As the author of this article says at the top it makes for a fun science fiction, but doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense in reality. So why do people fixate so much on how not realistic this particular science fiction concept is? Writing science fiction isn't about making realistic theories of how reality is. It's about writing interesting things that are only loosely related to actual science.
It's also worth noting that this hypothesis is not an original idea of Liu's it just wasn't called a Dark Forest previously.
> So if Liu’s hypothesis is right, it makes sense for the galaxy’s top civilizations to just look at every star, see if there’s a civilization there, and wipe it out if so.
If resource are scarce, destroying stars and planets seems counterproductive. Why not just colonize as the Trisolarans made steps to do to Earth?
As others have pointed out, this is the most absurd thing. Resources are not scarce. Once you're out of your gravity well and have the tech to stay out of it, energy is effectively unlimited and probably any solar system has all the elements you'll need for whatever the thing is you do.
All of this kind of sci-fi is just projecting earthbound colonialism/imperialism motives built around the profit motive and resource scarcity and power out into a universe where none of that makes sense. They're good stories by analogy but have nothing to do with the "reality" of the future-worlds they purport to describe.
This isn't a convincing argument. A few thousand years ago North and South America would have been thought of as effectively unlimited resources.
In living memory a gig internet plan would have seemed like an effectively unlimited resource in a world of 56k modems. YouTube and Netflix couldn't have even been a PoC when everyone was using AOL 2.5. I fully expect there to be ground breaking changes in my lifetime to the Internet if we get for instance speeds capable of downloading the equivalent of the entire Internet today.
We don't know what other forms of life might do, but when humans have the ability to effectively consume a resource we push and find new ways to consume it all to make our lives better. Today we are only thinking of slowing progress (but definitely not stopping )on Earth because we seem to be making the planet unliveable eventually. If we begin colonizing other planets I don't see why we wouldn't continue the trend and end up in a galaxy where every liveable planet is populated and used like in Foundation eventually if there isn't some other form of life pushing back like in 3 Body. If we don't need to actually live on the planet we would likely accelerate the resources usage.
Well...and even during the most competitive and severe colonialist/imperialist periods on earth, extermination was very much the exception and not the norm.
We used to think that the idea of humans wiping out species was absurd; after all, there are so many animals out there that us puny humans can't possibly kill all of them. Maybe its the same with interstellar resources; once we master space travel, our energy needs will grow to an absurd amount.
Are resources really scarce? Other than stars and planets, there are plenty of resources in the astroids and gas giants, and interstellar space. We can argue that the most scarce resource is organic matter. In universal scale, wood is exponentially more scarce than gold.
Yeah, and the nature of the Dark Forest galaxy would mean that no civilization could get anywhere close to utilizing a significant share of total resources--or even a significant share of the total resources in their backyard--because doing so would attract attention and lead to their extinction. If everybody is busy hiding and being as quiet and careful as possible then resources would be abundant for lack of use--and thus it would not be worth it to fight over resources in the short term.
If resource are scarce, destroying stars and planets seems counterproductive.
Just stick with destroying life bearing planets. Over 99% of the matter in the Solar System is in the Sun.
Why not just colonize as the Trisolarans made steps to do to Earth?
If one is technologically advanced enough to move to the next star system 4 LY away in a huge generation ship fleet, one is advanced enough to build O'Neil cylinder space colonies and dominate the solar system. Going after Earth makes no sense.
In the book, the entire system would be sacrificed. It's many orders of magnitude easier to target a star than a planet, and the tool used permanently altered spacetime itself in a sphere expanding at lightspeed (similar to vacuum decay, but I can't recall the exact mechanism).
Its not about resource scarcity, its about first strike capability in the face of inability to communicate. You think we would have avoided buclear armeggedon up to now if there wasnt a red phone in the kremlin and in the oval office to allow the ussr and us leader to directly communicate? What do you do when you can't communicate but you possess galaxy ending stealth weapons and you can't tell if the other guy also posses them? Shoot first, ask questions later
Alien civilisations were destroying entire stars for just being suspicious, and did it within a few decades of receiving information, which means (due to the speed of light limitation) that star destroying weapons were spread around the galaxy every few dozen light years. This means resources were extremely abundant, so it's absurd that a civilisation that can do this simply can't send a probe to every star to check for civilisations.
Darn straight. And then colonize or subjugate any existing populations.
I think the books obliquely addressed this by having one of the major civilizations mention a comparable civilization that was its antagonist. But even so, subjugation or incorporation of other intelligent species shouldn't have been impossible.
> If resource are scarce, destroying stars and planets seems counterproductive.
Resources aren't scarce, they're just finite. If there are 19 uninhabited systems for every inhabited one, it may seam reasonable to obliterate 5% of systems if it helps you control the other 95%.
The theory is that any civilization can become as powerful as you are and then you are at constant threat of first strike attack.
So you need to first strike before they will ever get that chance.
You cannot make an assumption about other side. They can be pacifists or a hive mind with no morals.
> Why not just colonize
Why bother, you are already star destroying apex species.
Trisolarans were relatively low tech civ in the book.
