The Terrifying Solution To The Fermi Paradox.
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- Опубліковано 13 лип 2023
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Why do YOU think we haven't found Aliens yet? Shares and comments help as this video is dying RN and I'd love to do more like them 😅 Reddit is helpful.
~ Tim
I read that thinking you wanted a real world answer. To which I would respond that it was because of 1 of 2 things: They're here and we have our nose stuck so far up in the air, we're actually too stupid to notice them. Or we are indeed too stupid that the aliens want nothing to do with us. Then I realize you were referring to the topic of the video. To which I respond with, I dunno. I'm not a sci-fi reader. The most sci-fi I ever read is Star Wars Expanded Universe and that was way back in high school Still an interesting video.
Well, first of all, space is huge. I don't think there are that many people who even capable of comprehending space sizes. Sure we can work with them . Somewhat. But those distances... THAT'S what scary for me. You can search for "if the moon were only 1 pixel" site, and it has "move with speed of light" button. And it's the fastest speed we know. Best effect it had on me - is just run it on background and go do other things. And check periodically how far away from sun are you... So yeah, distance very well might be the reason. And if there is something faster than speed of light (let's call it warp :) - well, then Star Trek already gave perfect reason to not to contact with civilizations without warp tech. Because cooperation is better. And space has *** ton of resources actually. One single asteroid may contain more resources than we have on Earth. And there's thousands of them even in our system far far away from the center of the galaxy. So there's no actual fight over resources. At least, not over resources we aware of.
Haven't actually thought about it
I’m thinking it’s because someone told them to go read the book first before they start broadcasting.
My personal thinking is because there aren’t any. However I’m not married to the thought, if tomorrow I wake up and it’s announced we’ve made contact I won’t be super surprised, however, until then, just seems to me like we are alone.
Two sentence Horror.
After years of broadcasting into the void we finally got a response.
"You're too loud, they have seen you."
(Not to be a grammar nerd, but thats just 1 sentence with 2 phrases)
However if you just end with “you’re too loud.” It becomes a comedy. 😂
@@valathor95 "As the hatch opened, the Presidents heart trembled. Here he was about to make historical first contact."
A small drone like robot hovered down the ramp and presented him with a crisp, folded piece of paper. With trepidation he opened it to see the message.
"This is an official Intergalactic noise complaint. Failure to comply will result in further action or a fine.".
They are smart enough to send a message but stupid enough not to warn us.
Can we please stop assuming aliens are stupid? It's just bad writing that breaks the immersion when the super advanced alien species couldn't think of such a simple solution.
@@ferrousoxcide393
My first thought reading that letter: "Intergalactic noise? Through the vacuum of space?"
I think domestication best debunks the Dark Forest theory. We took two proficient species of predators and turned them into pets just by providing more resources for their survival.
I wouldn't say fully debunks, because we have caused the extinction of several species including other human species, but it definitely shows the Dark Forest isn't a totality.
@@ericlin2611 we did breed with those other human species so they arent fully dead just as the "Human" isnt Human in the sense we havent changed since we came to be as a species.
I mean, we only trained a portion of those predators and extinguished the rest.
Even after the peaceful coexistence has been established we are ruthless against dogs that step out of line so how much better this subjugated state could be is dubious.
@@Malcalore our current abuse and callousness does not inherently link with the initial domestication of the species. That assumes our capacity for cruelty isn't affected in any way by the environments we live in.
@@deadcard13 the capacity for cruelty never changes imo. It's more our willingness to apply that capacity that changes between our various cultures and states. Civil society can be either a moderating force or an element to focus our cruelty in different ways.
But I suppose that's a bit beside the point. Ruthless termination of violent threats, like a dog that has tasted blood for example, isn't necessarily a cruel act either. It is a calculated choice, sometimes a pained one too, to minimise potential harm from this domesticated species towards the primary species.
The Dark Forest Problem reminds me of the Prisoner's Dilemma: a situation in which the best outcome is if both parties act altruistically, but without the ability to communicate, the safest option for any party is to screw the other party over
That's not the safest action the safest action is to not act at all then.
@@TheUnseenPath 'Not acting' isn't a decision, just like how 'don't play' isn't a valid chess move
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
In real life terms, not making a chess move just means skipping your turn.
@@unsuspiciousdweller8967 thats why thinking in terms of predetermined things like chess doesnt work....not acting is a decision, you are trying to put up borders the size of a swimming pool in an ocean
If I was an alien, I definitely would not reveal myself to humans. Even as a human, it’s dangerous. So, if they’re hiding, good for them. I’m really glad for their safety.
If aliens have the capabilities to hide themselves from us they're not afraid of us
Your logic is sound@@valkgh
@@valkgh...Not really? All aliens have to do to hide from us is...not emit any radio waves that we can detect. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how afraid they are of us.
@@valkgh if they have acces to our internet, they ARE afraid of us.
Best case scenario we would either want to learn from them or (because well humans) we’d want to or at least attempt to sleep with them and worst case torture, imprison or kill them
I’ve always felt a “Dark Ocean” is a better analogy than a Dark Forest, where instead of hiding from other hunters, you’re a sea creature that doesn’t know how big the other fish in the ocean are, and whether or not there’s a fish bigger than you. Or if one can grow to be…
I second this. Dark Ocean is definitely better in defining our situation. The depths of space is vast and we can only see as far our point of view from Earth's orbit for the most part. Til we can set foot among the rest of the universe we are almost blind to what is out there and can't survive just entering an ocean depths unlike a forest depths.
some big fishes in the dark forest universe did in fact made their ocean into pond to kill smaller fishes
Love this, especially since so so many have a phobia of the ocean!!!
As someone with Thalassophobia, i approve of this message
i agree, this fits better with the premise he's going for, hunters that rely on primitive instincts and urges. the dark forest analogy just came across like he was describing someone playing DayZ, where players are known to camp out and snipe each other all day long and yet there are still players who team up and work together to survive
As much as i love dark sci-fi/fantasy, they often make assumptions about people that don't occur in reality and ignore other bits that do occur in reality and are inevitable. While you were describing the dark forest example i immediately thought "But you shot, its loud, people know where you are and that you are the danger and can work together around that." I'm so glad you actually went back to that and showed that exact problem.
"Shooting" implies just launching a missile nearly the speed of light or manipulating an extinction meteor. It might depend how high tech everyone is to detect even basic strikes on other civilizations but you can pull off quite attacks that leave your enemy crippled. I do agree if there were hunters that had a reason to scavenge or attack anything that moved we would see something but you're thinking too much about guns when bows exist or even how most predators can capture prey with minimal sound (which doesn't travel in space but I digress.)
@@Petrico94It's not a great analogy because it misses context that shows the problem with this conclusion.
In a dark forest you can be reasonably sure it's, at worst, someone of similar or slightly greater power than yourself. In space, it's like declaring war on a country at random without knowing how strong that country is or how strong you are in the context of the universe. It may turn out that we're practically gods to other species but it may also just as easily turn out we've become the equivalent of Vatican City declaring war on the US.
