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grinds teeth A vein almost explodes in my forehead everytime someone points to Cixin Liu as the originator of DFT. The idea's been around since the early to m
by ethbro 7y ago
grinds teeth
A vein almost explodes in my forehead everytime someone points to Cixin Liu as the originator of DFT.
The idea's been around since the early to mid-80s, and people could at least do diligence to properly cite.
It's almost as insulting as if I said "When George Lucas started science fiction films with Star Wars..."
- mac01021 7y agoSo who are the originators?
- F_r_k 7y agoCould you cite some books that covered DFT ? I'm eager to read them
- Symmetry 7y agoThe Killing Star (1995) would be the main one that comes to mind for me. Even uses a dark forest as a metaphor though in this case it's a city park full of gangsters.
- livueta 7y agoI'm pretty sure David Brin touches on it somewhere, but not to the extent of being the basis of an entire novel. Can't recall exactly where, sadly. At minimum, Revelation Space features it as a major plot-point and was published in 2000, significantly predating Dark Forest.
- WorldMaker 7y agoIt's related to the premise of David Brin's Uplift series, so in one way it's the basis of multiple trilogies of books. It's been one possible answer for as long as sci-fi has debated the Drake equation and Fermi paradox. Arguably, it is a critical part of the thesis of War of the Worlds as far back as the late 19th Century.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI don't see how. David Brin's Uplift universe is bureaucratic, with interspecies interactions heavily regulated and angling towards preserving, not eliminating life. Cixin Liu's vision is purely game-theoretic, where anyone who makes noise is likely to be preemptively sniped by someone else, out of pure sense of self-preservation. I don't recall seeing this concept anywhere else.
- WorldMaker 7y agoThe implication in the Uplift universe was that the bureaucracy and "gamification" of interspecies interactions was designed to avoid such an elimination state, but such a thing likely existed in its deep past. The thesis, as such, of the Uplift universe was generally that mutual cooperation was hard, but should win in the long run. The emphasis in the hard was that by default most societies wanted to shoot first and ask questions later even with cooperation heavily incentivized by the rules/games.
- Symmetry 7y agoYou're thinking of Existence from 2012.
- abecedarius 7y agoThe earliest I remember was by Greg Benford: something in the series that started with In the Ocean of Night (1970s). I think it was that novel, but I'm not sure; but towards the end of the one I'm thinking of, as this picture of the universe was coming together, a character thought of the nighttime sky as like the eyes of hungry predators surrounding a campfire. (Not to say I think this theory about the Fermi paradox is a very good one.)
- sandworm101 7y agoStar wars isn't science fiction. Lucas tells us so in the first frame: a long time ago in a galaxy far far away: it isnt about us or where science may take us in the future. It is a samurai movie with lasers.
- xxandroxygen 7y agoYou're getting downvoted but in the end you're right - Star Wars is an epic fantasy with science-fiction-y things in it, hence why it doesn't follow rules about things like sound in space
- sandworm101 7y agoSound or movememt in space isnt a make or break. Trek was very much scifi yet took license with physics and that's ok. Not all scifi is hard scifi. Imho Dune is still scifi despite the fantasy overtones because the author deliberately tells us it is set in our future. The author of star wars tells us the opposite.
- jacobush 7y agoSo time and place dictates what is SciFi now? That's an awfully awkward measure which will cut away a lot of SciFi. Though, I agree Star Wars is not very sci fi, it's a fantasy epic with sci-fi stuffs in it.
- ethbro 7y agoI've never understood the association with relative time in regards to science fiction. SF is typically futuristic, but that bears jack all as to whether it takes place in the past, present, future, or even anything relative to our planet. Science, in that it pledges greater allegiance to, extrapolates, or invents in an internally consistent way. But not time.
- sandworm101 7y ago
- beat 7y agoSure, there's some prior art. But it's not necessary or relevant to cite the prior art when talking about a specific work. If you read carefully, you'll find I didn't claim he was the originator, because duh.
- ethbro 7y agoI was taking issue with the medium post. "In his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem, author Liu Cixin presents the dark forest theory of the universe." "Liu invites us to think about this a different way."
- mikeash 7y agoI don’t see that as implying he came up with the idea. They’re just referencing a recent use of it with a catchy name.
- ethbro 7y agoA singular name. It would have been pretty simple to be clear with "and others." Instead, the obvious conclusion drawn by any reader is that the idea is the principle creation of the only author mentioned.
- pnongrata 7y agoBoth quotes are true. He never says the author created the theory.
- c0vfefe 7y ago"Present" ≠ "invent."
- anigbrowl 7y agoThis is n-gate worthy
- shearskill 7y agon-gate is a treasure.