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After reading "The Dark Forest" I've leaned towards the idea that we are under pervasive observation (likely by hard-to-detect autonomous AI agents of some form
by gfodor 9y ago
After reading "The Dark Forest" I've leaned towards the idea that we are under pervasive observation (likely by hard-to-detect autonomous AI agents of some form, the origin of which is relatively inconsequential) and once the probability tilts towards a non-zero value that we are a threat beyond a certain blast radius we'll be wiped out.
If that were true, and the message of that being the case were delivered somehow to our governments, the general status quo around these phenomena and the propaganda steering people away from caring about them would be explainable. People have barely gotten used to the idea of mortality, but to know your race was doomed to extinction with certainty would almost certainly cause massive civil unrest and a major disruption to almost all human institutions and culture that assume our collective future is unbounded.
Perhaps this is too tinfoil but it's an internally consistent story, perhaps with the exception of how or why these agents would be detectable at all, when they surely could conceal themselves completely -- perhaps it's just probabilities though since there would not be much downside of detection by a primitive civilization such as ours.
- rdtsc 9y ago> the message of that being the case were delivered somehow to our governments, That would make a fun plot for a movie. But having worked with the government and then also having observed leaks of top secret information and tools coming out the supposedly most secretive government institutions, I cannot believe they would be competent enough to keep that information under a tight lid for long. Someone, somehow would have ex-filtrated some proof by now. What I can see happening the government not necessarily encouraging but perhaps not discouraging either these rumors from spreading in order to divert attention from say testing of experimental aircraft.
- EthanHeilman 9y ago>But having worked with the government and then also having observed leaks of top secret information and tools coming out the supposedly most secretive government institutions, I cannot believe they would be competent enough to keep that information under a tight lid for long. What I find interesting is that certain government programs are very leaky and others we have not seen any leaks. For instance we know the NSA has cryptanalysis programs, yet no leaks of US cryptanalysis have occurred. The Snowden documents have very little information on these programs. Large numbers of people knew about ULTRA across many nations on both sides of the iron curtain. ULTRA was kept secret for 42 years, well past the point that the main utility of keeping it secret has passed. Why? What makes one program more leaky than another. >What I can see happening the government not necessarily encouraging but perhaps not discouraging either these rumors from spreading in order to divert attention from say testing of experimental aircraft. There so many motivations for a disinformation campaign here.
- api 9y agoWe're also assuming Snowden was not an intentional leak. Spy games get weird and complicated. They don't call it the "puzzle palace" for nothing.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoThat sounds similar to the plot for The Day the Earth Stood Still (in particular the original 1951 version), except that it wasn't a secret message. I seem to remember reading a story that was more similar to what you were describing, but can't remember the name or much about it.
- spookyuser 9y agoI think this is the least tinfoil of theories in this thread. After I read Three Body Problem it's become impossible for me to see the Fermi paradox in any other way. In fact , every other theory about how aliens might be on earth all seem so charming now. As if they haven't read the 'news' about what really happened. Obviously this isn't the case but I just feel the Cixin Liu layed out this theory so convincingly that, at least for me, it might as well be.
- karolist 9y agoWhy not wipe us out now though? Observing you risk missing the "danger" point in our evolution, wiping us out now eliminates that risk. I suspect there's more to it than that.
- simooooo 9y agoThey are betting on us like greyhounds in a cosmic TV show back at ther ship
- api 9y agoWhy not just annihilate us now then? That would minimize risk, since there is always a non-zero probability that we might suddenly make some powerful discovery or other circumstances might change.
- sushisource 9y agoI loved the books but Dark Forest theory makes little sense to me because it more-or-less assumes aliens have no concept of morality (the Trisolarans in the book literally have no morality). If we became super-advanced, it's hard to imagine given our past (including sci-fi like the series) that we'd just go head and decide to wipe out anyone we encounter, even if we did consider them lowly. Largely for the same reasons there exist animal rights groups, etc.
- armitron 9y agoMorality is a human construct, tied to self-awareness which isn't necessary for (super)intelligence. There are theories that posit self-awareness as an evolutionary dead-end. If the stars are teeming with "machinic" intelligence, something far more probable than any sort of biological intelligence, then anthropomorphizing is not going to lead you outside the maze.
- kamaal 9y agoEver heard of antibiotics, pesticides, rat poison, cockroach sprays and mosquito mats? Humanity is done playing the morality game a few thousands of years back. There were a few socio religious movements in India, which focussed on these things and they more or less concluded these things were beyond impractical. And yes, even today rats and other animals are used for experiments in manufacturing drugs for humans. What is to say they don't see as rats?
- sushisource 9y agoWhat's to say they necessarily do see us as rats, is my point.