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This is referenced in a sci fi book "The dark forest" of the series "The 3 body problem". It sets a convincing narrative that because of time taken for observat

This is referenced in a sci fi book "The dark forest" of the series "The 3 body problem". It sets a convincing narrative that because of time taken for observation and response and development speed of society it is most likely that all civilizations that announce themselves would likely be a threat in terms of technological supremacy eventually to observing civilizations. In other words, we don't hear anything because any sufficiently advanced civilization would not want to risk being discovered. I.e., the "dark silent forest".

Balgair 1y ago
I never did buy the dark forest argument. I mean, even in the books, there were smidgeons of humanity left over. And then all the dimension collapsing strangeness. You just can never be sure. I dunno, it just reeks of the culture of suspicion in communist China. A product of that place and time. My own idea is the 'used car salesman' idea of the universe. (Reeking of my own mind and place and time). To me, economics will rule in the galactic community. In that water, metals, energy, it's all cheap and everywhere. No need to have any competition over it. No, the only scarce thing is life and then even more it's intelligence. Any other civilization will be desperate to get rights over us and our history. So, to me, the aliens will come to us loud and proud. Balloons and banners. And of course, a contract as long as a the rings of Saturn, with print as small as the atoms. We shouldn't be wary of the weapons, but the lawyers
- antonvs 1y ago
  I agree, the dark forest argument seems rooted in a kind of paranoia bordering on the insane. No sane culture says “we better just exterminate anyone else we come across just in case,” which is essentially the threat that the dark forest is guarding against. And a culture that does act that way is likely to end up exterminating itself.
  - stickfigure 1y ago
    And yet we see nations like Russia (well, leaders like Putin) acting as if the world is a zero-sum game. The war in Ukraine vaguely looks like the Borg trying to assimilate every resource (geographical or human) in sight. China (well, Xi) seems to be eyeing a similar path. I feel like there's something worth noting about the Three Body Problem being a product of its culture.
    - badosu 1y ago
      I really have a hard time understanding this train of thought. One could say these sentences are also a product of "its culture". The world is not black or white, good or evil. Things are more nuanced and complicated than advertised to be. I'm not the single source of truth either, but I think there are lots of resources for people interested in avoiding propaganda and trying to understand things more deeply.
      - stickfigure 1y ago
        Sometimes the bully just wants your lunch money.
        badosu 1y ago
        Maybe, but at least I believe there's plenty historical evidence for a different interpretation than: "russia and china big bad, their values are wrong/not aligned with the west"
        stickfigure 11mo ago
        The only values that matter from a moral principle are the values of the people living in Ukraine and Taiwan.
        int_19h 11mo ago
        I can't speak for China, but when it comes to Russia, take it from a citizen: yes, it is that bad, and the reason is that it's an empire that can't stop being an empire without falling apart (much like Ottoman Empire -> Turkey did).
  - poncho_romero 1y ago
    The reason for the paranoia is that the risks are maximal. Any planet can destroy any other planet by accelerating a small projectile at it, so long as it achieves sufficient kinetic force. The projectile can be so tiny as to be effectively undetectable until it’s too late. So you have a situation where everyone you meet is carrying WMDs, and you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to get revenge if they fire first. Finally, every actor knows the predicament and nothing else about the other actors. If you don’t know who is on the other side of the radio transmission, but you do know they can destroy you immediately and without consequence, and you know they know you can do the same to them, the only rational choice is to shoot first, because you’d better not shoot second!