Partially agree, the thing is, dispite humans being social creatures, historically we have so endlessly many cases of shooting first and chains of suspicion. All it needs to make shooting socially acceptable it othering whoever we are talking too and looking at the Jews for example, that never where a threat but still have a history of near annihilation despite a shared language, them lacking the ability and motivation to shoot and all...... If we can other people for being part of a non violent non expanding ethnic group..... How would we treat aliens?!
As the series shows planets and specieses are non homogeneous, but we do not need to all agree on shooting, in the end it takes one single person and with how many of those humanity has, I assume the same for aliens.
I feel a better answer would be to stay hidden but take a moment to study what you see or try contacting in a way that has a low risk like talk to a smaller group that can be destroyed if things go bad
@@arianewinter4266Well then we have to address the fact that not all societies treated the Jews badly or the jews in particular. The fact that the Jews are still around, and are thriving under the protections of many countries across the globe, kinda runs counter to your hypothesis that we will inevitably choose the most violent option first when dealing with differences. Further, the Nazis are famous for this type of aggressive behavior brought about partly from the same mindset you are espousing. Our history has taught us is that the other guy you’re arguing with is right. The Nazis revealed themselves to be violent and irrational aggressors which United the world against them and brought about the very destruction they wished to avoid. Further, this logic also makes sense for the United States vs the USSR directly after WW2 when the states had the advantage of the bomb. And hell, one could argue that a first strike should have happened during the Cold War using the same logic and yet it didn’t because there is a lot more nuance involved in this type of decision making than can fit in your nihilistic world view.
The Dark Forest Theory could honestly make for an interesting multiplayer horror game, where the forest is an expansive liminal space and each player views themselves as normal and everyone else can only see monsters.
After watching the first two minutes of this video, I decided to read the first two books of this series over the course of 5 days, and I have to say, they’re some of the best sci-fi I’ve ever read. I would love to see more videos on them!
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
thing is type grabby aliens in youtube and watch them the paper that was written on this by people who work in these fields kinda explains why no we are not alone even statistically with simulations. But we maybe of some of the first meaning we will become grabby. If we are latter in the cycle we will be less grabby. But we are not in a over populated or even well populated galaxy if we were in one we prob wouldnt exist as this planet would have been colonized and thus never had room for us to evolve and advance to this point. its a very neat paper written by actual people working in these fields :)
A wizard did it
Damn you beat me to it
-Snape ejaculated
Sorry man- was worth it.
So much is clear, but which one and why, how? So many questions still open ^^
And that wizard's name? Luo Ji
I 100% agree with your conclusion. Pulling that trigger will not keep you safe in the dark forest. It will cause a loud explosion that will not only reveal your location to anyone within a wide radius, but it will also definitively mark you as a dangerous aggressor.
It's poëtic, actually. You pulled the trigger on that other hunter in the dark forest because you weren't sure how they'd react to you, and now you can be certain of how other hunters will react to you.
Perhaps the better course of action is to set traps around your camp that will (relatively) silently ensnare the other hunter where you then would have the luxury of time to carefully and fully evaluate their intentions and capacity.
This incentivizes you to develop silent and/or delayed methods to kill, like arrows or poisons
"You pulled the trigger on that other hunter in the dark forest because you weren't sure how they'd react to you, and now you can be certain of how other hunters will react to you."
This tautologically reveals the true intention of the dark forest hunter's game theory: it does not seek the least risk of harm, but control over it. It is a common problem of game theory. This mistake in game theory is the telltale sign that fear has crept in somewhere. Fear, in this case, of violence. (1) He fears violence and wants to *secure* safety. Not have it, even at the price of having safety.
The least harmful kind of universe is obviously one where you don't have to fear anyone because you live peacefully side by side. And it is so by a *long* shot. The dark forest problem asks you to suffer vulnerability and trust. And the hunter is unwilling to pay that price to get what he wants. So he chooses to control the threat of a discovered civilisation by killing it. The price paid for controlling that one threat, is him creating the harmful precedent that this is a universe where actors are dark forest hunters out there to kill.
And if you are seen doing this, this psyche is on full display.
(1) P.S. this is another way to see that it is fear that has captured the logic of this theory: When someone finds any paradigm shift that allieviates the fear, then the entire theory dissolves. The fear is the linchpin.
@@alisaurus4224 That might work in a dark forest, sure, but the problem with the dark forest analogy is that space isn't like a forest. Space is big and empty, so any sufficiently advanced alien civilization can in theory spot another sufficiently advanced civilization galaxies away. If one such civilization just winks out, someone _will_ notice.
It wouldn't have to be a weapon like a planet buster, but could be something more subtle like sending small craft over time to seed the planet's atmosphere with an engineered pathogen targeting the species in question. We as a species are already doing so for "science", taking virus' and mutating their mortality rates, but when you don't have another planet to go to yet, we have to live by the adage "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". If we had off world bio labs, all bets are off. We'd cook up some shit that would literally melt faces in seconds just to see if we could.
Mass Effect has really interesting concepts throughout. I especially like The First Contact War and everything Krogan.
Mass Effect universe have only 2 apocalyptic villainous races: the reapers, and the asari.
Gotta love how the devs sprinkled hints that those blue perfectly evolved genocidal space parasites are not good for you… but players be horny and ignored every hint to that.
@@NowioART Speaks for yourself, I fucked Garrus.
I have heard a good refutation of the dark forest theory (namely, that stealth in space is hard, and specifically hiding your civilization is impossible, because you start being noticable way before you are able to hide yourself. Therefore, anyone who's looking will have found you before you try to hide [though "before" is relative to their perspective... I think.])
However, I don't want the book spoiled, so I don't know if you mentioned this, or not
A little late but it's also worth noting that for a planet to support life, at least in our case, it needs to have several special features. Like Earth's dynamic activity is actually truly special among planets. Even setting life aside, Earth would probably be a very notable planet to aliens.
We were hunters in a dark forest there was a group of hunters almost as good as us but we put down our spears and now we all have dogs
You had me at now we all have dogs 🥰
I like this plan, I’m excited to be a part of it!
There were other hunters in the forest with us and dogs, and they chose to help us out and now we have cats, too.
@@papercraftcynder5430 and now we just need to do the same with geese.
In the Sci Fi scenario, are we the dogs?
The key difference is we could see each other. With all the space between planets it's nearly impossible to set up a dialogue
It is worth highlighting how Liu Cixin has some really messed up views on democracy and human rights. I think a lot of the nihilism and lack of trust in human beings (or any beings in this case) absolutely reflects his lived experience through the Cultural Revolution. If you ever create more videos on the three-body trilogy, I'd love to see you analyze his work through that lens! Much love.
Please note my sarcasm.
What happened to death of the author? 😆 lol. Just because DA Liu has nihilistic beliefs and doesn't trust in political discourse, doesn't mean he's prospective is flawed. Aliens could be all be evil terrorists, all of them with a single minded devotion to destruction or self preservation... like us. We can't afford to be naive and give them the chance to do what we'd do to them to us. "Pulling the trigger" is the most logical and rational thing that a human could do in a place of ignorance. We're also probably delicious.
