[mcpackieh]

It's a reasonably logical answer but it's not the simplest answer. The Dark Forest hypothesis assumes that life is so common in the universe that encountering and being existentially threatened by other life is a serious threat. But what reason is there to believe that life is that common? For Liu Cixin's books this assumption makes sense because it makes the story possible, but in real life there's simply no evidence to justify such an assumption.

[emilecantin]

Well we have no idea of the values for most variables in the Drake equation, so of course there will be some assumptions. Dark Forest is an answer to the Fermi Paradox in the case where intelligent life isn't rare.

If you read the books, you'll notice that they talk about "hiding gene" and "cleansing gene"; these are traits that civilizations acquire as they evolve.

I think that this has real-world implications in terms of how we conduct our SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence); we should be careful of our radio emissions and things like sending a powerful signal / message to another star should probably be avoided.

[timschmidt]

> But what reason is there to believe that life is that common?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOiGEI9pQBs

[mcpackieh]

Shit entertainment channel masquerading as educational content. If you think you learned something from that video then why haven't you explained it yourself?

The simple fact of the matter is that there is no empirical evidence for life outside of Earth. My guess is that it exists out there somewhere, but there's no good basis for believing that life is as common as the Dark Forest hypothesis requires.

[timschmidt]

Two ad hominems in one comment. Way to go.