    - Balgair 1y ago
      But the reverse it true too. You can't be sure you got every one of the other species. Especially with the transmission times at light speed. In the books, they use these dimension collapsing bombs to eradicate everything, but, um, those don't actually exist. Even in the books, humanity still survives in little groups, some bent on vengeance. Much safer to make friends or coinvestors, slaves at the very least. Get them all to buy in and police themselves. Better yet, you take that one rare thing, life, intelligence, and put it to work for you. Make the aliens you've just contacted be a part of the pyramid scheme
      - Nevermark 1y ago
        > slaves at the very least If you think that's a relevant upside, then some of them think so too. Well we better just start shooting up all the exoplanets as soon as we can. Not take any chances.
      - freefrog1234 1y ago
        I didn't consider dimension collapsing bombs realistic either. It is the objects sped up to a fraction of light speed which were more scary. The cylons carpet bombed the planet with nuclear bombs which was plausible.
        1y ago
  - vee-kay 1y ago
    Read up on colonial history. The stronger civilizations have always exterminated or exploited & subsumed the weaker civilizations.
    - int_19h 11mo ago
      At best that tells you that humans are like that for the past 10k years or so, which is a blip even in our own species' history, never mind some more advanced aliens.
- MoreQARespect 1y ago
  I sincerely hope aliens dont end up being space americans. earth has oil and wmds.
- lowbloodsugar 1y ago
  Contracts are useless without a way to enforce them and any aliens that already have the means to enforce them won't bother having us sign contracts.
  - ianburrell 1y ago
    In that scenario, there is a galactic community. Galactic community is going to have something like contracts, and a way to enforce them. It might be a problem for Earth since we would have to get to planet with court, and we don't have FTL. Galactic community might have rules about developing species, but we can make agreements once "escape".
- protocolture 1y ago
  >So, to me, the aliens will come to us loud and proud. Balloons and banners. Charles Stross' Singularity Sky seems the most reasonable to me. Superintelligent computers trade unimaginable technology (their infintely replicable trash) for their most sought after asset (new forms of entertainment) and then just piss off to another world having completely bent our cultural development.
- wernerb 1y ago
  in the book it's literally called the "chain of suspicion", pretty sure it's quite culturally colored
socalgal2 1y ago
how is the same thing not true of every creature on earth. Or every tribe? and yet here we are
- wernerb 1y ago
  Distance and time. Time is a weapon for a civilization to develop
vecter 1y ago
The dark forest is such an obviously false theory to me. Its axioms are: 1. Survival is the primary goal of all civilizations. Agree. 2. Resources in the universe are finite. True in the theoretical sense, but false in the practical sense. 3. Civilizations cannot be certain of others’ intentions. Not obviously true or false. 4. Communication is dangerous. This is such a strong axiom and is almost certainly false. Its conclusion from applying the four axioms is that preemptive annihilation is the rational strategy. As an alien civilization, if your strategy for survival in the cosmos is to "immediately and totally annihilate any sign of life", then that is almost a surely losing strategy. If intelligent life is prevalent, and the cost of annihilating a species is so low that they can just do it willy-nilly, then all it takes is one surviving colony to use the same superweapon against you and you're finished. Oh, you'd also have to be annihilating species left and right across the galaxy without revealing your location. And in the worst case, you've just pissed off all the known alien entities in your galactic neighborhood. Good luck to you. It makes for fun writing, but I don't understand how anyone can take it seriously.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  > 3. Civilizations cannot be certain of others’ intentions. > Not obviously true or false. "Intentions are uncertain" is true, though. If you are claiming that it is possible to be certain of other civilisations intentions, I am very skeptical.