And there it is. I was listening to this and thinking “who the fuck wrote this, Ayn Rand?”
@@brunaguidinisantos8777??? Read there's many fantastic non English speaking authors..
I think you completely missed what their point was
Its very common for readers to mistake the views of the characters in a book for the authors views. You sure you didn't make a mistake?
This concept has a lot in common with the Prisoner's Dilemma, and like the Prisoner's dilemma the dynamics change quite a bit if it's a one-time interaction vs an ongoing relationship.
Not to mention that there is the law of large numbers. Even if 99% of civilizations choose the peaceful option in the dilemma, all it takes is one civilization to systematically wipe out everyone they detect, which in a nearby infinite universe if virtually guaranteed
I’m glad that you’re reviewing this book. There are several other UA-cam channels that I’ve already done so and I found the premise and scenarios in the book so compelling I didn’t care about spoilers
More than the Dark Forest Problem, I think the series' most interesting aspect to me is how it explores the fact that humanity (and life in general) isn't really suited for the scale of interstellar warfare. The timeframes by which it takes for first contact to happen, and the amount of resources needed to move are so massive that issues of integenerational conflict and changes in priorities by those fighting become an issue. It isn't the same thing to have your conflict last a couple of years to it being a 500 year cold war followed by a 10 minutes brutal exchange of death. Those 500 years are full of internal conflict that might damage the infrastructure needed for those 10 minutes
England has had wars last longer than the US has been a colony. 500 years isn't that long to have a war go on for.
Given anthropological and archaeological finds that showed when 2 groups of humans met, it usually worked out that it was better to cooperate until we became resource limited (see expansion of humans along the eastern european rivers, no walls, no major warfare, until they ran out of rivers to get to), I don't think this will be a problem unless we have an incredibly rare resource here on earth. And if we do have an incredibly rare resource but dont know about it, the aliens will come for it no matter what we do. Essentially, much like real life, there is much more to be gained from acting cooperatively than competitively.
If your concern is "everyone might be as violent and paranoid as me" the only thing that results in a life worth living is to work on yourself and roll the dice.
Only thing, they are not other humans, they are aliens of whom we know nothing about.
@@lukabosanac2671Yea, and?
They would have had to cooperate to even get to that level of a civilization
I think most of this is projection, especially because most of the violent alien fiction comes from the US
@@Levittchen4G Why do you assume that?
@@Levittchen4G To add to that point, cooperation is even found in nature between different species! Birds, deer, and other critters will graze together, and share signals when a predator is near. Cooperation beats competitiveness every time. But the only thing holding people back stems from fear, and the only thing that's actually scary is the unknown. Which is why learning how things work and about other people are the best things you can do for your own life!
The dark forest problem also ignores the possibility of making your existence known without your presence being known. Setting up an outpost a hundred light years away and broadcasting widely.
If a civilisation comes to investigate, then dialogue can begin. If they attack, then they have announced themselves and their location and capabilities can begin to be determined and all it has cost you is one outpost.
I subscribe to what I like to call the “time out” theory. When a toddler throws a tantrum, the best thing you can do is ignore them as to make the point that screaming or becoming violent won’t provide them with what they want. Likewise, more mature and advanced alien species may be attempting to parent us by ignoring us until we evolve into a more sensible and compassionate species
My theory of the universe being so quiet is that life is honestly kind of contained by the harshness of space. I believe life is actually abundant in the universe just by the fact that life tends to cling to whatever corner it can find. It’s just that all life in the grander scheme of the universe is just contained in whatever corners it finds itself in.
By the time we're ready to look up, we've fogged up the sky.
This is most likely the answer. That combined with the sheer amounts of time in so many ways.
We're early or late. The signals take so long and even then signals are like ghosts across vast distances.
So many elements of time make it extremely difficult to travel in space time.
I think it is that coupled with massive and growing computer power that just means you can literally step into a virtual universe in which you can break the speed of light and fight dragons and stuff and still be at home. If attaining light speed or close to it is do-able that is some serious kinetic weapons you have....so lets hope that is really really really hard.
Also I think the amount that we are not just a product of our enviornment, but tethered to it (like possibly unable to live anywhere else comfortably without actually altering ourselves genetically to do so) and all live would be, because survival via evolution is mostly about fitting your environment well.
Stars create plasma walls around their planetery systems we call our own the heliosphere its unlikely anyone would travel outside it this wall of plasma could melt through ships as its 90k degrees faronheight or 50k celsius
If you want to continue with these, to me the idea of dimensional warfare is the most fascinating part of this series. From trisolarans accidentally coming across another civilization when they were folding the sophons, through the visit of 4 dimensional graveyard to the reset of the universe. Absolutely bonkers stuff.
Using those dimensional rifts to pull someone's organs out spooked me
Love this new direction, and the energy and passion you bring to the topics you discuss. I'm typically down for a longer format (30 - 60+ minutes) so felt this was a bit short. Would definitely enjoy videos of any length that explore both fiction and science however!
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Natyralists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
Okay, my friends have been trying to convince me the three body problem for years and all of them will be very happy to know you not only joined them but actually manage to convince me
I like a few possibilities such as intelligent life's tendency to destroy itself making alien civilizations that have reached our level extremely rare. Also the possibility that we are either early or late. Ether we're the first to reach this point or we've come long after most others have been destroyed
Or we haven't gotten here late someone else may have actually survived and thus (UFOs) are the evidence. Not all life destroys itself and in fact that is rarely true it's life that destroys other life.
I've heard a lot of people repeat that but we have no evidence that it's true. We don't know if intelligent species wipe themselves out after they reach a certain point.
@perceivedvelocity9914 the idea basically is that, we didn't and couldn't really know how much damage we were doing to the environment until we could go to space, until we were already dependent on factories and technology to make the world go round. Until we already had weapons that could end the world. So, it would logically follow that every single society that has made it this far has almost certainly had climate change and nuclear war to contend with.
@SJNaka101 it's also possible elements and resources we haven't discovered exist out there on distant worlds. It's possible at least one very very luck species evolved on a world with access to an energy resource that doesn't pollute.
@SJNaka101 it's also just a bit arrogant for us too assume just because we haven't been able to overcome environmental issues that other intelligent life would be similarly handicapped.
Wow, this idea is, like, insanely paranoid. I think I'm more afraid of Liu than of an alien civilzation.
I agree and I tought the exact same thing.
For context:
Liu lived through China's Cultural Revolution
@@musicexams5258Agreed, so I won’t judge the author. But historically there have been many who peddled such paranoia without surviving the Cultural Revolution. And in any case, it doesn’t make the ideas expressed any less dangerous.
@@michaelhall2709 That's true
and I only said that as an explanation, not an excuse
I generally hold an optimistic worldview
For additional context, he's an ideological fascist with pro eugenic opinions lol
Congratulations, this is the first and probably the only video where I have stopped and listened to two audiobooks before viewing. I enjoyed the two books. And will now have to finish out the trilogy. Thank you.
Love these! I've seen most of your vids regarding fantasy and have loved the new focus on sci-fi. This and the compatability problem have been some of my favs!
