Current Events > The "Dark Forest" theory of aliens.

(+) Yeah! (+)

From The Killing Star.

"We ask that you try just one more thought experiment. Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. Thats when the monsters come out. Theres always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.

It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you cant read minds.

Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body.

How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, Im here! The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, Im a friend!
What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you dont want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.
There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.

There is no policeman.

There is no way out.

And the night never ends."

---

I cringed. That was so incredibly pretentious.

---

It's a scary and depressing theory so I kinda hope it's not true

__Fiale__ posted...

I cringed. That was so incredibly pretentious.

It's actually a real theory

https://youtu.be/sFvf6Elp3D0

i'm more a fan of "too far apart" and physics doesn't give much leeway in term of FTL travel so even the most advanced star-daring civilzation only hangs out in their star system, or maybe a neighboring one.

---

apolloooo posted...

i'm more a fan of "too far apart" and physics doesn't give much leeway in term of FTL travel so even the most advanced star-daring civilzation only hangs out in their star system, or maybe a neighboring one.

Yeah, that makes much more sense.

---

Zikten posted...

It's actually a real theory

https://youtu.be/sFvf6Elp3D0

Yeah I guessed so. But it's also incredibly pretentious with the way it's explained. Even more so when it comes from a Gamefaqs user.

---

Zikten posted...

It's actually a real theory

https://youtu.be/sFvf6Elp3D0

The problem with this hypothesis is that we would have picked up the signature of intelligent life before they were able to mask their presence. Like, even if we got to the point of being able to mask our existence, aliens would still pick up our old radio signals. It's important to realize that when we're looking into the observable universe, we're technically looking back in time.

---

__Fiale__ posted...

Yeah I guessed so. But it's also incredibly pretentious with the way it's explained. Even more so when it comes from a Gamefaqs user.

Not my words, hence the quotes. I'll source it.

---

spooky

---

Verdekal posted...

Not my words, hence the quotes. I'll source it.

I know, that's why I said..ugh I give up..

---

indica posted...

The problem with this hypothesis is that we would have picked up the signature of intelligent life before they were able to mask their presence. Like, even if we got to the point of being able to mask our existence, aliens would still pick up our old radio signals. It's important to realize that when we're looking into the observable universe, we're technically looking back in time.

Technically true. But it's also very easily possible that the ones who broadcast get snuffed out fairly quickly (on cosmic time-scales, at least). It would be pretty easy to do that with relativistic kill missiles without ever revealing your own location. And the ones who developed in such a way as they realized the dark forest possibility before broadcasting would simply remain unknown to us.

Keep in mind that our own broadcasting has only been going for about 100 years. To put into perspective how far our own fingerprint has traveled into the void:
https://imgur.com/IyVzItt

It's extremely easy to believe even if there are hundreds of civilizations just in our own galaxy broadcasting freely, we wouldn't have received any of their signals yet. Space is just SO. FUCKING. BIG.

---

__Fiale__ posted...

I cringed. That was so incredibly pretentious.

Oh shut the fuck up.

---

Aristoph posted...

Technically true. But it's also very easily possible that the ones who broadcast get snuffed out fairly quickly (on cosmic time-scales, at least). It would be pretty easy to do that with relativistic kill missiles without ever revealing your own location. And the ones who developed in such a way as they realized the dark forest possibility before broadcasting would simply remain unknown to us.

Keep in mind that our own broadcasting has only been going for about 100 years. To put into perspective how far our own fingerprint has traveled into the void:
https://imgur.com/IyVzItt

It's extremely easy to believe even if there are hundreds of civilizations just in our own galaxy broadcasting freely, we wouldn't have received any of their signals yet. Space is just SO. FUCKING. BIG.

Very true, space is fucking huge. But do you really think we'd have the ability to, as you way, use relativistic kill missles to take out our own old radio signals? I think that if intelligent life ever encounters us, it will start with finding those signals, and even if we learn to mask ourselves as some point in the future, those signals would be a dead give away.

---

__Fiale__ posted...

I know, that's why I said..ugh I give up..

What?

---

Verdekal posted...

What?

Im confused, too.

---

The_Creep_2020 posted...

Im confused, too.

It was ambiguous the way they worded it. They could've thought I quoted it or I chose to explain it that way.

---

indica posted...

Very true, space is fucking huge. But do you really think we'd have the ability to, as you way, use relativistic kill missles to take out our own old radio signals? I think that if intelligent life ever encounters us, it will start with finding those signals, and even if we learn to mask ourselves as some point in the future, those signals would be a dead give away.

No, of course we couldn't remove our already-sent signals. They're out there, and there's nothing we can do about it. At this point, our only hope is that either nobody notices them or the dark forest theory is wrong. The RKM doesn't have anything to do with the signals. They're for killing the planets/systems the signals are coming from. If somebody spots us and wants to shut us up, they just send a small hunk of mass in our direction, slowly accelerating the whole way. By the time it reaches us, it's going a significant fraction of light-speed. It'd be too small and dark for us to see it on approach, and when it hits Earth we're just gone. Simple, cheap, and should be relatively easy for a proper interstellar civilization. Pretty much zero defense against it, too.

Nobody noticing our signals is more likely than you might think, though. The further away they get from Earth, the weaker they are and the higher the signal-to-noise ration becomes. At some distance, it would become pretty much impossible to discern our radio signals from just random background noise.

