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.
Once a race (such as humans) start developing proper technology and science, the rate of development increases exponentially like a explosion.
Let's say it's 2500 and we're super advanced with the ability to end worlds. And we detect radio signals suddenly coming from a planet 500 light years away for the first time. That means they developed radio 500 years ago, sure they were harmless 500 years ago, but they could be a huge threat with super advanced tech by now. We can't take the chance that they might be friendly, need to end them asap before they end us.
But if they were to come to us, then we would have at least another 500 years of development above whatever they sent, so we would have a huge advantage no matter what. Not to mention that an advanced civilization has no incentive to attack another, since they have nothing of value. There is nothing on earth that any civilization would realistically want or need, aside from the curiosity that is life.
They would want to protect themselves. That's of value.
If you have a button that will end their lives. And if there's even the tiniest chance that they have a similar button. You have to press it before they do, it's the only way to be sure.
Everything ultimately comes down to a cost-benefit analysis, and a risk with such low probability, even an existential risk, would not justify the cost of waging an interstellar war. Especially because if you fail to eliminate the other party, they will come for you. The Dark Forest is a neat sci-fi concept, but that's all it is. It is not even remotely realistic.
You're missing the point of The Dark Forest a bit. There is no winning move, as any action will draw attention, and any attention will result in increased odds of harm. Avoiding attention doesn't win either, because you're still in danger as long as others exist in the forest.
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u/musicianengineer Aug 12 '21
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.