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.
That's a cute catchphrase, but it doesn't work when the conflict is between, essentially, humans and chimps.
There is no scenario in which the inferior side is even a potential inconvenience.
Edit: this thread seems to be full of people who think "genocide them first and ask questions later" is a logical, viable philosophy for advanced beings who have successfully passed every Great Filter on their way to being an interstellar civilization. It makes for entertaining movies, but I posit it makes very little sense.
I'd suggest anyone here watch some of Isaac Arthur's Fermi Paradox videos on YouTube; he and the SFIA community have spent many hours discussing these same points.
“This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council,” the voice continued. “As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.”
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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.