The Dark Forest, Aliens, and a Hostile Galaxy
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- When we look up into the night skies, all we see is absence and silence, but could our galaxy be a dark forest full of hidden predators waiting to consume us?
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The Dark Forest, Aliens, and a Hostile Galaxy
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 377a, January 15, 2023
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Editors:
David McFarlane
Donagh Broderick
Graphics by:
Darth Biomech
Ken York
LegionTech Studios
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.c...
Markus Junnikkala, "Hail the Victorious Dead", "A Memory of Earth"
Stellardrone, "Red Giant", "Ultra Deep Field"
Sergey Cheremisinov, "Labyrinth", "Forgotten Stars"
Taras Harkavyi, "Alpha and..."
One of the terrifying things about the dark forest is that it implies that there are not only aliens who actively try to hide, but also aliens that actively seek out other intelligent life in order to destroy them, because they could be a threat in the future.
I think I've heard him talk about this before
Edit: I really need to wait for the 5min mark before writing comments because at 1:38 lol
The forest isn’t dark because as Isaac Arthur explained in the episode where he talks about game theory, there is no benefit to hiding, because only by expansion and cooperation can you have a chance against the predator (not unlike the overarching mass effect story)
looking at our own civilizations, sure yeah not an unreasonable assumption.
@@mimszanadunstedt441 bud we are a globalized race with overwhelming cooperation. Wars killed less than 5% of the human race in any century
better safe than sorry. we humans better start destroying things asap.
If aliens did have a hand in human evolution, the reason they haven't contacted us is because the case about ownership has been in the galactic courts since our bronze age.
This doesn’t address why they’re not visible. It takes only 10,000 years to go from two aliens to a full Dyson, and 1 million years to convert a whole galaxy
Reminds me of an episode of Babylon 5. Short out take scene in which the civil court on the station is hearing the case brought by a human who is suing a Gray Alien because the human's ancestor was butt probed by the Gray's ancestor.
"As you are probably aware, plans for the development of the outlying regions of the galaxy invoke the building of a hyperspace express route through your star system. And your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition.
There's no point acting all surprised about it; the plans and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your earth years. If you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout."
@@hatman4818Arthur Dent was really surprised that day that's for sure.
But are the litigants fighting because they both want custody, or because neither wants custody of us?
Issac is right. Space is dark, especially at night.
He's not that smart don't expect much
And I believe that in space, no-one can hear you scream ( unless they have ears like a Ferengi )
@@davidnobular9220 the monsters also mostly come at night. Mostly.
It's because no object is stoping the light
@@aurelienyonrac yes there is
Good analysis. I've always thought the main flaw of dark forest is that attacking another species is itself a kind of signal: that killing Mr Weak could be the very thing that alerts Mr Strong to your presence, and the fact that you're hostile to boot. So even purely looking at it from a game theory point of view, going out genocidin' doesn't make much sense. Also, in practice the "forest" should be noisy. Because, again looking at it from a game theory point of view, any heads up on who is out there would be useful, so if you have the ability to leave out noisy beacons (far from any planets you inhabit) it makes sense to do so.
Finally of course, the one sentient species that we know of has already attempted to make noise, so it doesn't bode well for a theory that all species, always, try to hide.
On the last point: Not all species always would try to hide, but in this context, those who did not would fairly quickly likely be wiped out.
Well, maybe mr genocide is exponentially stronger then other species, and all the others are hiding from it
first guess for something like that would be a military agi with a stellaser
Well going back to the analogy of the dark forest, in real life not everyone is just attacking everyone else, most are hiding from predators. So there would likely be a few very advanced "predator" civilizations who have perfected stealth strikes over millions of years, and most of the more primitive "prey" civilizations are just trying to hide from them rather than attack.
@@Aconspiracyofravens1 Sure but firstly, it's not about being the strongest, it's about *knowing* you are the strongest species, and it seems that will always be a difficult thing to ever know for sure.
But, let's say there is such a species. So, why are things quiet? Send fleets of probes to every star system, have noisy beacons broadcasting "Is anybody out there?" etc etc. _They_ certainly don't need to hide.
@@MijinLaw yes, but some species might like to be hidden for many reasons, even irrational ones. A rational reason could be that they hope that species that believe they are truly alone will prepare less.
Man that has got to be maddening, all those years of therapy and no one caught this issue. But for whatever it's worth, you have definitely made a lot of progress over the years. And congratulations on adopting and best wishes to you and your wife on being parents.
Sadly, this happens a lot. Heard that story applied to different problems several times in my circle of acquaintances.
Only thing one can do, apparently, is try to get specialized expert's opinions on such things, which is easier said than done.
Though, I don't really fault the doctors who "fail" to recognize this. What we call "Doctor" should really be multiple jobs, and there's *_a lot_* of different things that they would a have to be aware of to such an extent.... Well, it's difficult.
Thank you, for all of the above, and yes it is a bit maddening, but in the end whatever gets the roblem fixed works :)
I have to say, as a German speaker myself, I never needed to use subtitles, not even on the first episodes. Well before knowing Isaac is American I thought he's somewhere from Scotland, thus the slightly of pronunciation. But if never had issues understanding him.
@@SirSquallusI’m American and have never had issues understanding him either. Some people just like complaining for no reason 🤷🏻♀️
I just thought he sounded like he was from Louisiana.
I have been waiting for this episode for 5 years. I'm hoping for a more optimistic conclusion than Liu Cixin
If there is a forest at all (if there are others out there), then survival is all there is, really. Entropy dictates that one's own is all that really matters again the nature of the cosmos, imo.
But I hope you're right!
IA is always so optimistic... I'm usually the polar opposite!
Lol Liu is probably right! Reality is a bit more grim than we really believe.
My condolences that you know about TBP, that stuff was so bad I had to drop it. Characters so wooden you could build IKEA shelves out of them.
The dark forest is a conclusion based on many assumptions such as technological leaps and the limited nature of resources.
If for example, civilization in-universe is so spread out that the energy required for interstellar travel is always higher than the energy gained of colonization or immigration, then there is no reason for such conflict to occur.
