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

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

#251

Post by pharke » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

kadoban wrote: post #219

Supermancho wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the relative emptiness of observed space, im not convinced that a civilization A would try to annihilate all life but would maybe war with others in their light cone who threaten civA goals/expansion. If you can traverse interstellar space you can probably make home most anywhere further reducing the amount of potential conflict.

How likely does it seem that if you can traverse interstellar space, your civilization splinters over time and your potential for internal conflict just grows without bound?

If you can traverse interstellar space you are pretty much required to "live off the land" as you go and especially so once you reach your destination. This means you possess the ability to produce all of the energy, food, material, etc. required for a civilization to exist from what is present in either interstellar space or a solar system. If we put our sci-fi hats on we can imagine a perfect system of recycling and matter conversion that can keep a massive generational ship functioning with the only input being hydrogen scooped from the space it crosses. If you possess that level of sophistication then you really could live anywhere. That gives you plenty of living space with little motivation to pre-emptively attack others.

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

#252

Post by obedm » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:33 PM UTC

pharke wrote: post #247

obedm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Each of those civilizations you mentioned rose to the heights of their power by uniting multiple smaller tribes into one larger civilization.

You've got a fantastic point. It reminds me of Chinese history, full of war between clans until it was finally United.

What I keep thinking about is that we are all... Humans. Like, the same animal, same way of thinking etc. And yet our answer so many times is conflict.

The only reason conquerors didn't kill all the conquered was for taxes and slaves and so on. Imagine if resources were not an issue ( advanced enough tech) and you wanted to avoid confrontation.

Sending a near light speed bullet to explode a star seems a good trade-off to keep your dominance.

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

#253

Post by a1369209993 » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #24

evrydayhustling wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other commenters have said, we can't take our own viewpoint as an example of what kinds of civilizations survive because our technological age is so young. But IMO Dark Forest is bunk anyway, because it assumes that projecting power over interstellar distances is easier than defending yourself. That's not true within terrestrial history ... even though the arrival of colonists was massively disruptive to populatio…

>because it assumes that projecting power over interstellar distances is easier than defending yourself This seems really obviously true to me. Accelerating a rock to relativistic speeds is pretty easy, defending against a rock potentially coming from anywhere in space traveling at relativistic speeds is extremely difficult.

> defending against a rock potentially coming from anywhere in space traveling at relativistic speeds is extremely difficult.

Also, while 'proper' stealth is difficult, you can make the rock pretty close to invisible for practical purposes by coating it in vantablack and cooling it to liquid helium temperatures.

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

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Post by crowbahr » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

wait_a_minute wrote: post #185

crowbahr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is oxygen breathing carbon based intelligent life that wants our planet they could've easily spotted and taken it anytime within the past 2 billion years. It seems safe to say that there isn't life that wants our planet.

Or they did want it and used it for seeding more complex life so they could eventually create homo sapiens. Like the start of the film Prometheus.

Which would mean that the dark forest is still false right?

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

#255

Post by NiceWayToDoIT » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

myrmidon wrote: post #232

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use the term because I see NO factual basis for assuming that humankind is going extinct. Your post did not change my view on that: There is a huge difference between I do NOT want to see, and there is NO factual basis. From https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities only 1170 cities have population of 2,179,929,822, RS-28 Sarmat yield is 10 heavy warheads, each yield of 1.5Mt. Currently there is 3,700 nukes…

> I somehow find more frighting and delusional that way of thinking, as it leaves possibility to use mentioned as solution for fixing problem as people optimistically believe they are the one that will survive. I'll give you the other perspective on the doom-erism: People preaching about the inevitable extinction of humankind just provide ammunition/"strawmans" against progressive climate policies because these doom-…

> Just consider how easy it was to dismiss your "humankind is going extinct because of climate change" points-

You have to understand that you have not dismissed anything, you do not have knowledge you have beliefs, judging by the angry typing. There is no point discussing with believes.

Regarding full fledged nuclear exchange I would ask you to write a paper and make computer model, I do not know what is your field of work do you have a sufficient knowledge to do it?

Regarding Global Warming it is fairly uncharted territory, now we know that models from 10 years ago were overly optimistic and that things are happening at much faster rate than expected.

Anyhow, to cut the long unfruitful story short, lets remember this and check in 5 and 10 years what happens.

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

#256

Post by catillac » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

hnbad wrote: post #151

scarmig wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change is very real and worth addressing, but it's extremely unlikely to wipe out human civilization. It's just going to be costly and kill millions, not billions.