To sum up my thoughts on the dark forest hypothesis, it's a classic prisoner's dilemma.
You either stay peaceful and wait for someone else to make the first move, with the risk of being wiped out by a preemptive strike you couldn't have seen coming anyway, or go on the offensive, become ultra paranoid, and thus cut yourself off from any potential alliances or friendships with other potentially benevolent species, and possibly get wiped out anyway by someone who stumbles upon you. In either case, the best option is to do nothing and project a message of peace. Speak softly but carry a big stick. It's safe to assume that any other species/civilization we meet also has the potential of wiping us out, so it falls under the principle of mutually assured destruction. In other words, don't shoot unless you're willing to be wiped out in retaliation.
The issue is having a bigger weapon and declaring you will destroy anyone who attacks you won't save you from a sneak attack from the dark. It won't even destroy your killer.
Alliances are only possible when two sides have something to offer each other. For this to work between interstellar civilizations, they'd have to be at a similar advancement level, which is unlikely. Even a few thousand years difference would mean a massive gap, and interstellar civilizations could form millions of years apart. There's no point in trying to make friends when those friends are either more primitive than a caveman from your perspective, or so godlike they have no reason to be friends with you.
Actually, ALL these Dark sci fi fantasies, leave out one essential skill/"superpower", that has figured in a LOT of other sf before and since... 🙂
What about telepathy?? What about "remote viewing", to get some idea of the other guys' capabilities/intentions?
And as a Neopagan, I know one thing I'd definitely do, to obtain guidance as to how to proceed next. I'd divine! 🙂
@@oneoflokis Maybe because telepathy most likely doesn't exist, and really wouldn't fit in a hard sf setting. And if telepathy did exist, there'd most certainly exist ways to counter it.
Or we're willing to wipe them out. The best solution is to have a strong fighting force, show you're capable of using it, but not go on the offensive. Like a martial artist they can fight but don't want to for fear of hurting someone. In the words of Sun Tzu: Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.
Pirates when boarding ships killed one person to show they were capable of doing it and spared the others to make a point.
I find it funny how you showed footage from "Batman: The Dark Knight" when talking about those spacecrafts considering to destroy each other, because of how both the prisoner and civilian boats choose to not destroy each other, which disappoints the Joker. In the end, they all survived.
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
Yes! More of these types of things! And writing! And everything you do! Love your channel! Deep dive sci-fi stuff is totally my jam!
I personally love when you tackle theories about certain enigmas in our world and why they are the way they are. When you did this for the first time (that I'm aware of) with your tackling the compatibility problem I really loved it, and I'm thankful you decided to do another one.
Perhaps you could tackle other intriguing theories about species and evolution, the oceanic deep or perhaps even what may or may not lie underground. Anyway, thanks for the new video, I'd love to see more of these.
I love seeing new people read Liu Cixin's work. Guy went hard on the Dark Forest theory and was comically brutal about it.
I remember reading the book and getting really excited for the 3rd story death's end. I was hoping that a 3rd civilization would be introduced into the story that was just as alien as the trisolarans and an unlikely peace would have to be forged like a mexican standoff between the three races almost as a solution to the dark forest hypothesis. It would tie back to the allegory of the 3 body problem where you had 3 point masses with unstable positions and velocities trying to find a stable orbit together.
Like StarCraft, huh?
That would have been really neat and fitting.
I forogr which book it was in since I read the trilogy pirated in Chinese a few years ago, but I guess one could argue that kinda happened
Spoilers:
The plan the main protagonist came up w was to beam a message from earth to the aliens if they try anything, dooming both civilizations. And it did end up going that way in the end. The protagonist was the "sword holder" and maintained that peace until another person was elected.
I have the book sitting on my shelf right next to me. Got it as a box set. I read 3-Body. Saving this video and will be back in a month.
I've had this video in my watch later for months and months so I could get and read The Datk Forest. Fantastic book, glaf I finally got to watch this
The dark forest theory is an extremely human-coded, purely survival-brained idea. We have no idea what extraterrestrial civilizations would even look like, and honestly with our current situation we won’t get there. It preys on the human fear of the unknown and assumes any other species would be the same.
It assumes every species in the universe takes a hardline Darwinist approach, rather than the more likely idea that interstellar/intergalactic travel is built only on cooperation.
The universe has demonstrated that evolution is extremely cut throat. There are no other models to work with.
Prove it's more likely that interstellar/intergalactic travel is built only on cooperation
If a species main focus isn't survival it will be exploited and destroyed by the ones who are.
Imagine we meet aliens and they have nothing to defend themselves with, do you think we will just hold hands and give them equal rights?
Or abuse them and do whatever the fuck we feel like doing with them. Maybe keep the cute ones in zoos or as pets. You know... like we did with every other species (Including our own).
If survival is not your main goal, you will not survive. It's the sad truth of the world as we know it.
But who knows they might be 5th dimensional ghosts or some shit but at that point we can just start saying whatever we feel like
@@Howl-Runner Tell sheep about how cut-throat evolution is. Or cattle - which, by biomass, are more successful than humans, having embraced a strategy of being tasty and relatively easy to turn into food.
Symbiosis and other mutualisms are very common too - try getting rid of your gut bacteria if you want an object lesson in the value of inter-species collaboration. Or consider what would happen to flowers if there were no bees (nor other insects) to pollinate them.
It's not the really alien aliens we need to look out for - it's the ones most like ourselves, directly competing for the same resources in the same niches.
@@anoobyproaz5616 no :)
I never really bought the Dark Forest Theory as a Great Filter because I think that it is way more likely technological civilization may simply not be that common and prohibitively far away.
But also, call me an optimist, but I also recall the line in ET where Keys tells Elliot he’s been waiting to meet an alien since he was ten years old. Wanting to meet the unknown is something we possess. Maybe they want to know us too.
The problem with the great filter line of thinking is it might just not even exist. We ask where is everybody, why doesn't anyone answer our messages, when the said messages haven't crossed even 1/16th of our galaxy. We ask why we don't see dyson spheres everywhere while failing to consider dyson spheres might be as cosmically unsound solution as powering a plane with a steam engine. It just hasn't been enough time for us to discover the others.
@@Soundwave1900 yeah there are far too many unknowns for us to really say anything. an advanced civilisation could be trying to communicate by using pulsars but we look at them, record their pulses and think "oh how nice" because we just don't understand the code. or they have advanced enough to use subspace like in Star trek where their mastery of technology precludes us from receivng them. They might even know we exist but decide not to interact with us because we are not advanced enough.
@@KatamuroTheFirst well said.
Yeah, you never know if there's something out there trying to communicate by scent but it breaks down too quickly for our nose-blind species, or we just don't have the right blue-ray player for their tech. So many spectrums, so little time for it to have crossed the universe and been understood.
ET? The same movie where the alien is captured by the government and nearly killed because the government tried to dissect them? That optimistic movie? If aliens want to "know" us, that's arguably even scarier than them wanting to kill us. Yet another reason to stay silent.
TY for the alert! I will be back after I read!