Well at least the dimensional strikes , under know observations of the univers impossible expecially as the light coming to us from the early formation of galaxies over 13 billion years ago is infanct 3 dimensional and has no properties showing any type of dimensionsal anomalies.so you can sleep easy on that part😅
Congrates on the family expansion. Super lucky kids to have parents like yourselves.
IMO: [1] Colonization does not make sense in a post-scarcity economy / ecology. [2] To understand E.T. philosophy and utility curves, we need to think like artilects, not apes. [3] It is not a dark forest. [4] Civilizations do not tolerate dangerous predators. So existing E.T. civilizations will have prevented such from developing. [5] If we were stupid enough to behave like a predator, we would be quickly (in galactic time) corrected.
We are a baby bird tied to the limb of a tree.
Im Trooning Out
@@Pause4pot trooning?
@@Pause4pot stop being a werido online like this lol
@@veemie8148 Said The Troon
We're more like a mould growing on the side of a car
I can't imagine how hard it must be to change something as ingrained as speech. I love how you talk; it's relaxing
Yes, when I started listening, I didn't realize there was even a real speech issue. Just a cool way of talking. I have always enjoyed the style of language (a bit of careful pronunciation with off inflection I couldn't quite place).
I struggle to understand mumbly people and Isaac has never been a mumbler. Clearly working hard to enunciate words. I have a processing flaw that does not exist with your speech as is. Cannot say so for others.
Congrats on the expanded family and thank you for your generous heart... and great content. Don't go affecting your speech too much. It is just fine for us.
My favorite Sundays are spent with Isaac! Live long and prosper friends 🖖🏻
I love your videos. Im in a FB science group, with actual scientists. We have weekly trivia. Im occasionally in charge of the questions when the admin is busy. I also do a Spooky Science series. I have got so many ideas from your videos, and have had some brilliant discussions in the group. So thanks for making me look cleverer than I am.
Can I join? Im a physics major (about sophomore year). Last time I joined a science FB group, I left because it was full of conspiracy nuts and people spamming those bottom of the barrel instagram "fact" posts (most of which so watered down as to be straight up wrong).
Nice
@@hatman4818 search for Pandora's Box of Salacious Science and tell them Nola sent you. It's only a small group of about 500 people. You are definitely welcome, just don't be more intelligent than me 😁
I'm gonna miss Isaac's classic "Ion Stars". This is the best channel on RUclips. So educational, yet so cosy and familial-feeling.
That's amazing news. Your medical diagnosis just one day appearing after years of frustration is not uncommon. I'm hoping for that kind of luck one day. Congratulations on your news, and thanks for the scifi alien space stuff!
It's more lucrative to treat a condition than to cure it. I'm not saying that's the case with his specific situation, but that's been true in my life.
Yeah its not uncommon, and I suppose its the same to feel a range of emotions in reaction to the diagnosis. I hope you get that luck too, and thanks!
I obviously am not familiar with the particulars, but I would caution not to assume malice where incompetence is sufficient explanation. Doctors are not perfect in their ability to identify, or even recognise conditions.
What’s your thoughts on clones, AI and human relations?
The dark forest kinda touches on this
“It’s impossible. You can’t forget her, so don’t make the effort. That will only lead to side effects, and maybe even mental disorders. Let nature take its course. Once more, for emphasis: Don’t try to forget about her. It won’t work. But as time passes, her influence on your life will decrease. And you’re actually quite lucky. Whether or not she really exists, you’re fortunate to be in love.”
- the dark forest
“Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!” “Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?” “Is that even a question?” “Sure. For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up. It’s as simple as that. You differ from the majority in one respect: You didn’t need a template.”
- the dark forest
He made a few episodes about that.
But the short version is we either become machines or get replaced by machines.
Unless of course we manage to keep the AI dumb so we do not end up under skynets thumb.
@@Turnil321 I kinda meant more along the lines of companions and love interest, somewhat like how in the story the man falls in love with something he made but we can say ‘it’s fake’ but also love isn’t exactly a real thing either.
This did mess me up quite a lot- summary one person faked a cousin online, had me and her meet by her fake cousin.
Basically had a crush and so on- I was 14.
And then she tries to have her cousin date someone and then have her commit suicide twice to try and guilt the person into a relationship with her.
Summary- it wasn’t a good time for me and my parents locked away every way to contact her or any friends because ‘it could effect your grades’
I spent 3 days without sleep just to hack into the internet using my PS3.
‘Oh and she died 3 hours ago’
I made a promise to keep her cousin happy (the actual person, not ‘cousin’ like before) a month before that so it wasn’t great.
Summary: ‘that person is more valuable because I knew them longed and before you’ was all I was told.
She guilt tripped me, brought up her cousin, suicide baited and basically used that as leverage.
For 3 years this was the daily.
Then the person she was no longer friends with and talked and the reveal of the suicide being fake…
I couldn’t process this information until 6 months later when she brought up her cousin and I pointed out that Ollie revealed the truth and I was so mad I broke the promise and made her cry- I promised to keep her happy.
After that I couldn’t find a way to make her happy or anything so I just was forced into studying philosophy and so on.
‘It’s not real so why do I feel like this’ and so on.
I basically couldn’t cope and to put it in summary: my brain said “I can’t survive with this information”
And i just split, DID.
I didn’t have memories of anyone related to the event for 6 years- I wasn’t the one talking and walking.
I wasn’t the one who was around for the most part and I didn’t know my friends.
Then in 2021- ‘oh hey a character with a purple hat that reminds me of this one character and… who else? I can’t remember’ then the cliffhanger being the character committed suicide and there I was.
I basically didn’t know anyone of my friends, I didn’t know the accounts I was using or the people I was talking to for a while and I realized how long it had been since I last saw any of my old friends- 6 years.
Summary I had therapy which first was thought to be repressed memories.
Exposure therapy… 2 weeks later and no memory of anything I’m back and I can’t read any of the notes of understand when the therapist was reading them.
So a misdiagnosis basically split me by what happened.
