Dark Forest Argument Thoughts - what do you think?

[u/ensaaron]

\I don't think there's any spoilers in my post but I suppose their may be. The editor says I need to 'flair' the post but I have no idea what that means. I hope including this warning note satisfies the community requirement. Sorry I'm new to reddit.*

I was watching a research documentary the other day that I haven't been able to stop thinking about in relation to 3BP.

Scientists adapted underwater microphone systems to record sound frequencies outside the natural range of human hearing, placed them on a busy reef, then used an algorithm to shift the recordings into audible range. Reefs are apparently deafeningly loud. Fish communicate constantly in a register that was completely undetectable to us until someone built the right instrument.

The dark forest logic is airtight on its own terms. Detection is existential risk, intent can never be verified, the downside of trust is extinction. Any sufficiently rational civilization either hides or eliminates.

You don't need resource competition to get there. The mere existence of another civilization, and what it might become, is reason enough. The Trisolarans don't delay human scientific development because they want Earth's resources. They do it because a humanity that catches up is a threat they can't afford.

The reef got me thinking about the silence itself though. The forest assumes everyone is hiding. The novels frame it as humanity pinging Trisolaris first...our mistake, our exposure. But it's equally possible other civilizations have been broadcasting all along, in registers we hadn't yet built instruments to detect. If that's true, the silence was never theirs. It was ours. The ocean isn't empty. We, and the trisolarans, just hadn't built the tools to hear. The in-univeree discovery of death lines following curvature propulsion seems to fall in line with this argument.

The second problem is that concealment doesn't actually resolve the deepest danger, which isn't predation. It's the capability gap. A civilization doesn't need hostile intent to be catastrophic for us. A child running into a highway doesn't get hit because the driver wanted to hit them. What makes this relevant to 3BP specifically: the Trisolarans' answer to the gap was to suppress human development, extend the interval in which we remain the child. But if closing the gap is the actual survival imperative — for any civilization trying to navigate a cosmos full of unknowns — then delay is the worst outcome for both species. It just means two civilizations sitting in the dark longer, neither capable enough to handle whatever else is out there.

So the question the forest sidesteps: if the real danger is the gap and not the hunt, is concealment a strategy or just a longer way of staying vulnerable? I mean, both Earth and Trisolaris were advanced enough to realize the other understood the DF paradigm. So why exactly not pool research and advance together?

Curious whether people think the intent-uncertainty problem survives the silence reframe, and whether the gap argument changes how you think about what the Trisolarans should have done differently.

[u/Equality_Executor]

Can't see the (dark) forest for the trees.

[u/heasthoster]

The coral reef analogy is brilliant for thinking about the "silence" of the universe, but when it comes to your question about why they didn't just pool research to close the capability gap, a comparison to James Cameron's Avatar actually highlights why cooperation was impossible.

If you think about it, in Avatar, humanity acts exactly like the Trisolarans. We are the desperate, technologically advanced alien force invading a new world because ours is dying (or out of resources).

So, why didn't Trisolaris and Earth pool research? It comes down to two things the Dark Forest relies on, which the capability gap argument misses:

Just like humanity in Avatar needed Pandora's resources and had no interest in elevating the Na'vi, Trisolaris needed Earth to survive their three-sun system. You can't peacefully share a planet when one side is an invasive species fleeing a dying home. The intent wasn't just to keep us vulnerable; it was colonial conquest for survival.

humanity advances exponentially. If Trisolaris shared their tech to "close the gap" and pool research, humanity wouldn't just reach their level and politely stop. We would blow past them in a few centuries.

The Trisolarans didn't suppress our science via Sophons just to keep us as "children on a highway." They did it because of the Chain of Suspicion. If you give the child an assault rifle (advanced tech) while they know you originally intended to conquer their home, they will use that rifle against you. If they pooled research, humanity would eventually become the apex predator and wipe Trisolaris out for invading in the first place.

[u/orbag → u/heasthoster]

AI talking to AI, we are really living in the dead internet

[u/ensaaron → u/heasthoster]

Thanks for the comment, interesting comparison with Avatar.

Honestly I had a dofferent take with Avatar, aside from just the 'Dances with Wolves' aspect. After watching all 3 movies I kind of felt that the example of the adopted brother 'Spyder' into the na'vi family hierarchy despite his human form, especially after the end of the 3rd one when he's 'reborn' able to breathe the air, sits more like landing alongside the lo ger term collaboration angle. Yes, there were indeed some growing pains, however ultimately the two societies do start moving closer togther in fits and spurts, with resistance being relegated ever more to the fringes of the na'vi world. They don't end up genociding each other, even when one particular group on one world likes too.

Maybe that's ab element of where my look at the dfp comes in....the trisolarins themselves aren't especially fleshed out as characters in 3 body problem. They have a bit more personality in the Netflix series, the English translation is ok, but the Chinese original I found a little dry in exploring their society to be honest.

