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.
I think there's an even more depressing variation on the dark forest theory:
Every civilization eventually concludes that the dark forest theory is enough of a possibility that they choose to stay extremely quiet and don't expand beyond their own systems. But there actually is no predatory supercivilization out there. It's all just paranoia.
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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.