Also the girl deleted the last stuff and all the stuff her cousin made so… yeah.
Now I basically am stacked close to another me closer than the others and they claim she wore a blue hat, I say purple but she changed to blue. They claim Ollie never revealed that and I claim she did- so… yeah.
Recently a book I was reading had the persons name in a character and had her crying- summary I wasn’t there reading it and I came by hours later knowing what the story was without ever myself reading it.
I really can’t complain too much though.
Also read the quotes I used in the original comment with this context.
@@silent_stalker3687 the sad truth is that you’re gullible and lack a strong belief system. That’s why what you cited “messed you up.” Honestly you should start at investigating the difference between nominalism and realism
@@silent_stalker3687 first line in the second paragraph in your second comment.
Your retorts are ridiculous. You’re “poor-me”-ing yourself and this victim mentality is stunting your growth. You’re not 14 now are you? And no, your statements about what you believe about human nature are not Christian. You are messed up NOW due to false beliefs. And I do expect you at this age to be able to use Google to find out what those words mean so you can get out of your self-imposed confusion. Refuse, and you show that you enjoy being a victim and don’t actually want to improve your life
This is hands down the best series ive ever found on youtube. Literally the only show I continue to watch week after week. Thank you for the hard work this takes. As a significant creator on another platform i know how hard quality content is to make, and this makes mine look weak🦋
Yeah, there aren't many I like this much. Perun is as good as IA, but it's a different topic. HypoHystericalHistory is decent, too, if you really like learning how missiles happen.
I’ve been coming back to this channel for the last few years and it’s always fascinating to watch! I love the content and the topics!
Best sci-fi channel indeed!
my favorite sci fi channel
This and the PBS channel are my favorites.....
Spoiler warning for those that haven't seen it yet! I was watching the latest Avatar movie the other week, and there's a great example of how making a space ship stealthy would be extremely hard. Namely that the drive plumes of decelerating ships could be easily seen in the night sky, even a ways off. Heck, they even briefly demonstrated how there's no such thing as an unarmed space ship. :)
Avatar is a terrible movie.
@@Chris-es3wf I wasn’t a fan of it either, but it’s quality as a story isn’t what’s in question here. The science fiction elements are fairly coherent, and were evaluated by experts in engineering and biology. Calling it bad as a way of disavowing a reference to a single scene concerning its showcase of accurate space travel is agonizingly childish.
@@humbleherald2163 The science behind the movie is also quite bad. Unless you're telling me genetically modified avatars is "coherent science". I would argue there's few, if any, redeeming qualities. It's essentially an overpriced tech demo for people with rather poor taste in cinema.
@@Chris-es3wf Avatar is not bad and I will die on that hill.
@@Chris-es3wf IKR could you imagine doing something magical like modifying genetics!!!!!11!!!1 lololol what fantasy bullshit hahahahahahaha oh wait we can currently edit genetics right now in real life. Shit.
Aliens could be so scared of hidden tech that they don't start fights with even seemingly less advanced species.
Right, a super advanced civilization would probably look a lot like a primitive civilization living in harmony with nature. That is one of my favorite answers to the paradox; that we live alongside aliens that we don't recognize as aliens. Like mushrooms.
@@dhayes907 This idea could also merge with the Dark Forest hypothesis. These super advanced civs hide by having "simple" (not necessarily) and harmonious lives, and they would use high techs only if these techs can be "silent", or for the Dark Forest warfare. Just nuke any threat before they can be advanced enough to detect your civilization.
I'm not a big supporter of the Dark Forest model. For one, if we compare it to, oh, say, predators and prey on the grasslands of Africa, there's not only the ecosystem of predators and prey relationships, but, we also see the scavengers, and after the scavengers there's bones aplenty scattered about and easy to see. The grasslands of Africa, I think are a more apt comparison than "Dark Forest" considering grasslands tend to give a decent 360 degreee all-around view, yet, predators and prey have adapted all their various strategies to suit such wide-open areas.
In the vast reaches of the universe, we have a fairly clear and open view, like grasslands ... yet, we see zero predator activities, zero scavengers waiting and circling for their chance at a 'corpse', and not even the bleached bones of events from the long past.
I'm not saying Dark Forest is not valid. I suspect, however, as fun as it is to think about, it's less a probable explanation than other solutions like rare intelligence.
An additional issue I have regarding Artificial or machine intelligence and all the Hollywood and Literary coutionary tales about what could go wrong ... wouldn't pre-emancipated AI/Machine intelligence have relative-similar exposure to all those same cautionary tales? With that, it seems, at least to me, more evident an AI/Machine Intelligence would be far more motivated to enjoy a cooperative, provident, conjoined, and symbiotic relationship over any silly Hollywood action movie scenarios.
You cannot see anything that is made by a civilization given the distances involved, unless they are so far up the scale that knowing about them does not provide an advantage.
My bet is on the ‘not in this epoch of the milky way’ meaning the time frames involved separate civs by an abyss of time.
Simpler explanations than "space monsters" definitely fit the evidence we have.
That's true. Liu Cixin wrote Dark Forest hypothesis as a hypothetical solution to the Fermi paradox if alien life DID turn out to be very common. As such, I'd consider it the second most likely solution to the Fermi paradox behind Great Filters/Rare Earth.
@@jhwheuer - the thing with "seeing"" is for Dark Forest to work, then, a civilization would need to be "seen" by a predator, or space monster, or, visible in some way to validate caution against a predator/monster, and as we can draw from our experience in nature here on Earth, once a predator has killed its prey, they tend to be very casual about eating it out in the open, and, where predator/prey relationships exist, scavenger and parasitic relationships also tend to exist.
Further, for a predator prey relationship to even get triggered, the rest of the galaxy or universe would get the same signal that riggers the predator.
If there's going to be an ecosystem shaped by BILLIONS of years of activity and evolution, then, I suspect such an ecosystem would be any and everything but a very simple predator/prey only relationship, and the activity surrounding such relationships would be so "visible" and "loud" that it would cancel "dark forest" the moment the first predator jumps on the first mouse to squeak.
