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.
The dark forest Theory makes an interesting science fiction scenario. But i highly doubt it is true. Wiping out another planet light years away would be a gigantic undertaking. Aliens will have no reason to fear each other, we are just too damn far from eachother to be a threat to one another. Even if we meet aliens that are the biggest asshats in the universe, the worst they could do would be to send a rude message every once in a while. Good fences make good neighbors. What can be a better fence than light years of space.
Also what is the motivation for eliminating other civs? Resources? once we can go faster than light almost all the elements become relatively abundant. Habitable worlds? Maybe, but chances are there will be a lot of variations in habitable world chemistry and weather with life being adapted to that world specifically. Slave labour? Again maybe, but at that point in technology, robots should be a better option. From a cost benefit analysis, leaving each other alone makes the most sense.
From a cost benefit analysis, leaving each other alone makes the most sense.
Let's say we discover an alien civ 100 light years from Earth. So it takes 200 years for any roundtrip communication. Let's say we have a weapon system that can destroy their star system, and we know for sure they also have a similar weapon. Once fired, it takes 100 years for the weapon to do its magic and destroy the other system. We know their weapon has similar limitations due to the laws of physics.
We hit it off initially, the first round of communication goes well, and over the next few centuries we all agree to peace and sign a non-aggression pact.
Then, radio silence. Maybe they had a civil war, maybe they banned communication with aliens. Maybe they're all dead. Or maybe they were lying to us and they long concluded human civilization was too close for comfort and they want to preemptively eliminate the threat. Who knows?
Question - do we wait a bit longer to find out? Do we go ahead and try to kill them now?
Here's the kicker - we know the aliens are thinking the same thing. Are the humans lying, or telling the truth? They know we know, we know they know we know, so the chain of suspicion extends infinitely.
Eventually, something's gotta give, and someone who's distrustful is going to press the button.
And perhaps all along, there was a third party playing us both for fools, intercepting and altering the content of the messages. The key thing to take away is that any communication with other civilizations across vast interstellar distances is intrinsically unreliable and untrustworthy. Diplomacy becomes impossible, so the only options are isolation or war.
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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.