How can game theory tell us that hiding from a malicious civilization is a safer choice than exposing ourselves to a benevolent civilization that could rescue us from some danger impossible for us to handle?
Essentially, any alien civilization that survives in the long term is silent and hostile. But especially silent since being hostile can reveal your location.
You'd have to explain why. Logically, the first two civilizations to "team up" would easily handle any single civilization that challenges them. A civilization that happens to beat them would find among its attractive options a Nobunaga Gambit: taking on the vanquished foe's mission of unification (since it worked until it didn't - and the one time it didn't work, there was a terrifyingly good chance that it could have).
"The Dark Forest" as an idea is inextricable from its cultural origins, a China that's rather pessimistic about inter-civilizational contact because of its recent history. That it resonates amidst a zeitgeist of global instability doesn't make it universally correct. Gene Roddenberry's competing vision might seem optimistic, but it's not naive; beneath Starfleet's cheery veneer is the Neo Princess Serenitian realpolitik of, "Peace, or else."
This assumes defense is possible. Two loud cooperating civilizations don’t seem like they’d stand much of a chance against a silent, hostile civilization that quietly chucks a few rocks at both homeworlds and any interesting-looking moons, timed to arrive at roughly the same time.
I don't think saying "logically" and then an unsubstantiated claim constitutes a proof.
If two civilizations team up, whether that makes them stronger, weaker, or equally effective, is not certain IMO.
When two human companies merge, the result is often mistrust, poor communication, poor effectiveness, and sometimes ultimately failure. Sometimes the result of the merger is more effective.
A single, decisive government can run more effective than an indecisive coalition with no clear leader.
I just don't see how a definitive conclusion is possible any way. Surely it would vary case by case.
Those are all important considerations when talking about particular circumstances. Mathematically, however, 2 is greater than 1.
I say "logically" in the sense that, across a broad view of conflicts, the larger combatant usually does the most damage. The reason why is particular to each conflict (more bodies to throw, more brains devoted to tech development, more industrial output, etc.), and when it does not happen, the reason why is also similarly particular. You can also argue whether the circumstances truly yield a "win" (as in asymmetric warfare that ends with the smaller force driving out the larger one on logistical grounds, despite sustaining heavier losses). (Also note that "war" is not "business"; alliances are more important when the outcome of lost battles isn't just lost access to capital, but lost lives).
Humans become a rabbit, the malicious species a fox, the benevolent species humans.
If the rabbit is injured, making noise and hoping for humans to help is a fools errand as the fox is more likely to hear and eat the rabbit.
This is engrained in our evolution.
What value is there to get from going into interstellar war (provided such a thing is even practical).
When discussing aliens you have to consider that their reasoning, their culture, their motivations, their technology, their customs, their values are all _alien_ to us. You have to be open minded, for every excuse we can come up with for "why not" there are infinite explanations for "why so".
Yet on a cultural level, I think the "food/slaves" narratives of alien invasion are actually failing to be open-minded enough. Mechanical labor and physical nutrition are the kinds of things that our newly industrialized post-colonial societies worry about. It's not actually a particularly "alien" idea. Thinking a much more technologically advanced society would come to Earth for the same reasons comes across to me as projecting our own anxieties and sins.
People still eat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortolan_bunting despite the illegality, low nutritional value, and the ready availability of other options.
If you are a civ who is able to do it, surely you can grow whatever food you need at home and have advanced AI/robotics that can provide labour.
That being said, Harry Turtledove wrote a great story about interstellar travel being easy and humanity somehow missing that branch of the tech tree.
Road Not Taken: https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
> If you are a civ who is able to do it, surely you can grow whatever food you need at home and have advanced AI/robotics that can provide labour.
If you are the first one and want to make sure to prevent all future advanced civilizations from evolving, you send out von Neumann probes. You can tell them to build relativistic kill missiles and destroy all planets. No planets = no new civs, probably.
You don't know that. Maybe our planet once had some amazing high-energy isotope/mineral that was completely mined out.
If these aliens can not only travel but do resource extraction at interstellar distances, that implies having highly advanced fusion or annihilation reactors.