One a thing is done in the universe, it's kinda lisible ... forever, just like we can "see" all the way back to almost the beginning of the Big Bang.
@@jhwheuer The Fermi Paradox holds just within our galaxy. Whether or not there are dudes too far away to see, the question is why aren't there _any_ dudes that we _can_ see.
Good point about the prisoner's dilemma being sociopathic, but that's much more true of only playing it once. When you get to iterated prisoner's dilemma, cooperation pays off. Even the tiniest bit of communication helps.
My youngest son has had to deal with speech issues as well. He's 10 now and after 4 or so years of speech therapy, he has improved vastly. I can still tell he's slightly insecure and holds back from conversations because of it but he's an amazing little guy with a truly good heart and there is nobody I'd rather have a conversation with than him and his brother. Congratulations on fatherhood. I know this is an older video and I'm a little late to the party but better late than never I suppose.
The forest isn’t dark because as Isaac Arthur explained in the episode where he talks about game theory, there is no benefit to hiding, because only by expansion and cooperation can you have a chance against the predator (not unlike the overarching mass effect story)
Exactly we could use that to retcon why the Vulcans were out looking for other civilizations to foster. There is safety in numbers.
@@dystopiaahoy I mean yeah, literally. Though they wouldn’t canonically have known about the borg, the existence of that and several other expansionist races in the galaxy justifies “fanatic xenophile” ethics, uplifting other civs technologically to improve their position against potential future onslaughts. The prime directive doesn’t make sense. They tried hard to justify it in that one voyager episode where a long lost probe had been discovered by a civ and reverse engineered into antimatter weapons, though. But the solution isn’t to avoid sharing tech, is to share your tech AND your culture/philosophy so that younger races learn how to use tech appropriately. The prime directive is basically prejudicial superstition borne of laziness. But I’ll grant that it lines up perfectly with the (not an insult but a description) fascist socialism of the federation, because the idea that sharing resources would pay dividends rather than simply cost you is a capitalistic idea. It’s very anti trade, and consequently anti generosity, which is just onesided trade
@@cosmictreason2242 I think the PD is just a reaction to colonialism. "When Europeans started doing the 'exploration' thing, that didn't work out so well for the people they found. So when we go out into space, we'd better leave the less-advanced civilizations alone, because we're nicer people now."
@@kevincrady2831 while I think that May be the “honest” mentality of the writers and in-universe characters, the truth irl is colonialism was an overwhelming positive. British colonialism ended the African slave trade, Indian widow burning, etc. yeah there are cases like that Dutch madman in South Africa but that’s an outlier and convenient boogieman. The dahomeys (“the woman king”) were cannibal reypist enslavers and their brutal defeat at the hands of the Europeans dramatically improved life for their victims, a repeat of the Spanish liberation of the Aztecs’ victim tribes. The story repeats everywhere. If more people knew history better, they’d realize this justification you cited doesn’t work, because that’s not how it went down. Japan and South Korea were occupied by the USA and they’re economic powerhouses and relatively extremely free, versus North Korea and China which are comparatively isolationist and authoritarian and that’s why they’ve suffered, the lack of European influence. Yeah some cultures are better than others. I’ll stop before I ramble
You're assuming that the prey will choose to act in the greater benefit of the species rather than the greater benefit of the individual.
The individual will live longer by hiding even if the species will live longer by expanding. So what do you honestly think is more likely? That sapient beings would choose to expand knowing full well that it will mean their deaths or that they will hide for as long as they can and live full lives?
The Dark Forest is the scariest concept I have ever been exposed to.
I think personally most rational sapient civilizations would rather not hide from or exterminate everyone else if they can help it. Not necessarily out of the goodness of their heart(s) however they define it, but rather both options in the long run are tedious, impractical and ultimately unsustainable.
In the Remembrance's of Earth Past, they went from 10 dimensional to the current tridimensionnal universe, and are moving towards 0d. So it's not working too well for them.
Well the thing is that if there's even a chance that we live in a dark forest universe, we would have no other option than to subscribe to dark forest behavior because the risk is too great. While Dark Forest relies on the simple assumption that most life will choose the paranoid option of self preservation, you're assuming that most life forms would be willing to take the risk because of a potential long term gain.
@@pinfu7179 Indeed. The inability to trust each other ultimately got everybody killed.
@@saucevc8353 That is true. And rather unfortunate as in the long run it'll doom everyone to extinction as sooner or later someone will spot those hiding or killing everyone else and have the ability to kill them back before they discover their own existence. Ad infinitum.
Pls record your episodes as usual. As a citizen scientist and the father of someone with a speech impediment, I would find the transformation of your voice fascinating and informative.
I suspect every will see the transition in the sponsor and outro sections since those aren't recorded till a week or two out, though I'm curious to hear the transition myself, assuming there is one, counting chickens before hatched and all :)
Every one forgets that A.I. wouldn't have any drives we didn't give it. That includes self preservation.
Thank yall to the entire team. Arthur, whichever voice recording choice you make will be good. Congratulations on an improved prognosis on speech. For what it's worth, It's an endearing characteristic.
I suspect my general tone will remain the same, the voice has changed since season 1 but definietly the same person talking. :)
I remember a short story I read on an imageboard once where Earth was actually in the middle of some galactic Bermuda triangle that nobody dared to go near. When humanity eventually finds another civilization the aliens are horrified because the ships are coming out of the giant no-go zone.
I love that idea, but it'd be hard to write a realistic reason why this region of space is impassable or fatally dangerous without the reason also precluding life on earth.
For example, theres a lot of natural hazards, like active blackholes, high presence of neutron stars, etc, but these things would also likely pump out enough radiation to kill life on earth if it were really that dangerous to space ships. Also, I think such a threat would eventually move away from Earth during the galactic orbit.
Perhaps you could say that earth alone is off limits, as a planet from which no species ever touches down and leaves. Perhaps the reason could be that humans prevent liftoff by stealing for study, or outright destroying ships back in our caveman days. Perhaps we're left alone for the same reason Sentinel Island is left alone.
