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 techn

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.