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One can imagine a scenario where the only way our species survives is to detect an alien civilization before they detect us, and to nuke their homeworld preemti
by elihu 6y ago
One can imagine a scenario where the only way our species survives is to detect an alien civilization before they detect us, and to nuke their homeworld preemtively because they would do the same to us. Tit-for-tat doesn't really work when a first-strike can kill everyone. Or to put it another way, tit-for-tat only works in iterated prisoner's dilemma. If an encounter with aliens is more like a single-round prisoner's dilemma, we're in a bit of a bind.
(Even more likely is the scenario where we're so far behind technologically that the best we can do is hope they're friendly; if they aren't, there's nothing much we can do about it.)
However, even if alien races aren't constrained by anything we would recognize as morality, we are (sometimes) constrained by our own morality. I think that's a good thing.
- webmaven 6y ago> Or to put it another way, tit-for-tat only works in iterated prisoner's dilemma. If an encounter with aliens is more like a single-round prisoner's dilemma, we're in a bit of a bind. The only way the dark forest scenario is not an iterated prisoner's dilemma (albeit an odd one) is if no information about the encounter can leak to subsequent first encounters. In other words, if you're going to eliminate anyone you encounter with a preemptive first strike, you had better hope that you have the means to prevent your victims from sending distress calls and warnings so no one ever hears about your actions before they encounter you.
- DennisP 6y agoThat's only a problem if your own location is revealed. In the dark forest, everyone is hidden and attacks are anonymous.
- webmaven 6y agoYeah, the anonymity aspect seemed a bit unrealistic, it only works in the book because of huge gulfs between the technology levels of civilizations (like literally unraveling subatomic particles and spacetime) that allow the use of weapons that cannot be mitigated by any means available. I'm not sure that given such a disparity, the first-strike strategy makes sense. Once you're experiencing an exponentially acceleration of technological progress, why bother wiping out anyone just starting out? They can't catch up. And if you're worried about civilizations more advanced than yours, why give them a potential clue to your location by attacking anyone else? Clearly, only civilizations that are quite close to your own capabilities can be a credible threat, and those are ones you don't have such an overwhelming advantage over.