Maybe the reason is that our Bermuda Triangle contains no dark matter (or dark energy). After all, that's the one thing we have observed all over the universe (or only on universe-sized length and time scales), but fail to find at home.
But to know WHY aliens would assume that those are a requirement for life and be unaware that life like ours can exist, we'd first need to find out what it actually is. That's why I'd favor the "we are missing something that outsiders assume is required to come here" variation of this over the "we have something that outsiders assume is dangerous, or undesirable, or exclusive with required things". To make this last example clear: this "material X" that is different here could just be an indicator for the thing that actually keeps the aliens out. For example, if the aliens only ever find dark matter/energy on planets, then the lack of dark energy/matter in our vicinity might make them believe that we must have no planets here.
And this includes the assumption that all aliens think the same way. Maybe due to someone starting to call themselves "children of the dark energy" and trying to preach that to everyone until it starts becoming an unquestioned fact.
The one factor speaking against some missing "material X" seeming *required for emergence* of life would be that all life observed by those outside aliens would have to have evolved using that "material X", with us (or maybe also other life near us) being the only life doing so without it. Which implies that life outside of our "material X"-less bubble would be even more common than us humans assume.
@@hatman4818 we do live in the remnants of a supernova and some believe it is what altered our the DNA to create intelligent life from the gamma rays. The time frames of when it went supernovae to when intelligent life came match up. Neil and makio talked about.
Ypu need to do more of this arthur I would like to see more dark of what a dark destructive civilization would look like and just how creepy some of this would look like
The world is a better place with Isaac Arthur in it, happily churning out videos to the benefit of us all.
TLDR: the meaning of life is to embrace fear and kill everything else in the universe, just in case.
Your speech has greatly improved, Isaac. Honestly, I can barely tell you have one anymore. I think what is left gives you character 😊
Its far more complicated than shoot "anything that moves" and has layers that bleed into each other. I currently think we failed the Galactic Council entrance test, again...
It is a supreme dick move however to test and judge someone without that person knowing. Knowing there is a benefit to be had by passing a test tends to be a prime motivator for improved behavior.
Or... there is no one there. Occam's Razor. You might as well invoke yahweh.
That's we spend so much energy on hiding from insects and mollusks: they aren't smart enough to join us.
Imagine what would happen if we let the Clams find out about us... 😳
Maybe we are too peaceful and not militarized enough to join. Just as likely. 🤷🏼♂️
No one. Correct. To know one is to know nothing.
The last time I was this early for a video (Insert Clever/witty remark here.) Never start a comment without knowing where it is going. Thanks for another great video, on a subject that I find fascinating.
Finally a video talking about the dangers of a Luxmbourgian doomsday devices!
I love the bit of wordplay you did with Planting Mushroom Clouds around 17:20
Kudos to you on your speech therapy and willingness to share it with your audience. I have had a lot of other demands on my time and have not watched your channel for a while. I decided to get back into the channel and started with the first of the 2023 episodes. You have made HUGE progress and I noticed it immediately. Congratulations on the adoption as well.
While Dark Forest is my favourite solution, it doesn't really work. The error a lot of people make in the Dark Forest is that they assume each (potential) encounter is random. But it wouldn't be. We'd be restricted to those near us, so instead we have a repeated game. And life on earth (as well as the maths) shows us that the potential for repeated interactions leads to cooperation. So you don't even need more (or more complicated) actions for the dark forest to be unlikely.
Unless each civilization passes up 1000 theoretically habitable planets for every one they colonize, and there's hundreds of other civilizations out there that would settle on those. Which could give every settled planet a basically random selection of neighbors from all the species that intermingle in a certain region of space.
But again, that would be another (quite random) assumption you have to make.
Perhaps. But it is also true that familiarity breed contempt. Just look at the French and the British. And the hundred years war.
They became friends after the fact. But they were fighting with swords and longbows. Who's to say that the Space French won't throw asteroids at us instead.
Maybe the space french all ready had some beef with the dinosaurs. And they send out a "Dumb Probe" to send in another asteroid strike. As they detected signs of tech from long range.
Instantly assuming "Blast it, those uppity lizards have discovered the radio. Don't try to hail them. Just throw another rock at them to wipe those bastards out once and for all"
When talking about "Loud Aliens", it reminded me of the "WOW!" single and though it was likely a glitch, I like my idea of some alien being chewed out by his/her manager for using the wrong frequency code on the neutrino transmitter. ;-)
So in other words, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
I finished Death's End literally yesterday. This could not have a better timing
congrats
Wade...I want a "what if"
@@sneakyking Wade, the second he receives the Sword: now this is where the fun begins
Same
This is why gas giants are the best places for life.
You can kill a rocky planet with an asteroid and history of everything will sing, "And the dinosaurs are gone..."
Try the same trick on Jupiter, and it just splashes harmlessly into the liquid metallic hydrogen sea or through the other side. The floaters are still there.
The Dark Forest hypothesis slips up by not assuming an infinitely repeating game. Sure - a single, one-shot game (or even a limited number of games) dictates that they should all kill each other ... but in an infinitely repeating game (which, I think, this better resembles) would ensure that the dominant strategy for any civilization would be to cooperate and collaborate - not to commit genocide/xenocide.
Any competing civilization is a potential existential threat, but the better way to deal with this threat is to be cooperative rather than xenophobic. If you go around genociding you're eventually going to run into a civilization proud enough to crack all your planets, even if it kills them. On the other hand, if you go around saying "hey, we're the happy time hugs empire, prepare for orbital bombardment with stuffed animals and candy! ☺️" probably no one's going to want to kill you.
Yep. The forest isn’t dark because as Isaac Arthur explained in the episode where he talks about game theory, there is no benefit to hiding, because only by expansion and cooperation can you have a chance against the predator (not unlike the overarching mass effect story)
The game has presumably been ongoing for some time and we can see the current game state which is deathly silence. No aliens discovered, no galatic community, the ideal cooperative strategy to play the game has not manifested itself. A strategy of hiding/genocide may be less than ideal but if it is the only strategy that matches our observations and explains the lack of noisy aliens then we have to consider it is the actual strategy in play.