In the book and theory of dark forest only most ruthless civs will survive. Civ that will make contact with others might thrive for a while, until they get discovered by ruthless civ.
I don't think it has anything to do with resources. It's more to do with anyone in the galaxy can decide to end your planet, do you really want to bet your civilization on ALL other civilizations being friendly? It could be rational, game theory, "grabby aliens", religious reasons, etc.
The other issue is you could meet a perfectly sane looking alien civilization, but lose track of them, and before you check in again (say after 100 years) they could be a completely different civilization. Just imagine if the USA can go from far Obama to Trump in a year (or a day), how far you might get in 100 years.
Combine the high latency communications and impossible defense against a good offense (near light speed weapons) leads to the dark forest hypothesis.
Yes, my recollection of the books is that it isn't about the need to keep consuming resources, it is about the premise that it is impossible to judge if another civilization is hostile or going to turn hostile
If your civilization can annihilated in a single strike, the only civilizations that survive have the strategy to a) avoid being detected and b) destroy anyone who has detected them (which results in destroying everyone, to eliminate uncertainty).
The idea being that assuming the actual survival of your species is at the top of your moral pyramid, all kinds of atrocities in its defense are justifiable.
Not absurd if you consider enslavement. Anyone worried about AI alignment will be in the dark forest camp. You simply can't trust the universe to care about you any more than it already does.
Enslavement only matters if your level of productivity is still on roughly the same order of magnitude (as in, up to minus a few) of your masters. e.g. you are a cow, a jug of your cow milk is still worth a few dollars in human markets. That means it's still worth it to keep you around.
If you're a mosquito OTOH... even enslavement is not worth it. It's eradication.
I tried to read the books in Russian, in English but they just don't click for me.
Also I just cannot accept any analogy of dark forest with empty and dead place. Anyone who've been to the forest or even seen any documentary knows/hears/sees that it's also full of life
> Anyone who've been to the forest or even seen any documentary knows/hears/sees that it's also full of life
All books I've read about the Amazon rainforest describe it as an extremely harsh place almost devoid of easily spotted pray or food. Anything that falls to the forest floor is consumed very quickly. There's a ton of life there, it's just ruthlessly competitive and therefore beyond easy sight.
I think the Dark Forest concept fits perfectly here. We see "empty" space wherein fact life could be just behind the curtains of "self preservation".
> Also I just cannot accept any analogy of dark forest with empty and dead place.
Huh? I don't even know what you are talking about.
First of all dark forest is not about empty and dead place. Its about being able to blend in with the forest so no one can discover you. Once spotted you become dead, once you spot someone else in your best interest is to destroy them if you can do it without being spotted.
In the books there are several civilizations, and hits that there were plenty more living in higher dimensions.
The Dark Forest theory being popular right now is more a reflection of our society and our fears.
Stanislaw Lem has a good take on the subject of biological systems evolution in his "Summa Technologae".
Carl Sagan and Shklovsky also wrote a lot on the topic ("Intelligent Life in the Universe" for example). But they also represent a different time, the Cold War.
Importantly, Liu’s books basically abandon the very same idea in the second and third books of the series (aliens that very actively battle across the galaxy and have many many opportunities to interact, which kind of undermines the premises of the dark forest argument)
It is not absurd. It depends on the type of beings at play. Plants don't kill each other, but animals do on a daily basis, from whales to mosquitoes, they're all part of a macabre annihilation dance where strength, intelligence and mimetism play important roles.
Through different eras, men have traveled long distances to kill, subjugate, enslave other people, and to consume everything that can be consumed, we won't change if we start going to the outer space. Being the most advanced species on earth doesn't make us different, as spiders, fish, birds, wolves, anything that moves is determined to kill or be killed, so it's not only a human trait.
Is it a dark forest? We don't know, it may just be an open battleground where intelligence is the final conqueror and that's exactly what rides on top of the arrow of evolution.
They absolutely do. From simple concepts like resource competition in which trees deplete the ground or outcompete each other for sunlight (e.g. any forest floor is usually not covered in grass) to parasitism and strangulating vines and whatnot, these guys are hostile and deadly to one another. They just don't run around much.
> through different eras, men have traveled long distances to kill, subjugate, enslave other people
I know lichens are considered "symbiotic" but I'm not sure what you would call a fungus that breeds algae cells and consumes them for nourishment. In that vein we're also symbiotic with pigs, which I find an inappropriate term.
Either way, my point is: Animals aren't remotely as unique as many people think.
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It's also worth noting that this hypothesis is not an original idea of Liu's it just wasn't called a Dark Forest previously.
Yes, Greg Bear explores the concept in Forge of God (1987) and Anvil of Stars (1992), twenty years before Liu. David Brin also covered it.
Anvil of Stars really explores the moral quandary from the perspectives of a civilisation that can take revenge in such an environment.
it's called "science" fiction because there is an attempt to extract scientific theory and thought, and it's implications.
Otherwise it's fantasy, space opera, or just plain ole magical fiction.
If resource are scarce, destroying stars and planets seems counterproductive. Why not just colonize as the Trisolarans made steps to do to Earth?