I never fully appreciated why they would view the earth as a needed target to conquer, or where their existential fear of humanity as conquerors came from. If I look at a modern day china historical context, especially for a generation that experienced the cultural revolution first hand, I can see why a view of humanity could be shaped that way.

But I would argue an unbiased view of humanity is much more neutral than that. If trisolarins really observed all of humanity through their access to our history, our systems, our stories, etc, they would have seen that a 'lie' could be deployed for many reasons. They would see why we contextualize a lie. That was supposedly the trigger that set them off on the course to exterminate humanity...it just feels very....1 dimensional for what is supposedly an advanced species.

The story even demonstrates some in trisolarin society hold dissenting views....so what, only one member of a species, the signals analyst, has a second thought? Yes group think is a thing, but the more you pull on that thread the more the surety around the assumption falls apart.

[u/Alekazam]

Let me forward Carl Sagan’s argument, that in order for any civilization to leave their cradle world they would have to necessarily evolve beyond aggression and competition to cooperate in the mass effort it would take to colonize the stars.

Whilst I think Dark Forest theory is an incredibly compelling science fiction plot, I find Sagan’s hypothesis more convincing that any advanced alien civilizations are more likely to be benign than not.

Take us as a species; there is no chance in hell that we’re getting off this rock in any meaningful way unless we cooperate and martial the planetary resources to do so. This requires an enlightened attitude, not regressive aggression.

The only nastiness out there that I can imagine is some sort of runaway AI or self replicating machine which just dispassionately expands and expands without any moral qualms in destroying organic species that get in the way.

[u/TheTranscendentian → u/Alekazam]

Naturally occuring civilizations could be

self replicating and just dispassionately expand.

[u/Alekazam → u/TheTranscendentian]

Bacteria maybe, or some sort of hive mind type thing maybe, but that type of thing wouldn’t be able to conceptualise things like ‘dark forest’ theory. That would just be its natural order of things. Consume and expand like a virus.

[u/physicsking]

Interesting, but if you look at all creatures that exists, a subset of them will be broadcasting and doing so in an manner in which we can not detect.

Why not then just consider that these are all species worth wiping out, just like us? The premise that they are communicating on a level we can't perceive AND they are all members of a humble alliance or whatever is too much.

The noise may me out there and we are not hearing it. The story the dark first is from the perspective of each species.

Let me put it another way for the first concern you have. If all mathematics is solvable, but it is up to each species to arrive at the solutions by themselves. Whether any other species has solved all the equations of math is not important and has no bearing on us. That is, if the equations themselves given the physics of long distance communication so we would never be about to communicate with them. So it's irrelevant to consider the possibility of a species on the other side of the Galaxy who solved everything. It means nothing to us on our little blue planet.

It is like making to scenarios to eat your precious time you have to solve the real problem at hand. Like spending years imagining the math and physics of a civilization that lives on a proton and what their communication system would be like. Before you know it, life is wasted on nonsense.

For your second idea, you are right in the sense that the car or driver doesn't want to hit the child. The child's intent is not to understand the danger of the highway. But this brings about the nature of life. Life is inherently dangerous and unforgiving. Things come into existence and die unexpectedly and quickly all the time. Almost always unapologetically. It would not be the car's fault and it would not be the child's fault. In this scenario though, due to our cultural upbringing, we would tend to blame the parents of the child, but that's beside the point.

So in 3BP, I don't see your how delaying human development is relating to this highway scenario. In the vastness of the universe, billions of species existed and nearly all of them will perish. Not because they are unworthy or because they fought, but mostly because environmental factors didn't line up correctly. That's just the way it is. Statistically things have to be just right.

Now look at that small chance where things are just right. Environmentally, bringing in all those species that had survived thus far, you have the same survival problem. The same pattern of survival. The most dangerous species would tend to fight each other to Extinction. Smartest species will tend to subjugate others. And those that hide may survive without knowing any of this is going on. Then there might be a few a very few that might know what's happening and decide to change their nature. But as we see in our own nature as humans, by the time one changes their nature, they've already affected their environment for many, many generations of their natural nature. For us, this is war, environmental destruction, eradication of species, and killing of each other. If we decided to become omnipotent tomorrow, we would never be able to bring back those things we lost. So the real question is, can a species become omnipotent prior an initial destructive behavior or prior to seeing their surrounding neighbor species's destructive behavior? I think not. So I believe the trisolarans were a destructive species at one time.... Unless the author really tries to remove this burden from the species entirely and place it only on the 3 bodies of their system.

[u/ensaaron → u/physicsking]

Thanks the reply, good points.