@@oLevLovesLove The point is that you can't hide. It's too late. If there is any spacefaring civilization out there, they saw us millennia before we even turned on our first telescope.
@@oLevLovesLove It doesn't match our observations, because we are here observing it. The Fermi Paradox applies just as well to the paranoid murder-hobo civilizations and the Berzerkers as it does to the benign Galactic Federations.
Talk about good timing. I just finished reading The Dark Forest yesterday
such a good trilogy
Do you feel the dread too ? I had to reach second half of book 3 to understand what Luo Ji felt when he learned about the Dark Forest. Pure unadulterated existential dread. Something very raw I had not felt for a long time.
Yes! This is one of the topics I've been waiting for in the Aliens series. (Or maybe this is not part of that series, but no matter, I was hoping you'd discuss this topic). Thanks :) And of course a new video is always exciting.
I don’t know. It’s going to be hard to beat Aliens vs Predators. Oh wait, wrong Aliens series.
@@davidroddini1512 I understand your confusion 😂
I remember this channel now. Like 5 years ago you had less then 1k subs good for you dude
i think the most likely explanation for fermi paradox is that the chunks haven't loaded in yet.
Congratulations Isaac on becoming a Dad.
My wife and I adopted several of our children too. Including a sibling set of three boys.
That is awesome! Nice to from hear someone who did three at once too, how many total do you have?
@@isaacarthurSFIA five still at home. One already grown. Only one homegrown.
I got injured in Iraq and couldn't have anymore of our own.
@@jaredfox2533 I'm sorry to hear that, thank you for your service, though it seems to have ultimately worked out well. Life sends us down some interesting an unexpected roads :)
Adoption is one of the most beautiful and noble things a person can do. I'm very grateful and very much in awe of anyone that chooses to do this. You have my greatest respect.
By the way, the channel wouldn't be the same without your speech impediment. I got used to it in 1 to 2 episodes, no problem. Just one aspect making this channel unique.
There are a lot of misunderstandings of the Dark Forest hypothesis here. Or just outright ignored or glossed-over aspects:
1. Dark Forest does not require for every civilization to behave in this way. If one out of 100 in a given area of the galaxy does it -then the other 99 "loud" civilizations have been destroyed by sub-light attacks. One is more than enough to enforce Dark Forest on an area.
2. Comparisons with Earth interactions do not work, because on Earth it is always faster to communicate (such as through territorial displays, meant to scare off competitors) than to kill the other side. Not so at interstellar distances.
3. Observation is delayed. If we could only see Luxemburg the way it was 500 years ago - then the pre-emptive proposal becomes a bit less paranoid, because for all we know - they may have the doomsday weapon already.
Due to luminal lag, you can never know the current capabilities and intentions if the others. They may appear like a friendly, outgoing stone-age tribe - but are in fact an ultra-xenophobic Third Reich with interstellar railguns by now. We cannot make assumptions that they would develop at the same rate that we did, along the same lines, or even at a constant rate. "Technological explosions" - rapid, unpredictable burtsts of development are a big part of Dark Forest.
1. That seems to only work if The Dark Forest civ is first (or otherwise somehow the 'biggest') on the scene, and is socially isolated from any planets it does not directly (and simultaneously) threaten. Otherwise it's asking for retaliation/giving itself away to a bigger Dark Forest civ. It's also a civ holding the means to its own demise, which admittedly seems to be working alright for us for now.
2. Actually, the Dark Forest metaphor itself is a case where on earth it is not faster to communicate than to kill off the other side. Other hunters don't necessarily speak your language, and its faster to kill the other than it is to bridge that gap. The externality that drives us to not select 'war' exists in both the earth and not-earth cases: Spotting one person/planet doesn't tell us where the possible tribe/civ, a source of potential retaliation, is.
3. That makes a pre-emptive strike all the riskier. Our intel is necessarily out of date, and if we're worried they now have doomsday weapons to threaten our civ with, it's not a far leap to also assume they have allies (other civs, distal colonies, etc.).
Seems like the safest bet when ya can't know the current capabilities and intentions of others in a luminal-lag universe is to scale-harder, not try to hide and erradicate. That second strat works best iff you can be certain no one has friends, you're undetectable, or its impossible for another yet-undetected culture to outscale your capabilities. And those seem hard to impossible to be certain of in our luminal-lag universe.
8:45 The problem with aliens "ascending to another plane of existence voluntarily" is the rather rapid correction resulting from dissidents that will not go into another dimension or cyberspace. All it would take is an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the original species still reproducing to quickly reassert the march of expansion and colonization. Given that galactic expansion would take millions of years, the pause for species replenishment might not even be noticed on such a time scale.
Thank you for you dedication and hard work, your shows have helped a lot during a terrible time for me. You're a good man-
Hope everything goes well on the surgery front Isaac, I'll be honest, I found the channel when I watched the Archology video and I did not mind the speech since it was the topics and personality that drew me in. But while I do not mind it I do hope you everything goes well because it is clear you want it to.
Isaac, I'm so happy that you got a firm diagnosis and that treatment is possible and viable. I'm really looking forward to hearing the changes over the next few months. You have been an inspiration for me to keep hope alive in very, VERY trying times, and I look forward to another 9 seasons at least going forward. I'm especially looking forward to hearing Pirate Isaac laughing with his kids and exclaiming "ARRRR! ye be walking the plank me'boy!"
nice to hear a rational voice speaking to the dark forest hysteria.
Shhhhh! Don't let the Clams find out about us.
Amen
Trisolarians be like: 1st time?
Reminder that dark forest theory is entirely consistent with our observations on aliens or lack thereof. Meanwhile the cooperation is better argument predicts noisy, proactively communicating aliens which we see no evidence for.
Then where are the massive death-fleets cruising the void? The stellar deaths that fit no model for star life spans? The dozens of signs that interstellar wars of extermination are happening out there?
Well put Sir!