All of this kind of sci-fi is just projecting earthbound colonialism/imperialism motives built around the profit motive and resource scarcity and power out into a universe where none of that makes sense. They're good stories by analogy but have nothing to do with the "reality" of the future-worlds they purport to describe.
In living memory a gig internet plan would have seemed like an effectively unlimited resource in a world of 56k modems. YouTube and Netflix couldn't have even been a PoC when everyone was using AOL 2.5. I fully expect there to be ground breaking changes in my lifetime to the Internet if we get for instance speeds capable of downloading the equivalent of the entire Internet today.
We don't know what other forms of life might do, but when humans have the ability to effectively consume a resource we push and find new ways to consume it all to make our lives better. Today we are only thinking of slowing progress (but definitely not stopping )on Earth because we seem to be making the planet unliveable eventually. If we begin colonizing other planets I don't see why we wouldn't continue the trend and end up in a galaxy where every liveable planet is populated and used like in Foundation eventually if there isn't some other form of life pushing back like in 3 Body. If we don't need to actually live on the planet we would likely accelerate the resources usage.
The estimate for gold in the universe is 50B tons.
There's 550B tons of organic matter on earth - I'm assuming most of that being plant mass.
And that's if you're certain Earth is the only planet in the entire universe that has organic life.
That's the claim in the linked article.
Just stick with destroying life bearing planets. Over 99% of the matter in the Solar System is in the Sun.
Why not just colonize as the Trisolarans made steps to do to Earth?
If one is technologically advanced enough to move to the next star system 4 LY away in a huge generation ship fleet, one is advanced enough to build O'Neil cylinder space colonies and dominate the solar system. Going after Earth makes no sense.
I think the books obliquely addressed this by having one of the major civilizations mention a comparable civilization that was its antagonist. But even so, subjugation or incorporation of other intelligent species shouldn't have been impossible.
Resources aren't scarce, they're just finite. If there are 19 uninhabited systems for every inhabited one, it may seam reasonable to obliterate 5% of systems if it helps you control the other 95%.
The theory is that any civilization can become as powerful as you are and then you are at constant threat of first strike attack.
So you need to first strike before they will ever get that chance.
You cannot make an assumption about other side. They can be pacifists or a hive mind with no morals.
> Why not just colonize
Why bother, you are already star destroying apex species.
Trisolarans were relatively low tech civ in the book.
In the book and theory of dark forest only most ruthless civs will survive. Civ that will make contact with others might thrive for a while, until they get discovered by ruthless civ.
The other issue is you could meet a perfectly sane looking alien civilization, but lose track of them, and before you check in again (say after 100 years) they could be a completely different civilization. Just imagine if the USA can go from far Obama to Trump in a year (or a day), how far you might get in 100 years.
Combine the high latency communications and impossible defense against a good offense (near light speed weapons) leads to the dark forest hypothesis.
If your civilization can annihilated in a single strike, the only civilizations that survive have the strategy to a) avoid being detected and b) destroy anyone who has detected them (which results in destroying everyone, to eliminate uncertainty).
The idea being that assuming the actual survival of your species is at the top of your moral pyramid, all kinds of atrocities in its defense are justifiable.
If you're a mosquito OTOH... even enslavement is not worth it. It's eradication.
Also I just cannot accept any analogy of dark forest with empty and dead place. Anyone who've been to the forest or even seen any documentary knows/hears/sees that it's also full of life
All books I've read about the Amazon rainforest describe it as an extremely harsh place almost devoid of easily spotted pray or food. Anything that falls to the forest floor is consumed very quickly. There's a ton of life there, it's just ruthlessly competitive and therefore beyond easy sight.
I think the Dark Forest concept fits perfectly here. We see "empty" space wherein fact life could be just behind the curtains of "self preservation".
Huh? I don't even know what you are talking about.
First of all dark forest is not about empty and dead place. Its about being able to blend in with the forest so no one can discover you. Once spotted you become dead, once you spot someone else in your best interest is to destroy them if you can do it without being spotted.
In the books there are several civilizations, and hits that there were plenty more living in higher dimensions.
Through different eras, men have traveled long distances to kill, subjugate, enslave other people, and to consume everything that can be consumed, we won't change if we start going to the outer space. Being the most advanced species on earth doesn't make us different, as spiders, fish, birds, wolves, anything that moves is determined to kill or be killed, so it's not only a human trait.
Is it a dark forest? We don't know, it may just be an open battleground where intelligence is the final conqueror and that's exactly what rides on top of the arrow of evolution.
They absolutely do. From simple concepts like resource competition in which trees deplete the ground or outcompete each other for sunlight (e.g. any forest floor is usually not covered in grass) to parasitism and strangulating vines and whatnot, these guys are hostile and deadly to one another. They just don't run around much.
> through different eras, men have traveled long distances to kill, subjugate, enslave other people
I know lichens are considered "symbiotic" but I'm not sure what you would call a fungus that breeds algae cells and consumes them for nourishment. In that vein we're also symbiotic with pigs, which I find an inappropriate term.
Either way, my point is: Animals aren't remotely as unique as many people think.
The trajectory of history suggests that it’s easier to trade than to steal and easier to ally than to fight.