Minerals are just chemical reaction products, and therefore necessarily cost negligible energy to synthesize compared to interstellar travel. It's easier to just make the minerals you need.
Isotopes are finite in number, and we already know and largely understand all the ones are likely to ever be useful. "Island of Stability" nuclei may or may not be possible beyond that, but even if they're not only possible but also useful, they will almost certainly have halflives short enough that they will also have to be synthesized rather than mined. So, there's no competing over planets either way.
At the lower end of the tech levels where you can have interstellar industry, the only "amazingly high-energy isotope/mineral" is hydrogen fusion fuel. There's nothing in the Earth's crust or core that could be useful for them, because terrestrial planets are made out of spent nuclear detritus. Though maybe they can bring a big fusion candle and just run off with Jupiter, if they forget about their own gas giants and stars.
At the higher end of the tech scale, even hydrogen stops being a resource. Matter annihilation (e.g. via microscopic black holes) means that it doesn't matter what element or chemical your fuel is made out of when you're converting it directly to energy.
I think any resource competition argument for "dark forest" exopolitics really undersells how vast space is, and how abundant resources are. A single Jupiter with basic fusion reactors could easily sustain quadrillions of humans in enormously inefficient utopian living conditions for trillions of years. [1] It's going to need to get a lot more crowded before fighting over minerals is something that any sane interstellar civilization would worry about.
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1: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28%28jupitermass%2Fpro...
No, it doesn't. You don't know what you don't know. Aliens can have tech based on some rare isotope/mineral/whatever.
> Minerals are just chemical reaction products, and therefore necessarily cost negligible energy to synthesize compared to interstellar travel. It's easier to just make the minerals you need.
Unless these minerals require special rare isotopes or some other material we're not yet aware.
> Isotopes are finite in number, and we already know and largely understand all the ones are likely to ever be useful.
No, we do not. Google "island of stability".
> At the lower end of the tech levels where you can have interstellar industry, the only "amazingly high-energy isotope/mineral" is hydrogen fusion fuel.
That statement isn't a fact. Unless you magically synthesized all possible isotopes and materials. Which you didn't.
> There's nothing in the Earth's crust or core that could be useful for them
But maybe there was, that's the argument.
> Matter annihilation (e.g. via microscopic black holes)
Again, you're talking about known science. Not everything. You don't know what you don't know.
> A single Jupiter with basic fusion reactors could easily sustain quadrillions of humans in enormously inefficient utopian living conditions for trillions of years.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with the argument we're having. It doesn't disprove that there might have been some rare resource (or maybe it's still here, we just didn't get to it).
You can only put so much strain on a chemical bond before the electrons decide to stop sticking together anymore. You can only get as much energy out as the mass change from splitting an atom. You can only store as much energy in a heavy nucleus as was originally put into it by the supernova that created it. Anything else would violate basic laws of physics, to such a degree that everything in our universe would presumably immediately cease to exist.
> No, we do not. Google "island of stability".
I already addressed the hypothetical island of stability in the sentence immediately after the one you quoted. The term is relative. They are expected to have longer halflives than the instantly decaying superheavies like ununoctium, but even the longer predictions of their decay properties have them disappearing far too quickly to be mined as minerals.
I'll add now that there's also no reason to believe that island of stability substances, if they even exist, will have any more particularly useful or powerful properties than any other heavy metal. When was the last time you needed to use Mendelevium for something?
> Yes, but that has nothing to do with the argument we're having. It doesn't disprove that there might have been some rare resource (or maybe it's still here, we just didn't get to it).
It disproves the idea that there might be some useful resource which you would want to go conquering for. The resources available in any star system are already more than any conceivable civilization could ever use.
The other side of this is the difficulty of interstellar travel. Reaching relativistic speeds implies turning a significant fraction of your vehicle's mass into energy. With the ability to create and manipulate such power densities, you're better off just synthesizing whatever you need.
> No, it doesn't. You don't know what you don't know.
> But maybe there was, that's the argument.
> Again, you're talking about known science. Not everything. You don't know what you don't know.
