[new299]

Yep, after reading the three body series I feel like I'm much more skeptical about sending out Earths location indiscriminately.

Spoiler: One of the central tenets of this book is that the most logical course of action for any alien discovering another life form, is to destroy it immediately. The story is pretty coherent, but if anyone has references to any scientific/theoretical work on this I'd be very interested in reading it.

[pavel_lishin]

I don't buy it, at least not as stated in the book. The axioms in the book are flawed, and there are some unspoken axioms that aren't explicitly laid out.

1. Destroying a civilization isn't risk free. If you destroy a nearby star system that harbors life, you better be sure that your weapon can't be traced back to you, by either any observers, or by the survivors. (See Forge of God & The Anvil of the Stars[1] for a study of the latter.)

2. If you do subscribe to the Dark Forest game theory, and do have what you believe is an untraceable weapon of some kind, there's no reason not to sterilize every star system around you. Why would you wait until you've detected life? Send out self-replicating Saberhagen Berserker[2] probes and sterilize the galaxy. (Be sure you've got a good Friend-or-Foe system in place.)

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/464609.Anvil_of_Stars [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/582675.Berserker

[ufmace]

Trying to spin up axioms and theories about the game theory of whether or not to destroy alien species seems hopeless to me. There's so many parts of it that hinge on what is or isn't possible to know and do in the first place. It could easily swing either way based on countless factors we know nothing about.

I'm far from saying for sure that something like that is definitely true, or even more likely than not. But it seems reasonably cautious to me to not arbitrarily broadcast out to the universe our location and rough technology level. We have no idea what might be out there or what its capabilities and thought patterns might be. Or rather, it seems hopelessly naive to me to just go ahead with such broadcasts, confident in our theories that nothing could possibly go wrong.

[1001101]

It's a bit anthropocentric to ascribe human utility calculus to alien behavior motivation.

[ufmace]

Indeed, even if our "game theories" are perfectly reasoned by our logic and the technology available to us, there's no telling what kind of logic and thought patterns an alien civilization might use, and what different types of technology they might have.

[pavel_lishin]

That's a baby-eating attitude.

[new299]

Regarding point the second point. I assume there's a cost associated with using the weapon, even if it's untraceable.

Regarding the Berserkers, it sounds a bit like a grey-goo scenario with self-replicating machines that wipe out all life. My personal feeling is that these scenarios are unlikely. If it were possible, it would have happened already... but it would be interesting to hear more systematic discussion of this point.

With my brief googling, I've found it pretty difficult to find anything on real "cosmic sociology". The research work I've found has mostly focused on human colonization of other worlds. I feel like it would make fun reading if there's anything out there.

[pavel_lishin]

> Regarding the Berserkers, it sounds a bit like a grey-goo scenario with self-replicating machines that wipe out all life

That's pretty much the idea, yeah.

[rmidthun]

It doesn't even need to be hostile to be trouble.

The Strugatsky brothers book "Roadside Picnic" (inspiration for game and movie "Stalker") is based on the idea that aliens came and visited Earth and ignored us completely.

However, they left behind a lot of weird and often deadly trash that people are scavenging.

[sliken]

Assuming A) that FTL is impossible and B) the galaxy isn't a mono culture. The established players will likely have an mutually assured destruction agreement not to fight among themselves. Defending against near light speed attacks is basically impossible... at least for planets.

Civilization inhabiting whatever their favorite star systems in the galaxy would have to deal with a few problems. One is that the size of the galaxy (100k light years) galaxy wide quite difficult. Another problem is that civilizations can go from pre-radio (before they are easy to detect) to mass energy conversion (allowing a decent fraction of light speed) within a few 100 years. One likely strategy would be to place sensors across the galaxy that would detect problematic aggressive/warlike civilizations and eliminate them.

So civilizations that are peaceful, grow slowly, don't ruin their planet, and don't set off nukes in their atmosphere might get a pass. Maybe even an invitation into the galaxy wide community once they figure out anti-matter/mass conversion.

However the ones launching nukes might just get eliminated before they become hard to contain. If the typical window from pre-ratio to a growing thread takes a minumum of 200 years they might well spread a sensors to be within 100 light years of any planet. That would need something like 250k to cover the milky way. That way the problem is eliminated within 200 years and before they can spread far enough to be hard to contain.

[Balgair]

Meh, I think, assuming communication is possible, the possible gained knowledge is of greater value in the long term.

New mathematics, new ways to see physics, new art and culture, etc. and most of it would have been nearly impossible to create de novo. An easy solution to prime number generation? Easily worth Italy in value, if not more, over the medium-long term. Multiply that by a planet and all of it's history.

Hell, the dumb accounting records of even a small municipality for a few decades from aliens would be worth at least a Luxembourg in terms of information you could glean from it. (Not to make it all about money, but to give the info some sort of value we can understand) An alien civilization would be astonishing in terms of it's value to science and culture, etc. Forget BC or AD in terms of marking time, it would be Pre-Contact and Post-Contact.

Why kill that? Why destroy the golden goose? That would be so stupid.

Ok, maybe come in in disguise, give them an internet type thing, glean every possible bit of data from it, then sterilize the civilization. Best of both worlds? (pardon the pun).

Still, the matter we are made of is only ~5% of the universe. Dark matter is about 20% and dark energy is about 75%. So, odds are that whatever the aliens are doing, it's in those realms. Realms we cannot even begin to think to access and modify yet. If anything, if they see us, we're acting like a goldfish stuck in a bowl to them, no threat whatsoever.

[iammyIP]

'the most logical course of action for any alien discovering another life form, is to destroy it immediately'.

In that case i'd rather be destroyed than share a universe with such a species. I do not think the premise makes sense. It also makes no sense to compare it with the slaughter of native americans, since that has been done by apes in clothes.

Any interstellar spacefaring civilisation should be so advanced that it values construction over destruction.

[pavel_lishin]

You've got a fairly self-fulfilling wish. If we share a universe with Dark Foresters, you'll be destroyed! And if we don't, you won't!

[iammyIP]

Yes, if it would be code, pretty redundant.

But the main point was that such a zip bomb species would be a fault of the universal system. I don't think it's that stupidly designed.

[pavel_lishin]

> I don't think it's that stupidly designed.

I don't think it's designed at all.

[iammyIP]

Why would you think that? Without any system there wouldn't be any science.

[pavel_lishin]

The short answer is, "I'm an atheist", and the long answer you can sort of google for yourself.

[nkrisc]

> In that case i'd rather be destroyed than share a universe with such a species.

Lucky for you, that's exactly what would happen if you shared the universe with such a species.

[iammyIP]

The underlying system is hopefully much better designed, so this will never occur.