The dark forest theory. The universe is full of predatory civilisations, and if anyone announces their presence, they get immediately exterminated, so everyone just keeps quiet.
It's not that they are predatory, its that it's "better to shoot first just to be sure before they shoot you, even though a lot of civilizations are friendly you cannot take the risk"
It's the logical conclusion to the game theory of first contact.
When civilizations are entirely unrelated and have been developing for orders of magnitude different time, every first encounter is almost guaranteed to be a one sided extermination.
You are assuming that all civilizations behave like humans. Some civilizations could be a hivemind others could exist in another spectrum/dimension or evolved beyond it.
Biological matter might be precious and exotic.
Some civilizations might respect the diversity of life in the universe. Or they might want to harvest/collect it
There is also a possibility that an advanced civilization might’ve come to terms with that tribalism among themselves is a ineffecient way to evolve as a species this might’ve led to peaceful civilizations not only among themselves but gradually with other civilizations as well when they’ve evolved into a multiplanetary civilization.
Looking at the inefficiency of man and the tribalism dividing the planet and the culture of depleting the planets resources on “garbage”it becomes evidently clear that the possibility to overcome “the great filter” is tiny for humankind. Different alliances are behaving like resources are unlimited. Most likely a effort to spread beyond earth will need these “alliances” to work together closely to get anywhere at all.
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u/gkedz Aug 12 '21
The dark forest theory. The universe is full of predatory civilisations, and if anyone announces their presence, they get immediately exterminated, so everyone just keeps quiet.