Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

I think the parent comment was downvoted because it's not really contributing anything besides pessimism.

As for us, I don't doubt the likelihood of a serious mass extinction, including possibly a severe drop in human population, but I can't see it being so severe as to cause an existential threat to us. No other species on this planet has had the ability to change the environment to suit it, or the ease of mobility to move where they can survive. Short of earth being entirely incompatible with complex life on the surface, I don't see humanity disappearing because of climate change.

Just started book 3, I'm clearly being Baader-Meinhoff'd. I think the basic logic of preemptive first strikes being the universally safest response is sound, assuming the current trend continues that a species' offensive capabilities will grow faster than its defensive capabilities as it improves its mastery of physics. Even if in the short term, some civilizations are inherently friendly and some are inherently hostile, in the long term the chances of any randomly selected civilization being hostile approaches unity due to survivor bias.

It's pretty similar to one of my favourite quotes, from Peter Watts:

> Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials— but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean.

(I'm admittedly finding a lot of the other plot points of the series, especially around how people respond to adversity, less convincing though.)

I think dark forest is the best explanation so far.

If what you say is true, it should've been true for earlier human civilizations too.

Why didn't the Chinese and Japanese civilizations unite to conquer others?

Why didn't the Mongols unite with whoever else to conquer, instead of Genghis Khan doing it all with a bunch of Mongols in horses?

Human civilization is a dark forest that only changed with global trade. The communication challenge is language and culture. And civilizations have always been technologically distinct, with the more powerful one almost always conquering.

With interstellar communication and technological advance it would be orders of magnitude higher stakes.

Just a feeling or rather educated guess is:

That general AI going rogue if it gets conscious is small, more probable is narrow AI that has mistake in setting goals, given too much power by either military or corporations.

Global Warming is highly probable but we still have chance if we find energy to cooperate around mutual goal. Key points:

- Siberian permafrost and releasing huge amount of CH4 topping up all efforts.

- Amazon forest now release more CO2 than sequester (this week news)

- Species are being extinct on a rapid rate

- Wildfires/droughts continue to increase devastation

- Floods and heatwaves are stronger (losing ice caps will increase this to Equatorial heats once planet albedo of caps is lost )

Now, critical is next 10 years That does not mean that humanity will be wipe out in 10 years, but will set course for final destination. As no technology or amount of money will help us past that point, weather pastern and issues will be out of our hands. In bad scenario 99% reduction of population till 2100. Again guess. Underground pocket of sparse scientific communities could survive bit longer past this point, using geothermal energy and nuclear power.

Nuclear war is quite probable, I think critical is next 20 years: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41421/pentagon-warns-o... If all weapons are fired, simply put, some people may survive, but they would wish they are dead. Let me put this way, we all have romantic dreams of surviving, go to Hiroshima, ground zero, then straight to museum, and then imagine something 2000 times more powerful multiplied by 16000. And of course everyone forgets Nuclear power plants, ~450 with similar yield. If you do not have Cheyenne Mountain complex at your disposal, your life expectancy is between 0 and 3 years. (acid rains, nuclear winter, no food, no medications, no drinking water, no animals ...). Even if someone survives it would be back to stone age - killing each other for basic necessities (even human meat), as there is nothing else to eat.

China vs US, US vs Russia, India vs Pakistan, rogues nation getting a weapon on some black market ...

Anyhow, if our civilization was cooperative society with higher goals, it would be fine, but from my experience, and from what I saw during my life, all governments are nothing but aristocratic mafia organisation sponsored by big business having one goal to increase wealth of their share holders justifying all means by what ever ends they have.

But regardless what I wrote or how many arguments I give as Friedrich Nietzsche "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." many especially those in power to do something, will have tendency not to believe in the final outcome until it happens, so instead of taking actions they will continue business as usual.

When I was young I lived in different country there one post WW2 leader used to say "Work and enjoy like we will live in peace 100 of years, and at the same time prepare like there will be a war tomorrow", personally I think it is a good policy for Global Warming or WW3, we should imagine the worst and then work as hard as possible so it never happens, employing all possible strategies at our disposal to save all life on planet, (DNA bank, 5d crystals, space travel, multi-planet, multi-suns ... whatever).

Similar like in IT we protect systems, for me who ever uses "doom-erisam" and similar shaming terms is nothing better than those person. Ostrich burying head in the sand like will not save you from the lion. In IT good network security guys imagine all possible scenarios, and they are not afraid that by the so called "new-age quantum vibration field" if they imagine bad scenarios they will attract it just by the power of thought. Admins/devs frequently must imagine and test all bad scenarios, even play roles of bad actors, so they can employ protective techniques.

In the similar way we should explore bad scenarios and see is it possible to do anything, but unfortunately, we who talk about it and comment a lot, our circle of concern is significantly bigger then our influence, and those who have huge circle of influence (money) the do not give two dimes about our concerns, and that is the reason my friend I am not optimist about our future in next 10 years...

Yep, that's probably correct. Even more because you can just throw something into the projectile too, and destroy it... And they can throw something into your projectile, and etc.

I don't think anybody can make any claim on what side is easier. But targeting the attack does not seem to be the hard part.