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> And the absence of those signs would be relatively strong evidence that life, while common, isn't long-lived. If dark forest theory is right, alien civilizat

> And the absence of those signs would be relatively strong evidence that life, while common, isn't long-lived. If dark forest theory is right, alien civilizations may stay undetectable by hiding biological signatures of their worlds.

milesrout 2y ago
And the evidence of that is what? What is the mechanism behind that? How is it testable? This is what annoys me about this field. It is just magical thinking and baseless speculation. Random ideas get given names like "dark forest theory" like they are deep and consequential. What you said is the only consequence of that "theory", because that "theory" is literally just the idle speculation that "alien civilizations may stay undetectable by hiding biological signatures of their worlds."
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  It’s game theory, mathematics. Let’s say every player has 3 actions: do nothing, expose yourself and destroy the player you aware about. Your goal is survival. If you expose yourself in this game and there’s at least one player choosing „destroy“ action, you loose. Now, of course there’s a question of applicability of this model: 1. are there other players? (if the game started, we won’t know until we observe destruction event - but that’s falsifiability) 2. do they have means to destroy you? (we may find out) 3. do they have motivation to destroy you? (we may find out) 4. can you protect yourself against unknown level of technology? (we may find out). This theory meets scientific criteria, it’s just that those criteria require level of technology that we may not reach in thousands of years.
vladimirralev 2y ago
Dark forest theory is wrong. Staying undetectable is always inferior to both staying undetectable and safely deploying varyingly detectable decoy targets at safe distance to probe the situation and gather intelligence.
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  Deploying decoy target requires more advanced technology (space travel) than hiding the signature (we may be able to do it long before we reach another star). I don’t think this is a good argument. Let’s say, some civilization decides to invest in decoy. It needs to shine brightly, the energy footprint is huge, a lot of work has to be done to transform the entire system. Then what? If there’s a hostile player, capable of destruction, they research and destroy the target, and start surveying the neighborhood. You cannot just build a decoy on another end of the galaxy, right? The further you have it, the more complicated is the task. And then you can only hope that the time left will be enough to collect enough energy (even if you have the tech) for defense.
  - vladimirralev 2y ago
    Dark forest theory is about very advanced civilisations not engaging with anything around them. Limited resources are not an issue in this case. You can easily just do everything in parallel with AI or other automated control system, using stars as energy sources, including spawning whole decoy civilisations at different stages of development. Because we see so many stars we know nobody is running out of energy yet.
cedilla 2y ago
The dark forest theory makes for a great book premise, but it probably doesn't apply in real life simply because the distances are so far. The universe is not a forest. It's a gigantic, empty ocean. The next, dangerous tribe is not lurking behind a bush 2 meters away, but is sitting on an island that's so far away it will take centuries to go there, if it is possible at all
- autonomousErwin 2y ago
  Isn't that the point of the dark forest theory? It's not the fact that there is a dangerous tribe behind a bush it's more that you don't know if they're dangerous or not so you have to err on the side of caution - because you don't know if they're doing the same. It's the whole chain of suspicion theory that it's safer to shoot first and then ask questions later because the speed you can communicate is the same speed you can mount an attack.
  - cedilla 2y ago
    Yes, but the next bush is dozens of light years away. The analogy breaks down because the distances are different in quality. The only reason why this becomes such a problem in the Three-Body-Problem is the existence of magic in that universe. Thinking protons, instant communication, folded dimensions, easy interstellar travel, it's all interesting speculation inspired by physics, but incompatible with our actual universe.
    - ivan_gammel 2y ago
      Those things are just sci-fi glitter absence of which doesn’t invalidate the theory.
    - zaphirplane 2y ago
      Why does the distance change the dynamic? So what if the species trying to exterminate you are 500 light years away, you think they should ignore it ? Maximum travel speed of an extermination weapon in 100,000 years of of science may very much be impressive or even magical by today’s standards

milesrout 2y ago

And the evidence of that is what? What is the mechanism behind that? How is it testable? This is what annoys me about this field. It is just magical thinking and baseless speculation. Random ideas get given names like "dark forest theory" like they are deep and consequential. What you said is the only consequence of that "theory", because that "theory" is literally just the idle speculation that "alien civilizations may stay undetectable by hiding biological signatures of their worlds."

ivan_gammel 2y ago
It’s game theory, mathematics. Let’s say every player has 3 actions: do nothing, expose yourself and destroy the player you aware about. Your goal is survival. If you expose yourself in this game and there’s at least one player choosing „destroy“ action, you loose. Now, of course there’s a question of applicability of this model: 1. are there other players? (if the game started, we won’t know until we observe destruction event - but that’s falsifiability) 2. do they have means to destroy you? (we may find out) 3. do they have motivation to destroy you? (we may find out) 4. can you protect yourself against unknown level of technology? (we may find out). This theory meets scientific criteria, it’s just that those criteria require level of technology that we may not reach in thousands of years.

vladimirralev 2y ago

Dark forest theory is wrong. Staying undetectable is always inferior to both staying undetectable and safely deploying varyingly detectable decoy targets at safe distance to probe the situation and gather intelligence.

ivan_gammel 2y ago
Deploying decoy target requires more advanced technology (space travel) than hiding the signature (we may be able to do it long before we reach another star). I don’t think this is a good argument. Let’s say, some civilization decides to invest in decoy. It needs to shine brightly, the energy footprint is huge, a lot of work has to be done to transform the entire system. Then what? If there’s a hostile player, capable of destruction, they research and destroy the target, and start surveying the neighborhood. You cannot just build a decoy on another end of the galaxy, right? The further you have it, the more complicated is the task. And then you can only hope that the time left will be enough to collect enough energy (even if you have the tech) for defense.
- vladimirralev 2y ago
  Dark forest theory is about very advanced civilisations not engaging with anything around them. Limited resources are not an issue in this case. You can easily just do everything in parallel with AI or other automated control system, using stars as energy sources, including spawning whole decoy civilisations at different stages of development. Because we see so many stars we know nobody is running out of energy yet.

cedilla 2y ago

The dark forest theory makes for a great book premise, but it probably doesn't apply in real life simply because the distances are so far. The universe is not a forest. It's a gigantic, empty ocean. The next, dangerous tribe is not lurking behind a bush 2 meters away, but is sitting on an island that's so far away it will take centuries to go there, if it is possible at all

autonomousErwin 2y ago
Isn't that the point of the dark forest theory? It's not the fact that there is a dangerous tribe behind a bush it's more that you don't know if they're dangerous or not so you have to err on the side of caution - because you don't know if they're doing the same. It's the whole chain of suspicion theory that it's safer to shoot first and then ask questions later because the speed you can communicate is the same speed you can mount an attack.
- cedilla 2y ago
  Yes, but the next bush is dozens of light years away. The analogy breaks down because the distances are different in quality. The only reason why this becomes such a problem in the Three-Body-Problem is the existence of magic in that universe. Thinking protons, instant communication, folded dimensions, easy interstellar travel, it's all interesting speculation inspired by physics, but incompatible with our actual universe.
  - ivan_gammel 2y ago
    Those things are just sci-fi glitter absence of which doesn’t invalidate the theory.
  - zaphirplane 2y ago
    Why does the distance change the dynamic? So what if the species trying to exterminate you are 500 light years away, you think they should ignore it ? Maximum travel speed of an extermination weapon in 100,000 years of of science may very much be impressive or even magical by today’s standards