I was about to buy this book anyway so now that you told me to comment that i'm getting it before watching this video. I'm gonna go and buy the book and then i'll come back :D
In one of Brandon Sanderson's videos of his podcast, I remember he and Dan Wells discussed that a possibility for the lack of aliens contacting us is that throughout the universe, we're all on the same evolutionary/technological time-frame.
As interesting a premise as this is, it is the least realistic idea out there. The universe is billions of years old. It is hardly going to keep all its intelligent species to a time table on the order of mere decades in terms of their technological development. Any alien life near us would likely be hundreds of millions or even billions of years ahead of us or behind us technologically speaking.
Which is patently ridiculous, considering how "old" the universe is, and the fact that space-time is relative. Also, the sheer number of variables that would need to line up, would be beyond coincidental. It would imply an "intelligent designer". I'm sorry, there's even less evidence to suggest THAT! No, the idea that "we are all on the same evolutionary/technological time-frame", is the intellectual grasping of a child-mind.
And that does make assumptions about technology always going in one direction when we have so much lost tech and simplified solutions that civilizations would be reinventing the wheel (and the boomerang, and concrete, and geothermal air conditioning, and...) for billions of years before we're anywhere close to contact.
@@marshalofod1413it’s actually statistically higher for there to be an intelligent designer than there not being one.
Or we're first
I also really like the grabby aliens theory as a solution to the Fermi paradox. And it has a lot of interesting results that come out of it.
Tim, you need to see the other Fermi Paradox Solutions. Isaac Arthur has a dozen around of them. I think you guys could do an amazing crossover. Maybe on writing science into stories.
Keep doing these. I think it'll take off!
I've found the Dark Forest concept implausible, because all it takes is one of the "hunters" deciding to be friendly instead of hostile - or just doing anything other than immediately shooting first like investigating and limited communication - and suddenly you have someone you can work with as a friend or ally instead of an enemy. And, if you're in a situation where you shoot first, but instead of killing the target you shoot the equivalent of a massive space-bear who just gets annoyed by the attempt to kill it, you've ruined your own chances of survival.
Hell, the whole reason why modern civilization exists is because kill-everything-else-first is detrimental to the survival of intelligent life. Peace and cooperation is outright better for survival.
Also for the explosive expansion into big violent things, stuff, look at the follwing examples:
* Heavy stars,
* The Roman Empire,
* The way that a Malthusian trap is supposed to work.
* Our pressure on the climate
* Rapidly growing and spreading cancers
* The effect of supermassive black holes on their host galaxies.
Always growing, and devouring everything in your path is a very good way to
1) Destroy everything around you
2) Destroy yourself quickly afterwards from starvation
3) And once you are dead, what you leave behind is a place where very little can live.
Not only does peace help you survive, choosing expansion is a very good way to help yourself not survive.
The dark forest (the book) in fact did take that situation into account. The short version is that even you got lucky and found a civilisation who are willing to risk it and try to investigate first, even communicating back instead of striking first or ignoring you , the technology explosion and the super long distance in space will still make it super dangerous to them. You must remember that communicating in space is not a two way telephone communication (unless the 2 civilisations are really close). But smoke signal, 2 communicating and a lot of of other people watching, among those who watch, many will ignore the communication, but it just takes 1 who is paranoid enough to strike those who are communicating. Most civilisations who chose that route often do not survive long enough to make any real meaningful cooperation.
And the dark forest strikes as the book describe is just a lone sniper doing their own thing, while the method civilisation used in universe war is much more effective and made sure that most will not survive.
@@ucnguyen6375 Yes, many people in the comments are acting like the parties are of equal or near equal strength. But if one party could destroy the other without any chance of revealing themselves, while you have to use a gun and pull the trigger, suddenly decisions get a lot more difficult...
While I can see your point and even agree with your conclusion, a thought.
So far (as I know) we only have one datapoint on life and how it develops. I'm sure anyone with any knowledge of statistics can tell you how inaccurate conclusions based on that little data can be. We can make very (very) intelligent guesses but until we start learning from at least one other source of life (or as most people picture it, people from another planet) all we can say with complete confidence is that SO FAR peace and cooperation SEEM to work better.
To counter your argument, it’s far harder to defend against an attack, even a civilization whose technology is far behind that of another civilization could easily attack and destroy another civilization. Take nukes, we’ve become far more technologically advanced since the first nukes were invented, yet we lack the tools required to defend against even the first nukes ever made. It’s far harder to destroy than protect.
Second for communication: distance. The distances in space are so vast simply sending a message and awaiting a response will take years at minimum, are you telling me in all those years not a single nation will get paranoid enough to attack? Not only that, but deciphering an alien language could be practical impossible. What if these aliens speak in electromagnetic waves or vibrations? What if these aliens are plant-like and the way their minds work wouldn’t even be something us humans can understand. Despite language barriers, humans share the same common desires, beliefs, means of communication. Aliens might be so foreign we cannot even understand their most basic desires, thus making co-existence impossible. Besides, if one side is vastly superior in technology, they gain to benefit from co-existence, only a threat.
Personally, the Dark Forest theory sounds like it's manufacturing a post hoc justification for choosing violence. It's very similar to the arguments from 'human nature' that start with the conclusion they want, then rationalise it backwards with appeals to human nature designed to stop you from grabbing ther person and saying 'No, you chose to do this. This is on you.'
Particularly the assumption about expansionism sneaks in there a really big assumption as you point out, and one that would make dominating violence an attractive option. I'm inclined to argue that this is just another progressivist theory, using debunked social darwinism to smuggle in 'logical' imperialism.
As for why the universe is so quiet, I don't imagine there's one big reason, but when you throw in all of the various hoops you need to jump through, the massive technological expense of communicating and the complexity and contingency of spoken and written language, the chances of anything we can recognise as communication coming down the line drops (the signal has to be in the right space to hit us, at a period of time when we're looking [which is only about 50 years], phrased in a way we can pick it up, because given how hostile space is, no one is going to set out to go somewhere at random 'just to explore', you would die).
I also think it hasn't helped that a lot of the attempts I'm aware of have been physicists going 'Oh well everybody knows about chromosomes right? We'll put those in and a front on schematic diagram' and totally ignoring the complex history of the scientific repertoire, or the huge amount of syntactic unpacking that needs to be done to understand any of those model. There's a reason we don't do this when we're teaching a child to speak, or when we're trying to establish communication with someone whose language we don't share. I'm sure there are linguists out there who've made alternative, possibly more sensible, plans, but I always hear people go 'Oh they'll know maths right?'.
Basically, we keep looking for a really narrow range of things and beaming out stuff that's drenched in a similarly narrow notion of establishing communication and then we bring in the age of the universe because that makes it look like a long time. But we haven't been able to receive messages since the beginning of the universe, so really the question should be 'It's been 50 years, where is everyone?' when the nearest place they could be is 10s of light years away and the chance of jumping through all the hoops to get two cultures that can communicate in the same way and would want to dive into space of all places is infintesimal.
