Dark forest hypothesis

rdf:langString Dark forest hypothesis

rdf:langString The dark forest hypothesis is the idea that many alien civilizations exist throughout the universe, but are both silent and paranoid. In this framing, it is presumed that any space-faring civilization would view any other intelligent life as an inevitable threat, and thus destroy any nascent life that makes its presence known. As a result, the electromagnetic spectrum would be relatively silent, without evidence of any intelligent alien life, as in a "dark forest"...filled with "armed hunter(s) stalking through the trees like a ghost". The hypothesis was described by astronomer and author David Brin in his 1983 summary of the arguments for and against the Fermi paradox, for which this hypothesis is one potential solution. The term "dark forest hypothesis" was later applied to this concept in Liu Cixin's 2008 science fiction novel The Dark Forest.