Sure, though absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Current observations are also in line with no aliens, noisy aliens that don't care about us/our part of the universe, inter-stellar voids (particularly in our neighborhood) that are not worth the effort to cross, 'zoo's, distal noisy aliens, inevitability of technological self-destruction, really noisy inter-stellar space that requires focused comms, etc.
If inter-stellar annihilation wars between countless civilizations were the norm, seems like we'd see a lot more things (planets, stars) blowing up before the expiration dates our physics usually predict. And it seems like broadband broadcast of enemy locations in a final retalitory (and reasonably effective) attack would be fairly noisy.
Collab/expansion also seems like the winning strategy in a galaxy-wide (if not universal) mexican-standoff. You potentially double your observation capabilities and threaten your opponents with second potential origin point for retaliation.
I was deaf as a child and after your surgeries I went to three years of speech therapy to learn how to speak so I can feel what you’re saying
With the speed of light being a law, dark forest theory is actually very optimistic. That’s why scientists send our information about humanity into space. Not only they don’t think there is a real probability that someone will find them, sending some kind of invading force is just silly.
Something Isaac clearly overlooked and other podcasts talking about the dark forest theory do not. The energy expense just to invade is beyond silly!
Since we are the only intelligent species in the Laniakea Supercluster, I am happy we never have to worry about hostile aliens.
That is until our own future stellar colonies change so much they might as well be aliens.
I for one welcome our future 1.5G home planet muscle mommy overlords.
Yus! Dark Forest, this one I'll love. I've seen all of one second of it so far but. Thanks for this! Edit roughly 50 seconds in, you legend. Thanks!
Dude your speech over the years has gotten so much better. I had the same problem with R sounds as a kid. My wife and I also decided to adopt that's awesome for you!
29:59 "Theres a Finite chance Luxembourg might one day decide to build a doomsday device and use it, so we must blow them up first, math says so."
Well, you heard the man. The math checks out.
Benefit to being a loud alien is if you start getting invaded some neighbors might come to your aid against the new hostiles tho.
I want to see that story. Oblivious loud aliens at the center of a war.
If the therapy and surgery helps a sinus problem that’s great but I hope you don’t feel having trouble with pronouncing the letter R/speech impediment affects enjoyment of your shows. I’ve always loved your content and have been listening for at least 5 years. I barely notice it and find you very easy to listen to. All the best.
Congratulations on the growing family! Also, that's heartwarming you were able to keep the siblings together.
I made some comments in the past about your speech and feel like a dick. You are one of the handful of people on YT delivering amazing and inspirational content. I am glad you found a teacher and very happy you have a family. You did it man, it's the reason we're here.
Isaac, how about a video on the radiosphere? (I.e. the measurement of how far human signals have penetrated into the rest of universe) My mind often goes there when thinking about the FP.
But I realize now you’ve probably already talked about it in other vids…
Yes though it might be a good episode topic on its own
@@isaacarthurSFIA Perhaps with an emphasis on how advanced a civilization would have to be to read said signals. Maybe with a parallel for reading atmospheric life signals.
I think another optuon would be to study the civilization covertly. Part of knowledge and technology comes from studying natural processes and organisms considered much more primitive than we are. There are technologies and methods of ancient civilizations that we cannot accurately recreate today even with the much more advanced technology of today: electronics, flight, biotech, etc. To observe a primitive civilization may inspire new ideas and tech.
If Dark Forest is true, why haven't they attacked yet? I've pinned it down to a few scenarios, they're on the way, they are still gathering recon, they don't believe they could beat us in battle, there's no reason to fight right now (we aren't close enough to pose an immediate threat and we aren't competing for the same resources.)
I personally favor the same principle I do for other people in general: have a balance between interaction and maintaining your own space. That goes double for aliens in which interaction with an alien chemistry could prove fatal.
You assume you have the power to do that. It's like maintaining a balance with Superman.
Or alien pranks.
@@O1OO1O1 In the "Dark Forest" context, yes. But in general, assuming multiple interstellar civilizations exist and become aware of each other, it would be very reasonable to try to establish borders and form a treaty that everyone will mostly stay in their own space and not interfere militarily outside their own space. How effective such a treaty would be in practice is difficult to predict.
@@atk05003 Dark Forest as Liu Cixin envisioned it relies on the idea that technology has some kind of upper limit (or very very tough constraints that make advancing further increasingly difficult), and that offensive techs outmatch defensive techs. This means that there would be no war at all, no frontline. A newcomer could quickly find ways to destroy an older civ's world(s) (before being wiped out if he gets detected himself). And because of the incompressible time lag caused by light speed communication, you could not make any kind of durable diplomacy because the civilization you made a peace treaty two centuries ago could very well have changed its mind since then, and launched light-speed projectiles on your way. You would know of the treason the moment these projectiles hit your world, and the best you could do would be to destroy theirs in a classic Nuclear Warfare scenario. Hence the reason why it is better in the long term to just kill any civ before it knows you exist, and before it developed the tech to harm you (which can happen very fast in cosmic scales).
Love me a good sci-fi Sunday!
I think a problem I have with the Dark Forest is that it assumes at least two scenarios are true:
1. Lifeforms capable of interstellar communication are relatively common/emerge somewhat frequently.
2. Said lifeforms are capable of reliably establishing with each other.
As someone who follows the Rare Earth hypothesis, 1 is the most flawed, it took a specific set of circumstances not only to make life on Earth but intelligent life. The odds of any life emerging in a planet more complex than a single cell is absurdly low, with even alternate forms being equally convoluted. While Dark Forest assumes that there are tens if not hundreds of civilisations in our galaxy that could communicate with each other but don't, I think we'd be lucky to have more than one civilisation in the Milky Way.
Agreed, we are probably one in a google.
Everyone else in the Galaxy: it’s an all vs all in the cosmos! Gotta stay silent to stay safe
Humans: HEY YAH’LL!! WE’RE RIGHT HERE!!! SEE THAT BIG YELLOW STAR? THAT’S US! COME AT ME BRO!!
A big shoutout to the graphic artists on this and all the other astronomy, cosmology and science fiction channels! Your work is a pleasure to behold. You do good! ❤️
Excellent and thought-provoking, as always. Thank you.
