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See also The Dark Forest: > The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside

See also The Dark Forest: > The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox. * https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7378369-the-universe-is-a-dark-forest-every-civilization-is-an https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7378369-the-universe-is-a-d... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Forest Kurzgesagt video (12m): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAUJYP8tnRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAUJYP8tnRE

er4hn 5y ago
I really enjoyed the Dark Forest. The ending felt like the first time I saw The Usual Suspects. Another alternative hypothesis could be that the universe / even the galaxy is just too big to settle. Any civilization going out would take centuries to cross to other spaces, and completely lose touch with those members which stayed behind. It's hard to have a galactic "empire" when it takes centuries to send resources/soldiers to other worlds. The nearest planet to us, New Horizons, would take nearly 7 hours just to send a message at the speed of light! The logical thing to do would be to send out machines to mine for resources and send them back and the machines may not be that interested in other lifeforms, other than possibly avoiding them.
mrjangles 5y ago
I always liked this description because it is so similar to the descriptions of untouched cultures in West New Guinea when they were first discovered in the middle of last century. These cultures were entirely untouched and it gave anthropologists a look into what life was like before before civilization. The island was divided into tiny tribes which lead an incredibly brutal way of life. One of the interesting features that anthropologists remarked upon was the fact that when two people met each other out and about, if they didn't know each other, the first thing they would do is immediately start trying to kill each other. If you take a cultural evolutionary point of view, then it is clear that these practices evolved because it was the best way to guarantee their own survival, and those tribes and people who behaved this way had a better chance of having offspring and passing on their way of life to the next generation. Anyway, I don't see any reason to believe that the dark forest of our universe would be any different to the dark forests of West New Guinea.
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  Ya that's Hobbes 101 for supporting strong government.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  I dunno, the dark forest trilogy definitely sparks interesting conversations. But a counter example to it is that only via cooperation a tribe can become technologically advanced. All those tribes are just tribes due to their constant squabbling and fighting, while the other that cooperated, traded and exchanged ideas ended up advancing. Wars were/are part of humans but in Europe it quickly became evident that technology and ideas > traditional warfare. Each tech eventually falling out of favour when better strategy/tech emerged. I believe that the solution to the Feremi paradox is biology/game theory, the only way for intelligence to emerge is via evolutionary competition where intelligence is justified cost for the enormous energy requirement. And that mechanism is the local maxima where competition is wired in and drags down sufficiently large groups down. Any successful organism/organisation will fall prey to an exploiting organism/individual due to its size, be it internal or external. Empires. countries dominant species all fall prey to exploits over time. Getting out into space is really hard and we hardly scratched the 'surface' of space exploration. And even if we somehow managed to colonize mars and/or Europa, i think Expanse have an accurate picture of what would happen, new species of humans will develop (slowly) and will culturally diverge putting whole 'one humanity' going into space into wishful thinking category back again.
  - mrjangles 5y ago
    Yes sure, but I feel like this stuff came later. Once we had the technology, knowledge about each other, institutions, rule of law, etc, then people could begin to trust each other and work together. This is what happened everywhere slowly. But at the start where everything is unknown and everything is new, and we can't see beyond the next tree, when we don't know what is out there and what they want. In that world, it has always kill or be killed.
    - me_me_me 5y ago

er4hn 5y ago

I really enjoyed the Dark Forest. The ending felt like the first time I saw The Usual Suspects. Another alternative hypothesis could be that the universe / even the galaxy is just too big to settle. Any civilization going out would take centuries to cross to other spaces, and completely lose touch with those members which stayed behind. It's hard to have a galactic "empire" when it takes centuries to send resources/soldiers to other worlds. The nearest planet to us, New Horizons, would take nearly 7 hours just to send a message at the speed of light! The logical thing to do would be to send out machines to mine for resources and send them back and the machines may not be that interested in other lifeforms, other than possibly avoiding them.

mrjangles 5y ago

I always liked this description because it is so similar to the descriptions of untouched cultures in West New Guinea when they were first discovered in the middle of last century. These cultures were entirely untouched and it gave anthropologists a look into what life was like before before civilization. The island was divided into tiny tribes which lead an incredibly brutal way of life. One of the interesting features that anthropologists remarked upon was the fact that when two people met each other out and about, if they didn't know each other, the first thing they would do is immediately start trying to kill each other. If you take a cultural evolutionary point of view, then it is clear that these practices evolved because it was the best way to guarantee their own survival, and those tribes and people who behaved this way had a better chance of having offspring and passing on their way of life to the next generation. Anyway, I don't see any reason to believe that the dark forest of our universe would be any different to the dark forests of West New Guinea.

reducesuffering 5y ago
Ya that's Hobbes 101 for supporting strong government.
me_me_me 5y ago
I dunno, the dark forest trilogy definitely sparks interesting conversations. But a counter example to it is that only via cooperation a tribe can become technologically advanced. All those tribes are just tribes due to their constant squabbling and fighting, while the other that cooperated, traded and exchanged ideas ended up advancing. Wars were/are part of humans but in Europe it quickly became evident that technology and ideas > traditional warfare. Each tech eventually falling out of favour when better strategy/tech emerged. I believe that the solution to the Feremi paradox is biology/game theory, the only way for intelligence to emerge is via evolutionary competition where intelligence is justified cost for the enormous energy requirement. And that mechanism is the local maxima where competition is wired in and drags down sufficiently large groups down. Any successful organism/organisation will fall prey to an exploiting organism/individual due to its size, be it internal or external. Empires. countries dominant species all fall prey to exploits over time. Getting out into space is really hard and we hardly scratched the 'surface' of space exploration. And even if we somehow managed to colonize mars and/or Europa, i think Expanse have an accurate picture of what would happen, new species of humans will develop (slowly) and will culturally diverge putting whole 'one humanity' going into space into wishful thinking category back again.
- mrjangles 5y ago
  Yes sure, but I feel like this stuff came later. Once we had the technology, knowledge about each other, institutions, rule of law, etc, then people could begin to trust each other and work together. This is what happened everywhere slowly. But at the start where everything is unknown and everything is new, and we can't see beyond the next tree, when we don't know what is out there and what they want. In that world, it has always kill or be killed.
  - me_me_me 5y ago