of competitive organisms that make it as far as we do, die off for one reason or another before they dominate a galaxy.

ethbro 10y ago

All of this assumes there's a benefit to being hostile. I can imagine many quirks of the universe that would moot that point: teraforming is a lot harder & more necessary than we expect, superluminal travel is impossible, civilizations composed of multiple species outcompete single species, ecological niches are distinct enough that there is little competition, advanced technology renders moot our assumptions about scarcity and inherent competition... When hypothesizing post-seismic shift, the future tends to be orthogonal to our modern expectations as opposed to a simple extension of them. I can see machine intelligences hosted in Dyson spheres chuckling about our space opera sci-fi obsession with capturing planets.

partycoder 10y ago

What if we decide to invade what seems to be small civilization, and it turns out to be a colony of a much larger civilization or alliance? What if it's a honeypot? Maybe the best strategy is to make as many allies as possible expecting that some day that would increase the odds of surviving a hostile contact with a other civilizations or other threats... Our understanding of life and the universe is limited. Our current version of the Drake equation is really off, and we do not have an answer to the Fermi paradox. Collaborate or compete are usually context sensitive decisions. The best thing to do is bounded to our understanding of game theory, which is a field full of open questions.

Arizhel 10y ago
>What if we decide to invade what seems to be small civilization... What if it's a honeypot? A plot twist like this would make a movie like "Avatar" very interesting: humans invade a beautiful moon with a seemingly backwards indigenous civilization so they can steal its natural resources, it turns out it's a honeypot (or a protectorate) of some far more advanced civilization, which then decides to wipe out all of humanity. I think this would be a great movie, though there wouldn't be a sequel (at least not one with any humans in it).
Myrth 10y ago
Drake equation always bothered me when used in argument of contact probability, because it doesn't take into account time. Yes, there might have been billions of extraterrestrial civilizations, but that doesn't mean there are currently ones that 1) already can communicate or receive EM waves, and 2) not yet deprecated use of EM waves. Oh and there's also speed of light issue.
Cookingboy 10y ago
If you actually read the trilogy I mentioned, by "elimination" the author doesn't mean an invasion. The advanced races literally manipulates laws of physics to its extreme to remotely wipe out star systems without ever exposing themselves. The methods range from rudimentary ones like turning the star of a system nova to god like ones like dropping the dimension level of a region of space from 3D to 2D. Yes, it's a fantastic series of reading :)

Entangled 10y ago

Beautiful read, that's my line of thought. Thanks for the recommendation. There is also 'Three worlds collide' that deals with the prisoners dilemma of shooting first, another fantastic read albeit shorter.