---

Aristoph posted...

No, of course we couldn't remove our already-sent signals. They're out there, and there's nothing we can do about it. At this point, our only hope is that either nobody notices them or the dark forest theory is wrong. The RKM doesn't have anything to do with the signals. They're for killing the planets/systems the signals are coming from. If somebody spots us and wants to shut us up, they just send a small hunk of mass in our direction, slowly accelerating the whole way. By the time it reaches us, it's going a significant fraction of light-speed. It'd be too small and dark for us to see it on approach, and when it hits Earth we're just gone. Simple, cheap, and should be relatively easy for a proper interstellar civilization. Pretty much zero defense against it, too.

Nobody noticing our signals is more likely than you might think, though. The further away they get from Earth, the weaker they are and the higher the signal-to-noise ration becomes. At some distance, it would become pretty much impossible to discern our radio signals from just random background noise.

That's an interesting and good point about the radio signals.

Gotcha. So it's like the Heinlein's Starship Troopers approach to galactic battle? The only problem with that, and this was the only problem I had with the Heinlein book, is that "a small hunk of mass" would take hundreds if not thousands of years to get here so it would take an extreme amount of forethought and ungodly precision to attack us that way. Like you said, space is fucking huge.


---

__Fiale__ posted...

I know, that's why I said..ugh I give up..

You posted to call the OP pretentious yet you're the most insufferable thing in this topic.

---

aliens are going to do drugs and probe my butthole in Manhattan?

---

Chicken posted...

aliens are going to do drugs and probe my butthole in Manhattan?

I wanna go to Manhattan now

---

indica posted...

"a small hunk of mass" would take hundreds if not thousands of years to get here so it would take an extreme amount of forethought and ungodly precision to attack us that way.

It would be much pretty to put a basic guidance computer and ion engine on a small unmanned drone and send it on its way. Once you've fired it, you don't really have to think about it much anymore. As far as accuracy goes, even with our current (and extremely primitive, by interstellar-civilization standards) technology, we already know that the second spacecraft we've ever sent beyond our solar system, Voyager 2, should get approximately 4 light-years away from the star Sirius in about 298,000 years.

Space is huge. But it's also almost completely empty. Which makes charting courses over long periods of time surprisingly easy once you've gotten outside the gravitational influences of your own busy solar system. There's very few things to disturb trajectories out there, after all.

---

Smackems posted...

I wanna go to Manhattan now

The aliens declared us excommunicado.

---

The whole thing assumes they know there are bad guys out there to begin with which is not an assumption we can make of alien civilizations. It could be true, but there's no reason to support the theory as it is.

---

EmbraceOfDeath posted...

The whole thing assumes they know there are bad guys out there to begin with which is not an assumption we can make of alien civilizations. It could be true, but there's no reason to support the theory as it is.

The mentality behind it is to not take chances, if you're wrong you're dead.

---

Verdekal posted...

The mentality behind it is to not take chances, if you're wrong you're dead.

Right, but we can't assume that alien civilizations have that mentality. We don't even have that mentality when it comes to trying to contact alien civilizations.

---

EmbraceOfDeath posted...

Right, but we can't assume that alien civilizations have that mentality. We don't even have that mentality when it comes to trying to contact alien civilizations.

Who's we? An individual might not behave that way but we're such a clusterfuck on this planet anyway. If we did behave that way, it would ironically justify them.

---

EmbraceOfDeath posted...

Right, but we can't assume that alien civilizations have that mentality. We don't even have that mentality when it comes to trying to contact alien civilizations.

But it is a possible mentality for a civilization to have. We equally can't assume alien civilizations won't have that mentality.

And even if only a small percentage of civilizations have that mentality, the only way to survive is to follow that approach. If there is even 1 hunter in the forest, the only way to guarantee survival is to remain undetected.

If you assume they don't, and you're wrong, then you're dead.
If you assume they do, and you're wrong, at least you're still alive.

---

Aristoph posted...

But it is a possible mentality for a civilization to have. We equally can't assume alien civilizations won't have that mentality.

I'm not saying this theory is wrong. I'm saying there's no reason to believe it over the thousand other equally possible theories.

Verdekal posted...

Who's we? An individual might not behave that way but we're such a clusterfuck on this planet If we did behave that way, it would justify them.

We is humanity. We put out messages saying who and where we are without any caution that it could lead to our own extinction.

---

EmbraceOfDeath posted...

I'm not saying this theory is wrong. I'm saying there's no reason to believe it over the thousand other equally possible theories.

I'm not saying we should marry the theory, just that it's a very possible one with deadly consequences.

One thing is that if aliens do this to each other on occasion, we haven't seen any evidence for it. No stars going out from an alien on alien invasion or planets being wiped out. As far as we can tell with current tech.

If the galaxy is populated with aliens who are advanced enough for interstellar travel and haven't done this, it might be because other civilizations nearby might take them out as well, so there could be something like nukes here on Earth. Lots of countries have them. Lots of countries could use them, but it would be a very, very bad idea for everyone.

---

There's an estimated 100 billion stars in the Milky Way and that's the very low end. Over 100k light years. 14 billion years old.

It's way more likely that the distances are just too vast for any communication, let alone travel. It's a pointless endeavor unless you're desperate as fuck.

---