Can you clarify what you mean by "millions"? The Syrian civil war is estimated to have killed just short of half a million people. The pandemic easily has a global death toll of roughly 4 million people so far. The Chalisa famine of 1783/1784 is estimated to have killed 11 million people. The Spanish flu killed at least 17 million people, though some of the more dramatizing estimates place it closer to 100 million. A…

New equilibriums will form. Where it was once one climate, another will be, and the native crops that can no longer live in the first climate will be supplanted by new ones that can survive in the new one. This won’t be the case everywhere, but this sort of adaptation will happen. You’re talking as if everything will remain static except the climate.

Additionally, the entire worlds population at relatively sparse city density (say, Houston) can fit in like 1/3 of the United States.

That isn’t to say that climate change isn’t a big deal. It is one of the biggest deals and quite grave. But you don’t really propose any solutions. What you allude to though won’t happen, that everyone works together to address the issues. My speculation is that if our technology doesn’t progress fast enough, billions will die, but if tech does happen to progress fast enough then that will be mitigated.

That isn’t to say that the world couldn’t use a strong reduction in population. But given that we are causing this, I feel particularly bad for the wildlife whose habitats will be unlivable to them through no fault of their own and not through natural processes.

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

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Post by edgyquant » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

crowbahr wrote: post #239

edgyquant wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

relatively scarce, sure. There are millions of times more of all the resources Earth has between us and any civilization coming from light years away. By the time they needed Earths resources they’d have to have gobbled up large chunks of, if not the whole, Galaxy.

Right but the whole premise of the Fermi Paradox is that it doesn't take long (on a galactic scale) to gobble up the entire galaxy using STL transit if you're dealing with a constantly growing civilization. So either they'd - already have gotten here & already have destroyed the earth when we showed intelligence OR - already have gotten here & don't care about destroying intelligence.

Well okay but I believe that premise is flawed. It still takes millions of years for one (which is a long time on human timescales) and it’s more likely civilizations Balkanize and begin fighting each other if they even were to be so resource driven they wished to colonize the galaxy that quick which I don’t think we have any reason to believe is true.

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

#258

Post by pharke » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

dragonelite wrote: post #53

rnhmjoj wrote: post #29

> In other words, the finite nature of resources will ultimately pit one civilization against another as they all struggle to sustain their growth. I'm not sure this constraint is so strict to force a strong competition for survival, given how vast the universe is. It seems to me this projecting our earth-bound mentality of limited resources to a whole different scale, where it may not really apply.

Once we are earth loose we will be solar bound and human factions will fight for solar resources/domination.

During star formation up to half of the matter can be rejected. During planetary formation a lot of fairly large bodies will be ejected, think moon size, along with a lot of smaller stuff too. Interstellar space probably has a lot more to offer than we generally think.

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

#259

Post by a1369209993 » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

gilbetron wrote: post #86

bobcostas55 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because it assumes that projecting power over interstellar distances is easier than defending yourself This seems really obviously true to me. Accelerating a rock to relativistic speeds is pretty easy, defending against a rock potentially coming from anywhere in space traveling at relativistic speeds is extremely difficult.

> Accelerating a rock to relativistic speeds is pretty easy Huh? How? I haven't seen any proposal that doesn't start with the assumption that we can inject a rock with a preposterous amount of energy let alone hit (in astronomical scales) a ridiculously small target, not to mention navigate all the gravity wells in between.

Multistage rocket using ion engines. Remember this is over interstellar distances (>4 lightyears), so you have multiple years, if not decades or centuries to accellerate.

This does get back to the "Why didn't we RKKV it millions of years before intellegent life even existed, much less had a opportunity to hide, based on biosignatures in the atmosphere?", though.

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

#260

Post by Retric » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #228

Retric wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s moving the goalposts. I said we could hit a planet at those distances not that we can create a relativistic impactor.

No it isn’t since the whole topic here is that any civilization capable of accelerating an object to relativistic speeds and hitting a target from light years away is capable of defending against one. We can send voyager to target an object on the other side of the solar system but we are also perfectly able to defend against a potential voyager. Just because you now claim to not be addressing the actual goal at hand…

Voyager 1 isn’t a weapon so defending against it is kind of a meaningless argument. The Parker Soar probe is aiming for 0.064% the speed of light and covered in scientific instruments and shielding. So that’s arguably a solid baseline of what we could do in terms of speed. Even at those speeds we are still talking 8,000 years to the closest planet making it a poor weapon.

Still, I doubt we could detect a barrage of incoming 0.0005c weapons designed for minimal levels of stealth in time to do anything about it.