Balgair 1y ago

I never did buy the dark forest argument. I mean, even in the books, there were smidgeons of humanity left over. And then all the dimension collapsing strangeness. You just can never be sure. I dunno, it just reeks of the culture of suspicion in communist China. A product of that place and time. My own idea is the 'used car salesman' idea of the universe. (Reeking of my own mind and place and time). To me, economics will rule in the galactic community. In that water, metals, energy, it's all cheap and everywhere. No need to have any competition over it. No, the only scarce thing is life and then even more it's intelligence. Any other civilization will be desperate to get rights over us and our history. So, to me, the aliens will come to us loud and proud. Balloons and banners. And of course, a contract as long as a the rings of Saturn, with print as small as the atoms. We shouldn't be wary of the weapons, but the lawyers

antonvs 1y ago
I agree, the dark forest argument seems rooted in a kind of paranoia bordering on the insane. No sane culture says “we better just exterminate anyone else we come across just in case,” which is essentially the threat that the dark forest is guarding against. And a culture that does act that way is likely to end up exterminating itself.
- stickfigure 1y ago
  And yet we see nations like Russia (well, leaders like Putin) acting as if the world is a zero-sum game. The war in Ukraine vaguely looks like the Borg trying to assimilate every resource (geographical or human) in sight. China (well, Xi) seems to be eyeing a similar path. I feel like there's something worth noting about the Three Body Problem being a product of its culture.
  - badosu 1y ago
    I really have a hard time understanding this train of thought. One could say these sentences are also a product of "its culture". The world is not black or white, good or evil. Things are more nuanced and complicated than advertised to be. I'm not the single source of truth either, but I think there are lots of resources for people interested in avoiding propaganda and trying to understand things more deeply.
    - stickfigure 1y ago
      Sometimes the bully just wants your lunch money.
      - badosu 1y ago
        Maybe, but at least I believe there's plenty historical evidence for a different interpretation than: "russia and china big bad, their values are wrong/not aligned with the west"
        stickfigure 11mo ago
        The only values that matter from a moral principle are the values of the people living in Ukraine and Taiwan.
        int_19h 11mo ago
        I can't speak for China, but when it comes to Russia, take it from a citizen: yes, it is that bad, and the reason is that it's an empire that can't stop being an empire without falling apart (much like Ottoman Empire -> Turkey did).
- poncho_romero 1y ago
  The reason for the paranoia is that the risks are maximal. Any planet can destroy any other planet by accelerating a small projectile at it, so long as it achieves sufficient kinetic force. The projectile can be so tiny as to be effectively undetectable until it’s too late. So you have a situation where everyone you meet is carrying WMDs, and you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to get revenge if they fire first. Finally, every actor knows the predicament and nothing else about the other actors. If you don’t know who is on the other side of the radio transmission, but you do know they can destroy you immediately and without consequence, and you know they know you can do the same to them, the only rational choice is to shoot first, because you’d better not shoot second!
  - Balgair 1y ago
    But the reverse it true too. You can't be sure you got every one of the other species. Especially with the transmission times at light speed. In the books, they use these dimension collapsing bombs to eradicate everything, but, um, those don't actually exist. Even in the books, humanity still survives in little groups, some bent on vengeance. Much safer to make friends or coinvestors, slaves at the very least. Get them all to buy in and police themselves. Better yet, you take that one rare thing, life, intelligence, and put it to work for you. Make the aliens you've just contacted be a part of the pyramid scheme
    - Nevermark 1y ago
      > slaves at the very least If you think that's a relevant upside, then some of them think so too. Well we better just start shooting up all the exoplanets as soon as we can. Not take any chances.
    - freefrog1234 1y ago
      I didn't consider dimension collapsing bombs realistic either. It is the objects sped up to a fraction of light speed which were more scary. The cylons carpet bombed the planet with nuclear bombs which was plausible.
      - 1y ago
- vee-kay 1y ago
  Read up on colonial history. The stronger civilizations have always exterminated or exploited & subsumed the weaker civilizations.
  - int_19h 11mo ago
    At best that tells you that humans are like that for the past 10k years or so, which is a blip even in our own species' history, never mind some more advanced aliens.
MoreQARespect 1y ago
I sincerely hope aliens dont end up being space americans. earth has oil and wmds.
lowbloodsugar 1y ago
Contracts are useless without a way to enforce them and any aliens that already have the means to enforce them won't bother having us sign contracts.
- ianburrell 1y ago
  In that scenario, there is a galactic community. Galactic community is going to have something like contracts, and a way to enforce them. It might be a problem for Earth since we would have to get to planet with court, and we don't have FTL. Galactic community might have rules about developing species, but we can make agreements once "escape".
protocolture 1y ago
>So, to me, the aliens will come to us loud and proud. Balloons and banners. Charles Stross' Singularity Sky seems the most reasonable to me. Superintelligent computers trade unimaginable technology (their infintely replicable trash) for their most sought after asset (new forms of entertainment) and then just piss off to another world having completely bent our cultural development.
wernerb 1y ago
in the book it's literally called the "chain of suspicion", pretty sure it's quite culturally colored

socalgal2 1y ago

how is the same thing not true of every creature on earth. Or every tribe? and yet here we are

wernerb 1y ago
Distance and time. Time is a weapon for a civilization to develop

vecter 1y ago

The dark forest is such an obviously false theory to me. Its axioms are: 1. Survival is the primary goal of all civilizations. Agree. 2. Resources in the universe are finite. True in the theoretical sense, but false in the practical sense. 3. Civilizations cannot be certain of others’ intentions. Not obviously true or false. 4. Communication is dangerous. This is such a strong axiom and is almost certainly false. Its conclusion from applying the four axioms is that preemptive annihilation is the rational strategy. As an alien civilization, if your strategy for survival in the cosmos is to "immediately and totally annihilate any sign of life", then that is almost a surely losing strategy. If intelligent life is prevalent, and the cost of annihilating a species is so low that they can just do it willy-nilly, then all it takes is one surviving colony to use the same superweapon against you and you're finished. Oh, you'd also have to be annihilating species left and right across the galaxy without revealing your location. And in the worst case, you've just pissed off all the known alien entities in your galactic neighborhood. Good luck to you. It makes for fun writing, but I don't understand how anyone can take it seriously.

lelanthran 1y ago
> 3. Civilizations cannot be certain of others’ intentions. > Not obviously true or false. "Intentions are uncertain" is true, though. If you are claiming that it is possible to be certain of other civilisations intentions, I am very skeptical.