For myself, the more I consider this subject the more inescapable the conclusion that we really are functionally alone. That would suggest our existence is spectacularly unlikely, and yet here we are - why? Is there a why?
On the note of the speech thing - it has never bothered me. It's part of the charm of the channel. No language on Earth has a word for how little I care how you pronounce your Rs. If I show these videos to someone in my family, it's the first thing they hear, but honestly I've probably listened to you talk for dozens of hours now and you really do zone out of that sort of thing. However if you do suddenly get some miracle cure for it, then good for you, and I wish you the best of luck during that.
I will admit, I've always kind of hated the Dark Forest idea, for one reason before anything else: space is big enough for the both of us. There's absolutely no reason to attack another species beyond sheer paranoia combined with no concept of MAD. Well, unless we get FTL tech, which kind of changes the equation entirely... funnily enough, in a manner that *also* disfavours the Dark Forest Hypothesis!
Cool video, you should do one of these on the expanse books
I might
@@isaacarthurSFIA I think you might like the red mars series
I second this
Always fun to listen to and good book recommendations but i'd wish for more Stephen Baxter. His work has some interesting takes on colony ships and other colonies with limited space and resources (Mayflower 2, Destiny's children series molerat-like human hives that are also in some of the short stories and the colony ship in the Ring, ) Some of the setups are a bit fantastic but interesting.
I probably should recommend Baxter more.
Don't change your speech patterns, we love you the way you are. Unique, quirky and interesting.
I used to repeat "Mouz" over and over after listening to some of his episodes. I'm going to miss it 🥺
@@anthonymorris9061 Me too. I also love it when he refers to animals as "cwittews." His "accent" is distinctive, and I like it. We should at least colonize Maws before we have to re-name it back to "Mars" again. 😄
Dude has one of the coolest narration voices and accents I've ever heard.
Anyone else ever feel like we're completely delusional with regards to space travel? It's really hard, takes a long time and costs so much...
Gotta get around to reading Lu Cixin's Three Body Problem trilogy at some point.
Yet another wonderful Sunday episode Isaac.
If you do, pirate the books, don't buy them. Lu Cixin is an evil dude.
@@Lusa_Iceheart what makes you say that? haha
@@Lusa_Iceheart I only got 1/3 of the way through one book. Painfully crap imo.
@@jengleheimerschmitt7941 I feel that. I've read 1 and 2 so far, still got 3 ahead of me. The interesting parts usually come somewhere after the halfway point of the book. In both books so far I've felt that the first half could have pretty much been removed. Or at least shortened significantly.
The waffle house has found its new host
I've recently discovered your channel and am currently binge watching. Fantastic content. And it's actually made that much more entertaining because of your speech. It adds an element of child-like innocence and wonder to deeply intulectual, philosophical and scientific concepts.
Something I find myself smiling to as I listen. Now I am as invested in your journey to correct your speech impediment as I am in the content. I'm so curious to hear your progress as you narrate future videos. Such a huge fan of your work. With or without your speech impediment.
The criticism here: 1) presumes a lack of predation between actors, string vs. weak, with careful selection of prey, 2) alternatively assumes that inherently hostile actors would not have limited resources, and so necessarily choose to focus upon other actors they considered most threatening, leaving the weak and small alone as not worth bothering about, 3) and that it’s easier to find civilization-bearing living planets than it may actually be.
My current layman’s answer to the Fermi paradox is that each step is a sort of “order of magnitude” reduction.
Very simple microbial life or even just RNA/virus environments are relatively common; complex microbial life is an order of magnitude less common, simple Multicellular but still microscopic life another step less, then large organisms, then intelligent life, then intelligent life capable of tool use, then those capable of advanced technology, and finally those capable of spacefaring technology.
I feel like this is enough reductions to make it so that there is generally only one civilization per galaxy capable of even minimal spaceflight - in this case, us.
All that being said, I also think it’s hubris to make so many assumptions about how life and the universe operate at large, and I hope the real answer is that we just simply don’t know enough yet to detect other life; that it exists so alien or advanced relative to us that we just can’t compare or perceive it, *yet*. Maybe not Clarketech so much as our current understanding is just only a fraction of the real truth.
Thanks for the personal update. My best wishes to you, Sarah and the kids. I am excited to hear your life going so well. I will put in an episode suggestion in the livestream.
I listen to all of these on Nebula, then again when they pop up on RUclips. You tend to get me twice on each video. I appreciate your videos. Thank you.
There are probably alot of literal dark forests in the universe due to the overabundance of red dwarf stars, man i would do anything to see an alien forest/anything alien in nature
Felt like I'm getting a space narrative from Jimmy from South Park.
Aliens being our enemies does have one benefit, when we find them we will be forced to unite together. Maybe finally some peace on earth, lol.
I think it’s a stretch to say the the universe is ancient. We don’t know how it started , how big it truly is and we don’t know where it is going and how long it will continue. Therefore a more accurate estimation or theory would be , it’s in its infancy. The answer to the Fermi paradox may well be, we are the first. A new born yet to have brothers and sisters.
Considering that you can't boil complex human systems down to game theory very often, what makes you think you can boil down complex galaxy spanning alien systems to game theory?
You absolutely can. The issue is making sure you have as many equations as variables, and people are often careless in this respect, oversimplifying or overcomplicating things.
Orson Scott Card had a good point (unless someone else made this before him that I'm not aware of) that it's far easier to attack than to defend in space. So deciding whether or not to attack someone that could launch an attack in retaliation would work similarly to MAD.
Even in a dark forest with predators looking for noisy prey, why don't we see other noisy prey? And aren't prey normally the silent ones not the predators?
The problem with us not nuking our neighbors is that we share a fundamental shared human experience with each other whether we like each other or not, our communication and understanding of it is also virtually instantaneous. That would NOT be the case with aliens.
The grim galactic reality is far more similar to dark science fiction then most people are able to comprehend.
I'm still convinced we're the most or one of the most advanced civilizations that currently exist. At least in this galaxy.