this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2026
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There's also the Dark Forest hypothesis - the idea that maybe many alien civilizations exist out there but stay silent because revealing themselves would make them targets/prey to a more high-tech hostile civilization.
I'd imagine any intelligent alien life form would be intelligent enough to realize that they've reached a point at which they can simply life in a sustained utopia. Heal the planet, work less, fill time with hobbies and pursuits. Humans have this flaw, and it's that the mentally ill squander the world's wealth and use it for dick-measuring contests. A small minority of us will kill their own mother for a job promotion, and the people at the very top want to squander it all so they see another 0 in their bank account, or outrace the other 7 megabillionaires to the dick-measuring contest on Mars. I could only hope aliens aren't as as stupid. We could just litter the earth with trees, solar panels, 2 br condos, and hammocks, and have AI work for us, but nope. Every single die shrink leads to more transistor density and never any power efficiency because big numbers are better for shareholders. They sold us downstream
3 body problem is a good book for thought experiments, but it didn't really discuss the arguments against the dark forest hypothesis
assumes universal hostility.
Interstellar warfare is protracted and impractical.
Ignores potential cooperation and ethical diversity.
assumes aliens think like humans