To be fair, the Dark Forest scenario is little more than an extrapolation of current MAD game theory on Earth, with a few key parameters tweaked. However, it does also make a number of highly unlikely technological assumptions to achieve those parameters, and even then one can still argue about whether you'd end up with the situation that the books actually suggest.
That being said, the books are pretty great with lots of interesting ideas - we just have to remember that the Dark Forest scenario is just as fictional as the rest of the technology and sociology in the book, which is there to serve the purpose of the story it is telling, not as a treatise on First Contact protocols at the UN.
It *is* a post hoc rationalization for choosing violence. They like to call themselves hard men making hard decisions when in reality they're just warmongers who think violence is the best solution.
And what's a better excuse to pull the trigger than "they'll do it to us anyway if we don't do it first?"
@@user-gb7ji6xy5d Yes, it is rationalising violence. But again, there is the question of whether the risk of being attacked first is worth it.
Dark Forest Theory is the "Oh yeah, I would totally survive the zombie apocalypse by killing and robbing all the other survivors, it's survival of the fittest out there hehe" of sci-fi settings
It should also be noted that a counter-argument based on fallacy isn't a counter-argument. The conclusion of an argument can still be true even in the face of claim there is no reasoning between it and the premises.
It's also ironic you yourself relied very heavily on post hocs to make your case.
I love these kinds of videos!!
Damn, I was looking forward to this video and my TBR bookshelf has like 30 books. Gonna be a minute before I can make it back to finish this one
Great overview!
While the Dark Forest is a really interesting story premise and Fermi paradox solution, I do think it has some severe issues in practicality, and it comes down to one of its own premises. That civilizations try to hide to avoid being spotted.
Keep in mind that in the last 30 years, we've gone from spotting the odd Super Earth and Hot Jupiter, to being able to search out the atmospheres of Earth sized planets, and theorizing how to detect bio/techno-signiatures of life and civilizations from home with current and upcoming technology. We don't need to be an interstellar, let alone an interplanetary civilization to catalog nearby life, and potentially find evidence of other civilizations. So if we, with our relatively early technogical ability can do this, an interplanetary or interstellar civilization will find it trivial.
In short, if there are any civilizations of note in our interstellar neighborhood, they already know about Earth. And they might even know about our civilization by studying our atmosphere over time and detecting industrial byproducts. Though that depends on alien civilizations being anywhere close to us. Either way, hiding is futile.
Additionally, I don't think we need to worry about our radio signals as much as we have right now. The inverse square law means that radio signals degrade into the cosmic microwave background long before they reach any star. Some of our radio signals wouldn't even make it to Alpha Centauri, so it would take a real stroke of luck for the odd signal strong enough to traverse through space and end up intercepting another civilization on top of that. And again, if they are close enough to detect our signals, they're close enough to study our planet and find out about us anyway.
Does it make it easier? Maybe. But interstellar travel is hard. I personally don't think the challenges are insurmountable, but the energies and time needed to accomplish make it improbable to justify wiping out another civilization. And that's even if they're relatively close. If they happen to be hundreds or thousands of light years away, why would you worry about them attacking you? By the time they become technologically advanced enough _and_ have the ability to feasibly pull off a similar mission towards your own space, you'll have had thousands of years of further technological development to outpace them and make any threat from them null and void.
I've always said, if they're advanced enough to find us AND get here then we are no threat to our civilization. And if they, like us, are not advanced enough to cross that boundary then they are no threat to us.
My answer to the Fermi Paradox is that the aliens all know about each other but simply don't interact with us because we're too backwards and primitive. Like The Vulcan in Star Trek they may already be watching us to see when, or if, we'll be ready for first contact.
You're close, but you're forgetting something important. Consider everything we've done in the past 300 years. Assuming we don't destroy ourselves first, it's entirely possible we colonize the entire galaxy in less than a million years. The galaxy is large, but it isn't *that* large. Even a million years is more than enough time.
Under this assumption, what would we do if we found life on another planet? I'm not talking about civilization, animals, or even plants. Just bacteria. The answer is pretty simple: we'd study it, inevitably interfere with its evolution, and ultimately prevent it from naturally evolving further. Even with the best of intentions, over millions of years this would be all but certain.
With the above in mind, consider a civilization, even one, that formed in our galaxy just 10 million years ago. Like us, they could colonize the galaxy in a million years. Homo sapiens didn't even exist back then, let alone human civilization. Animals did, but that just makes them more interesting to study.
So if we assume a civilization *did* exist 10 million years ago and *would* explore the galaxy (ultimately finding Earth)... why would we exist?
This necessarily means that either (a) interstellar space travel is far harder than we think, basically impossible even for futuristic civilizations (highly unlikely), (b) by astronomically low odds, two civilizations started within a cosmic nanonsecond, and we are one of them, or (c) we are the first and only civilization in our galaxy, likely our cluster or even supercluster.
It's like the local zoo. No matter what you think about how the animals are treated, do you really think they're unaware of the zookeepers?
@@TheFinalChapters We could also be wrong about how civilizations might expand into space, we aren't there yet, so it's possible. A single solar system contains all the space, resources, and energy needed to supply an enourmous civilization for billions of years comfortably. So expansion outside of that might actually be limited, and interstellar colonization could take far longer than we assume with exponential growth. Then again, over time, you would expect someone to expand across most/all of the galaxy eventually, and it has been around long enough for that.
So some combonation of b/c is possible to me. With how star populations have evolved, and how heavy metals have spread out across the galaxy, we could definitely be among the first generation of life and/or civilization in the galaxy. And it did take a long time from single celled life to human civilization, with many mass extinctions in between.
The universe doesn't need to be hospitable to life, so intelligence could be a very long, winding process. And even taking away humanity, we see many different species of intelligent animals converging at once, dolphins, cephalopods, corvids, and other primates (even those in their own stone age).
So maybe life needs to be able to last long enough to reach a sort of critical mass before intelligent civilizations start to form, and Earth is one of those few planets that has remained habitable, unlike worlds like Mars and Venus, which became uninhabitable due to various different factors.
While there is almost definitely selection bias at play, most of the potentially habitable planets we know of are much more massive than Earth (so any civilizations would have a hard time getting to space at all), and/or receive much more or less light than Earth, possibly cooking or freezing those planets.
@@davidk1308 The planet size is actually a red herring, because travelling between solar systems is far harder than leaving the gravitational well of even the largest planets.
I agree that time is basically the great filter, in that life needs billions of years to evolve, and in those billions of years most planets become uninhabitable in one way or another.
I stand by that civilizations will necessarily try to expand out into the stars, though. Not just because of curiosity, but in the interest of self preservation. While it's true that we've survived for billions of years here, that's due to extreme luck, and is not something we can count on in the future.
If we don't expand to other parts of the galaxy, we risk getting wiped out by an event that makes Earth, or even the entire solar system, uninhabitable.
@TheFinalChapters there's a thread on stack exchange that looked at what it would take to send a 1 tonne payload into orbit based on the surface gravity of a planet. What was found, that past 1g, you quickly need rockets approaching or exceeding the Saturn V, all for a 1 tonne payload.
