I'm pretty sure he's talking about the Zoo Hypothesis. i.e. our presence is known to other intelligent civilization(s), and for whatever reason they've decided to hide themselves and not engage. Like a village would refer to wolves in the surrounding forest.

For this to work though, you have to have one advanced civilization that has either absorbed the others ("unitary") or powerful enough enforce the rules. Otherwise it would be pretty inevitable that out of a hodge-podge of civilizations one of them would say screw it and engage.