If the argument for suggesting a complete break from the known laws of physics can be summarized as "You don't know what you don't know", then you may as well argue that the universe is secretly controlled by a giant space cat which will reward us with salmon if we all shine laser pointers in our retinas every third Thursday.
"Maybe there was" is not actually an argument, in the sense that there is neither anything specifically substantiating it which can be examined, nor any falsifiable conditions which may disprove it.
And then you engage in obvious logical fallacies like talking about mendelevium, as if it's exactly the same as hypothetical stable isotopes from the island of stability. You have no idea what you're talking about, you have not produced those isotopes, no human did.
And then you engaged in completely dishonest straw man with the space cat. I never claimed that there are such isotopes or other used yet unknown natural materials, I just suggested that there may have been some.
Considering how dishonest you are, I won't respond any more.
The entire point of "science" is that you can and should make reasonable predictions based on past observations. E.G. Mendelevium. Calling that a "obvious logical fallacy" is… Disturbing, frankly.
You know, I've yet to see you make a single point that's based on anything more than "Maybe", "No, it doesn't", or "How dishonest you are". Lots of rhetoric. Not much else.
It is your choice to interpret disagreement and contradictory information as "dishonest". Have fun with that.
"I never claimed… I just suggested." Ffs.
Better to strike first than gamble.
Much harder to wipe out a civilisation that's dispersed among hundreds or thousands of smaller space colonies. Especially if many of those colonies are hidden in an asteroid belt of millions of rocks.
Whatever scattered remnants that are left of humanity hanging out in the asteroid belt are going to have a hell of a time finding food to eat or oxygen to breathe.
Do you think they'll be reliant on planets for food an oxygen? That's daft — they will be growing their own food and mining their own oxygen.
Also, I doubt they will be "scattered remnants" — there's likely to eventually be a far larger population off-planet than on.
How does this play out with two apex predators...? When you travel in bear-infested woods, the common refrain is to make your presence known -- better to let the other apex predator aware of your existence so you can both give one another a wide berth. Or the Teddy Roosevelt style - walk softly, but carry a big stick.
> This is engrained in our evolution.
Literally the exact opposite?
> Recent research has also shown that the acoustic properties of human screams can be reliably detected within noisy environments, something presumably indicative of having evolved in noisy environments, such as dense forests, where there is a strong adaptive pressure to reliably signal danger (Nandwana et al., 2015).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...
> Rabbit Basic Science: The only vocal sounds that are made are a loud high-pitched scream of terror or a range of growls and hums that denote pleasure or defence. Apprehensive or frightened rabbits will thump the ground with their hind feet. The loud thumping sounds acts as an alarm signal to other rabbits in the vicinity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7158370/
> Screaming among rabbits indicates alarm associated with fear, pain, and psychological distress. Your rabbit may scream because it is scared of being attacked or dying. Rabbits also scream when they’re in excruciating pain, or when they’re having a seizure. …it is a sign of extreme pain, terror, or calling out for help.
https://www.rabbitcaretips.com/why-do-rabbits-scream/
> Lima beans release volatile chemical signals that are received by nearby plants of the same species when infested with spider mites. This 'message' allows the recipients to prepare themselves by activating defense genes, making them less vulnerable to attack, and also attracting another mite species that is a predator of spider mites (indirect defence).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_signal
IMO "Dark Forest Theory"— The idea that (1) nobody would ever help anyone else and (2) nobody could ever understand anyone else because (3) we're all dumb forest animals capable of nothing higher than survival, so we may as well (a) hide and (b) kill anyone that tries to talk to us— That probably says more about the people arguing for it, or about our own providence, than it does about any probable intestellar ecology.
> Humans become a rabbit, the malicious species a fox, the benevolent species humans.
In fact, if anything, using humans as the example of a benevolent society points out the absurdity of assuming that more technologically advanced polities must necessarily be malicious.
Killers don't prosper in civilized societies. And technologically advanced societies ruled by killers don't last long.
Europeans came to Africa, India and Americas with some better tech. How benevolent were europeans?