And at just 2g, you need an equivalent Saturn V first stage. So I would argue that if larger habitable planets tend to be more common (a big if), and civilizations are able to develop there, space travel would be prohibitively difficult for a long time, or indefinitely. Giving more time for a mass extinction event to catch them. Granted, this is also for a small subset of possible civilizations, not all, considering we exist.
As for expanding outside of their home system eventually, I agree, and I didn't discount that, civilizations would explore and expand into neighboring systems at the very least.
But they could still live for a long time on the resources of their home system, and could likely survive any cataclysm short of a next door supernova or black hole flyby (both of which should be caught long in advance by any sort of sprawling civilization). So I don't think those kinds of dangers would be a major concern by the time they're capable of settling their system.
this reminds me of the prisoners' dilemma - two groups may both want to ally with each other, but are prevented from doing so because they both fear the other will attack them
It's not just fear. The forest can also only sustain so much life. If you're looking to expand, then they they have to go. If you tolerate their expansion, then you lay your neck under their boot and hope they don't squash you, either intentionally or accidentally.
But if the aliens are more advanced they have nothing to fear.
The most important thing to remember about the Prisoners' Dilemma is that choosing not to push the button has a 4 to 1 better chance of surviving over pushing the button.
@@TheUnseenPaththat’s not true, humans are 99.99% the same as monkeys genetically. That .01% makes us vastly smarter than monkeys. An alien civilization has no way of knowing how intelligent out species is, and how fast our technological booms will occur, and as such, if we are even .001% smarter than these aliens, it will take us no time at all to catch up to use. Remember, light takes time to travel, the aliens have no true way to monitor us as even if they could zoom in and observe out individual actions they would only be seeing afterimages of what our civilization was like years ago. This would make eradication the safest option.
@@TheUnseenPathexcept their superiors
That’s great content and very good journalism
please do more of these love the sci fi book discussions!
I’d love to see more stuff on Iain m banks The culture. There is so little of it online. One textually rich topic could be, when is it morally correct to intervene in other societies for “their own good” - looking at player of games, use of weapons, and surface detail for reference -
Alternatively - exploring the “outside context problem” from excession. Would be cool too.
Man, Surface Detail especially has so much food for discussion with all the Afterlives issues.
I've been watching Quinn's Ideas talk about The Three Body Problem for years. Amazing Series I'm really glad you discovered it!
You should do a video on some of your favorite concepts like these, topics like this are really interesting to hear about^^
Loving the niche content. Keep it up!
I’ve loved this series since I was young, glad to see it getting more attention
If you want niche I would love to see you cover some of the Dragonriders of Pern books, the thread are one of the coolest space horrors, and they blend sci-fi and fantasy perfectly
Pern is a woefully unknown series that is the archetype for many that followed. It is also a very good example of long time scale worldbuilding.
Honestly, so much of Anne McCaffrey's work deserves at minimum a shout-out and a campy SyFy channel B movie better than Eragon. Ship Who Sang has interstellar sarcastic Bob Dylan rap battles to defeat planetwide depression and it's glorious.
Second this. Would be great if Pern got some more love.
I love those books, I recently reread Dragonflight and Dragonquest. The only thing preventing me from reading more is a new hyperfixation I got just after I finished Dragonquest lol
Idk if anyone else here will know what I'm talking about, but it's a horror type thing called Generation Loss. Gen 1 was streamed live on twitch a couple months ago and uploaded to UA-cam, and I am consuming all the bts and theories I can find lol
Please do more vids like this. I love it!!
this book gave me the existential oppenheimer stare into the abyss for about 3 month while i was studying for my medical licensing exam. highly recommend
Imagine if in some space opera setting, it's actually a Dark Forest vs a Light Forest, just two regions of the galaxy battling it out for supremacy and survival...
That's what the book essentially posits by the end
It's a crazy conclusion it explains why light has a speed limit and why we live in 4 dimensions originally there were 10 dimensions and speed of light was infinite but then there was the 2 superpowers they have fractured the laws of physics as they fight breaking the universe down dimension by dimension destroying their last universe and moving to a lower dimension and light as well gets fractured
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
This video is the reason why I started reading the three body problem. And I loved it.
I read the three body problem a few years ago and was interested but never quite enough to go finish the series, i just my mind has just been changed, i will be back once i read itf
I've been thinking about a story where aliens stumble upon one of the Voyagers and use it to find Earth. I know curiosity is in their nature and they're very slow to mistrust, and I've realized that in the premise of the story, I'm more worried about what humans might do to them.
I'm so glad you spoke on this, I'm often left wondering at night at the thought of this theory, as well as the holes in its logic. It assumes just as much as it tries not to be presumptive.
Your description of the 3 options raises one very clear possibility:
a possibility that is an all to common myth in our own world--alien surveillance. If a society desires to use the 2nd option (1 hide, 2 reveal, 3 attack), the best choice to overcome differences in species, and cultural differences would naturally be to observe the other party, in secret, until you have learned enough about them to communicate effectively (or at least know they won't kill you).
Which just so happens to, 1 align very closely with some conspiracy theories and scifi stories, and 2 open the possibility of non-so-benign interaction during that secretive observation period.
Yup, that sounds like a series I want to read, so gonna do that and watch this after! ^^
As someone still half way through the three body problem I am incredibly excited to watch this video in full after I finish both books.
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
A fascinating concept, albeit one I immediately rejected. Any society capable of firing will already have the means to prevent a successful first strike. Essentially an interstellar version of mutually assured destruction.
My personal theories (I have a few) are
1: We’re the most advanced intelligent life in the galaxy. Intelligent life elsewhere hasn’t reached the stage where they’re capable of responding to us.
2: The Prime Directive idea. Civilisations not capable of interstellar flight are left alone.
3: It’s a big, big galaxy. Our signals haven’t reached anyone else yet.
Did the Japanese have the capability of firing a nuclear weapon or preventing that first strike?
@@xero2715 The Japanese were not capable of dropping a nuclear weapon. Nor were they caught off guard by the Americans. Nor were they at the stage of an interstellar civilisation. Nor were they in danger of being wiped out. Very much a false analogy.
Dark Forest civilizations aren't gonna attack willy nilly. They're especially not gonna attack someone they know can fight back. They exterminate civilizations too weak to fight back but might one day develop the capabilities to do so. Like killing the weed before it overruns your garden. An MAD scenario will only occur if everyone has the ability to strike with equal force, an unlikely scenario given interstellar civilizations could form millions or even billions of years apart.
Haven’t read it, but I’m inclined to believe kind of what you said in the end - that a show of restraint from violence is a shared language.
Interesting ideas here!
Working on the Three Body Problem at the moment. Going to stop the video and come back when I've read it!
This happened to me, about 12 years ago when I played WoW for the first time.
I was a lowbie noob levelling up on a pvp realm, when I first met someone on the opposite alliance, he walked up to me to /wave but before I noticed he was being friendly, I attacked him and killed him thinking he was a threat without a second thought. I soon after read the chat log and felt really bad, was too late by then though :( I never saw him again.
I'm surprised you didn't get absolutely shredded by him.