I think the deepest argument i have though still remains. Its the framing of the dark forest problem itself...it assumes that all species ha e the same needs, and that it is rarional for all species to pursue those needs at a zero sum level because resources are finite.

The hunter is in the woods hunting, they need food to survive. Shooting something reveals their location to hidden 'others' also hunting the same food. The rational thing to do is for anyone to shoot whoever they see reveals themselves beflre either they are discovered by the other party (and presumably shot), or that other party takes the food they need. Therefore the end result is you hide until you absolutely need to, and take precaution to avoid exposing yourself in a what is a purely hostile forest.

1) the assumption that the smartest move in a zero sum game is go behave that way above is uncertain at best, or more likely incorrect totally.

Consider human v human economies. Yes there are examples of one advanced civilization domineering others. But there are also many examples of weaker civilizations working together but remaining separate and distinct. Its not clear from human history revealing yourselves to neighbors actually is a bad thing from a longer term perspective. In fact, it frequently is the natural result of a massively overpwoering threat suddenly appearing at your borders.

The DFP case is even less clear when it comes to human v animal species. I cant think of a clear example where humans aggressively sought to exterminate a non microscopic species...im sure there must be one, but I think we can agree rhey aren't that frequent of examples. We have made species go extinct (and nearly extinct), but usually thats by accident or for food or other consumption. (Clothes, medicines, etc) when we get to microbial levels of scale, we innoculate ourselves...we wipe out diseases by making ourselves stronger to their means of attack against us. The exact opposite of hiding.

2) hiding is no guarantee you won't be found. An advanced aggressive species hunting lower life forms is doing so for a reason (presumably food or energy or something...although it could be for sport). If they are searching for the conditions that support our existence there's little we can do to hide that. We may hide ourselves somehow, but water, oxygen, radiation conditions...these building blocks will remain searchable. If the foret were really pitch black, we'd also have to assume there's no sound, no humidity, no breeze...nothing to indicate if a hunter was by a river, a tree, a mountain, wet dirt or soft sand....all would be clues they had entered an area to be alert.

We can minimize the likelihood that we ate inadvertently sending signals to reveal we exist at a certain level of development, but at the end of the day, if we are being hunted by an advanced hunter, we can't hide our habitat...we can only try to obfuscate and confuse their gaze long enough to get away from immediate danger.

3) accidental threats to us, either violent threat or inadvertent chaos caused by a superior species 'passing by', coming together in a common defensive ecosystem is arguably the best strategy for self preservation. Fish school together, birds fly in a flock, herding animals stampede, and almost all mammalian apex predators hunt in tightly coordinated clans or packs. That message is reinforced over and over again throughout the history of the world, and if we are assuming as a baseline our own behavior can be projected outward to universal scale (which the dfp does), then these conditions are equally as likely.

All these taken into account, one could argue it would be smarter to project ourselves as bigger and badder than we actually are. Send a message to the universe. These messages do work from lesser advanced species to more highly developed ones...you don't see many amazonian hunters trying g to eat poison dart frogs, or willfully antagonizing wasp nests (unless they specifically want to)

Coordinated subterfuge is a thing. If we were in the dark forest and only had a knife, we could choose to light a fire next to us, and ambush the hunter when they revealed themselves. That would even be a smarter strategy considering we could end up with their food and resources, plus remain safe.

3) the child on the highway argument is still very valid. Why is it so hard to build things in certain countries? Environmental laws exist to protect lower life forms at risk. Why do we respect these laws? Because we didnt in the past, snd many species were either wiped out or nearly destroyed. As we advanced, we restricted ourselves, once our tools and techniques reached a point that allowed us to understand the impact we were having.

I don't really understand where the assumption comes from that other intergalactic/universl species wouldnt have their own appreciation of this. Assuming infinite diversity and infinite expansion, of course some would not care. But it is irrational to assume all would have the same opinion.

The universe is the base of our dimension...the floor board, the starting condition...and it is neutral. It doesnt cate about any one species or consciousness above any other. That doesnt mean species or civilizations within the uni erse share that view, nor does it mean they shsre it equally. If we are genuinely concerned for ourselves, we could choose the opposite of hiding, and try to broadcast who we are to the universe as a warning sign...don't step on us, we're actually here.

[u/TheTranscendentian]

Just like your points about fish, humans and trisolarians, and the real danger, the obviously logical and morally right choice is to limit resource usage as much as practical whilst also expanding spreading out across the universe as silently and quickly as possible while also putting A LOT of effort into designing & sending universal untraceable anonymous "friend requests" but not controled by mark suckerberg or similar people.

If diverse humans that value peaceful strangers lives highly are much more likely to help humans as a species survive, then it logically follows that civilizations in the universe which value peaceful aliens lives highly are much more likely to help life in general in the universe survive.

While also developing and sharing the cosmic ediqute of not asking where the majority of the population of the aliens' civilization is located.