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this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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I suppose it depends on why they're being quiet. If other civilizations view each other as competitors for rare resources like worlds that would be inhabitable with out large scale terraforming, then being loud may get your planet targeted. That's the basis for the "Dark Forest" theory. I think that theory is interesting, but it's a bit pessimistic in my opinion. What's way more likely is, if there are other civilizations out there, the odds of them existing during the same time frame that we're here, AND being close enough to receive radio waves in a timely fashion, AND are at a technology level to send and receive those radio waves.... it's all very very very unlikely.
For me, what's way scarier is, it isn't that everyone is being quiet, it's that there isn't any one else out there, and we're one of the first civilizations to develop. If there were other highly advanced civilizations out there, there'd be signs of them, signs of their technology. Shit, I read that large ships moving at close to the speed light would generate detectable gravity waves. But so far, nothing.
The "Dark Forest" hypothesis is riddled with holes, it only works as the premise for a scary science fiction series and not as a real-world Fermi Paradox solution. The main problem with it is that life on Earth has been readily detectable for two billion years and there's no reason a paranoid xenocidal alien species wouldn't want to wipe that out preemptively, so we'd already be long dead if it were actually the case.
I don't see why it's scary to be the first. To the contrary, that means that our descendants will get to colonize the reachable volume of the cosmos without risk of running into a more advanced species that squashes them like bugs (whether deliberately or simply by having already occupied all the useful resources).
I remember a writing prompt that talked about how we're broadcasting all our TV and radio for years then we get a reply that says, "Be quiet, they will hear you."
Oh okay, so this insular civ broke radio silence to transmit something that will definitely be a big deal and recorded in our news and science papers in extreme detail, and they're not worried that when the threat arrives they will trace that signal back to them?
I've never heard a good explanation for how the dark forest develops and stays stable for any length of time.
The obvious answer there would be that you get wiped out if you're too loud, hence the only surviving civilizations are the quiet ones. We wouldn't've been met by a friendly transmission politely informing us, but rather whatever the cause for this silence is - some force so overwhelming that it possibly inadvertently wipes out nascent species.
Say, for instance self-replicating artificial space probes designed to seek out "new life and civilizations" gone wrong. So, deep space is full of these things and if a star draws their attention, all of them within transmission distance make a beeline - say hi and then proceeds to "salvage" any usable matter in the star system to replicate themselves and spread out again, thereby also dooming whatever life attracted them in the first place.
That's my take on it too. It could just be natural selection - noisy, young Civs get eaten by the big bad space predator, while inherently quieter Civs survive.
So the universe could be full of life but it's the sort of life that doesn't attract attention.
There doesn't even have to be a "big bad" in this situation either, it could simply be that the sort of life that creates noisy Civs, is also the kind of life that ends up annihilating itself before it gets advanced enough to be able to make contact with others. That sort of crosses over into the Great Filter though.
I agree about the Dark Forest hypothesis. Also the idea that other alien life just knew to be quiet up front is silly, for the same reason we've been blasting radio waves into the universe the moment we figured out how.
Nah, us being first is scary to me in the sense if life is nearly impossible to form, and we're all alone, that means we can search planet after planet, after planet and only find dead lifeless environments. That's not nearly as fun of a thought as the universe being full of life, and all the amazing discoveries we'd make exploring. That's all I meant.
Yeah the DFH makes no sense. It requires that all forms of nearby alien life exist, but either choose to be completely silent (somehow) without knowing that other life exists, or to have found out that other life exists and chosen to be silent before broadcasting literally anything decipherable.
I know it's so damn frequent that Occam's Razor gets trotted out, but in this situation, I think the simplest explanation is probably the most likely. Life developing in general is insanely rare in the universe, and there is no law that states that life HAS to evolve into intelligent life that would develop technologies, and space travel.
Why would you find that scary?
Is it because of the 'great filter' stuff, that there must therefore be something ahead of us in time that wipes us out (like self-inflicted climate change)? Or is it something like humans being awfully flawed to go down in universal history as the "first" intelligent and technologically advanced species? Or something else?
maybe if we're the only and first one, our odds of 'success' are much lower, and aint nobody gonna show up to guide us. if millions of previous had already 'succeeded' then its likely smooth sailing with a well tread path.
That's fine though, 10,000 Years of unguided human history got us here. We relatively just got started in science. It would be more scary if we saw derelict super structures.
I find the idea that life is insanely rare, and that 99.99999999999999999999 of every planet and moon is lifeless. Even if we some how find a way to explore the cosmos, we'll be searching empty dead rocks for the rest of our species lives. That's scary to me.