Were you horde or alliance? There is a correct answer.
I was horde at the time
@@Asha-ki9od then it wasnt a mistake, brother. Well done.
I'm not a science fiction reader or a reader much all at but I absolutely loved this video, it's one of my favorites you've ever done. Please spend your time exploring great science fiction stories and concepts on your channel!
Great discussion Tim. The only wrinkle that you could throw in here is the fact that extra-terrestrials according to multiple alien abduction testimonies often communicate through telepathy. Therefore if two benevolent societies ever meet, the telepathic conversation the ensues would prevent unnecessary military conflict.
I don't want spoilers, you make it sound really good. I don't know if I'll go get it. But I feel bad not leaving a comment for the alligator to feed on if I'm clicking off of it.
I got into this series bc of a video you made on Three Body Problem and I couldn't be more grateful for that. What a masterpiece
Love this series of yours! Keep on the amazing work!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
This is THE biggest fantasy/sci-fi series in China, and I wish they produced more like it. It's sometimes a bit hard to look for exactly the genre you want because they sorta lump the two categories together and call them 奇幻
I started watching this video last week but hadnt read any of the books, so i paused and went a read the three body problem and will be reading the dark forest soon ✌️
My personal theory is that intelligent alien life does exist in the universe, but humans are the most technologically advanced which is why we've never made contact with any of them. It would be like someone traveling back in time then trying to call Alexander Graham Bell with their cellphone; the technology is similar but too advanced to communicate.
That is also a common theory in the field. There is also the other theories that self-annihilation is incredibly common or that due to natural catastrophes and mass extinctions, that civilizations usually don't become interstellar.
I think its a bit of every theory out there. Things are rarely one dimensional and if human politics/technology is so diverse, the universe will be even more so.
Based on humanity, the odds of intelligent life wiping itself out before it can find another one seems probable.
We also have to take into account the random chances of our geographical development that ALSO seperated humanity, allowing different groups to form different ideals and war among each other (war IS what drives our technological advancement realistically) it is entirely possible a seperate species evolved exact at the same time as us, but it still stuck in the stone age because they are living in a pangea continent and simply have no conflict with their own species, and thus no reason to advance quickly.
You were right in that the dark forest concept has been spreading around more recently. It's personally not a very interesting concept to me anymore and even more so as it gets covered.
I look at it similar to the compatibility problem, if we can think it, we can address it.
I’m in the middle of The Dark Forest, so your video goes on my watch later list. Sill liking and subscribing.
Almost finished the three body problem, cant wait for the rest!
i love these videos :D. Talking about concepts, and introducing books based on that is a really clever way to do book reccomendations. A lot more compelling than simply talking about the book :). The Three Body Problem series made me feel childlike wonder again, so thank you for making these videos! My thoughts on the dark forest theory is that, based on what it states, this means that the fundamentally hardest thing for anyone to ever do, which is ironically the solution to the dark forest theory, is to trust.
This book series terrified the hell out of me. It's some ploughing through at the start of the book to get to the space bit, and parts of book two I also found difficult to get through. But those more "sludgy" parts are worth it for the entire series (and they do contribute to the plot)
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
I recently finished reading all three books and I've started watching the series. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I don't know if you were planning on making a video on the series as well :) Anyway, I hope you're well and thank you for sharing your work on youtube.
Me like these. Continue please. Any topic is fascinating.
Love your content man! Always make my day!😊😊😊❤❤❤❤❤❤
I read this series very recently and, while I enjoyed it, I'm glad to see Tim so succinctly explain the problems with Dark Forest theory in general. Also, this is only partially related, but it's hilarious how basically every woman in The Dark Forest and Three-Body Problem is described as 'slender'. Cixin Liu's female character writing is like 50/50 at best but the 'slender' thing kept recurring so much that I just couldn't stop laughing at it. Despite that though, I still think the books are worth the read if you like interesting, theory-driven sci-fi. Hope the Netflix series does it justice.
And Luo Ji's idealized love object is constantly described as child-like. The German wall facer even confuses her, a grown woman and Luo Ji's wife, as the big sister to Luo Ji's daughter. Her own daughter. (???)
Great concepts, but the author has an infantile view of love and idealizes infantile women. It's a book that should be read with a very critical eye. I may never read Death's End.
@@e.matthews Without spoiling anything, Death's End does briefly show Cixin Liu's rather odd views on masculinity and gender presentation. He's very much a "hard times breed strong men, good times breed weak men" kinda guy. As far as I recall, the female lead is never described as infantile, but she is a very passive kinda character, a lot like the main guy from Three Body Problem.
I miss Ye Wenjie. She's like the one good female character in this whole series
@@dusty2366 Oh my goodness Ye Wenjie was a fascinating character, and very believable! I was completely crestfallen in Dark Forest. I'm a huge speculative fic reader, and I couldn't suspend disbelief for TDF characters. I will try Death's End, then, I just need a bit more distance. Thank you!!
Phahhahabah, western audiences discover Chinese beauty standards and social understanding in foreign author’s writing.
My favorite sci-fi trilogy ever! I couldn't stop thinking about this after finishing it.
Some of the concepts you discuss highkey terrify me, but they're so interesting...
I finished reading the trilogy just a few weeks ago. Genuinely one of the most interesting and fascinating and memorable books I’ve ever read. Made me a bit scared to look up at the stars now, so that’s fun.
You know the solution to the Fermi paradox?
There is no solution because the Fermi Paradox doesn't exist.
The idea of the Fermi Paradox is rooted in the delusion of Naturalism in that you believe in abiogenesis which is debunked via numerous limiting factors, many of those factors would be applicable to any form of life, factors like the information isufficiency paradox.
I am getting sick and tired of the delusion and willful ignorance of Atheistic Naturalists and Naturalists in general.
Wake up.
There is no Fermi Paradox, if other life is in the Universe then it is from special creation like us, this is why the Universe is so barren of life.
Came here to say that Dark Forest psytrance feels like a solid way of communicating with aliens and that has never killed me.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll read the book and then come back
I have the book and I will be reading it soon. Thanks for doing this video.
I love the dark forest, not that I believe it. Pleas do book three even though it’s not my kind of book. What I’m mostly asking for is more videos of any kind. Thank you!! P.S. love the rain 🌧️
If there's another reason we haven't encountered extraterrestrial life it could be that sentient lifeforms are so rare and distant that by the time any proof of their/our existence reaches either party they/we could have regressed to a more primitive state or become extinct
Yes, because we are talking to the past not the present, the only solution for life forms to unite or communicate it would be to live very close to each other, there might be places on the univere filled with other lifeforms.
In big forest scatered groups then to unite, to get closer to each other, to survive and communicate better, i belive in space its the same. If communication its impossible at a distance then moving closer or living in dense clusters are the solution.
I would listen to narrate so much my god I got unnerved listening to u narrate that beginning bit!
This is very interesting. In fact it relates to what I learned when studying the political theory of international relations and the problem of international anarchy. What you describe is a situation of anarchy where-to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes-everyone is everyones wolf. I'm looking forward to reading those books.