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Comment by mgaunard | Hacker News Reader

The dark forest hypothesis sort of existed before Liu Cixin.

In a more general form too, and one that I think might be more realistic (depending on the ultimate limits of technology):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_hypothesis

It's not more general, it's more specific. Berserker hypothesis is basically grey goo that goes interstellar. The Dark Forest is about how lack of trust, unpredictable technological jumps, and speed of light being dog slow, force civilizations to preemptively destroy any other civilization they spot, while themselves trying to not get discovered.

Berserker event is effectively an implementation detail of one of possible events in the Dark Forest.

I disagree. I think the conditions to get a game theory style setup going are quite specific. Always "defecting" against everything (with no warning) and clearing outwards as fast as you can is probably converged upon along many paths, from many starting points, as long as the physics allows it.

Like Wikipedia says, Dark Forest is for people who are limited in tech and resources. Or have a weird sense of ethics, but ask Robin Hanson how long he thinks that would last.

I'm not sure how this article relates to the dark forest hypothesis, or really anything else for that matter—I can't see the thread. Can anyone summarize?

It doesn't relate to it very much.

It's based on another article that claims that people mostly interacting in their own social bubble, fueled by algorithms which mostly isolate people further, is akin to making the Internet a dark forest.

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