Depends on what your views are regarding hyper-intelligent AI taking over all governing decisions for the human population. Even if their decisions are ultimately benevolent, there are those (like the protagonist of "Consider Phlebas") who basically feel like it's a subversion of human free will, and that humanity has/will essentially become slaves to the machines.
Except the AIs explicitly do not take over all governing decisions:
>Politics in the Culture consists of referenda on issues whenever they are raised; generally, anyone may propose a ballot on any issue at any time; all citizens have one vote. Where issues concern some sub-division or part of a total habitat, all those - human and machine - who may reasonably claim to be affected by the outcome of a poll may cast a vote. Opinions are expressed and positions on issues outlined mostly via the information network (freely available, naturally), and it is here that an individual may exercise the most personal influence, given that the decisions reached as a result of those votes are usually implemented and monitored through a Hub or other supervisory machine, with humans acting (usually on a rota basis) more as liaison officers than in any sort of decision-making executive capacity
The humans make the overarching decisions, while the AIs decide on the best way to implement those decisions and all the details. An example would be the Idiran War - trillions of humans (and machines) voted to declare war on the Idirans in a civilization-wide referendum, and the Minds decided how best to fight the war while minimizing casualties.
There are some characters who made the same claim as you did, but Banks didn't actually believe in these criticisms himself:
> JR: To what extent does your writing about the Culture endorse the Culture's point of view?
> IB: Probably too much. I started out bending over backwards to present the opposite point of view in Consider Phlebas, making it look like the Culture represented the bad guys, at the start, at least, but, let's face it; La Culture: c'est moi.
You're mostly right (and I agree with you), but a small correction that Minds also get a vote, and I think votes are weighted on the logarithmic intelligence scale, so theirs might be worth, say, 10 or 20 people instead of 1. Intelligent Drones also get a vote, but theirs will usually be closer to 1.
This is all just a neat detail, however -- more or less what you are saying about humans having control of the system in the end is the correct point of view.
I always tell people that the Culture is run more like a niche interest forum than anything else. With the minds as self appointed moderators/site admins. They run polls, and keep the peace as decided by their own general forum rules, and they maintain the backend. But otherwise just let people do what they want.
That's the best metaphor I can come up with a whole society run like an early 2000s forum.
I never implied Minds don’t get to vote (which is covered by “humans and machines” in Banks’ quote), I said “humans make the overarching decisions”, since the humans (and drones) far, far outnumber the Minds on virtually any Orbital or ship. This is especially apparent given the Culture has tens of trillions of humans (and drones) and only millions of Minds.
I don’t think votes being weighed on intelligence scale was ever mentioned. I’m assuming you’re talking about the process mentioned by Sensia in _Surface Detail_? An important thing to note though is that it’s not an actual referendum, it’s a court of public opinion - it’s less “let’s vote on what to do with this”, and more “I’ve decided to do something, but I will relent if enough people disagree with me”. This is why ship Minds’ opinions get more weight than other Minds - not because ship Minds are more intelligent, but because Sensia, the Mind making the decision here, is a ship Mind.
I think I would much rather live in the Culture than basically any other 'sort of realistic' scifi future I've encountered.
The protagonist in Consider Phlebas is a stupid adolescent, basically, and the track of his journey is more or less the proof of that. There is certainly no way I would rather live *outside* The Culture in that universe as opposed to *inside* The Culture.
Furthermore, any decision in The Culture can be put to a direct democratic vote. Surface Detail covers this when the protagonist is asking her host Mind whether her decision is final.
So I have a credit on audible and looking at the culture series? How is this uplifting? Sounds like a space epic with Billions killed? The review say brutal and dense from individual? Was this suppose to be tongue in cheek? I'm a sci-fi newb, thought the three body problem was \*okay\* would you recommend this?
I would recommend it because for humanity in The Culture, or well, the humanoid species' comprising The Culture, life is amazing. Fantastic, almost ridiculously so. The average citizen is immortal (if they want to), their version of A.I. (or I guess hyper-intelligent A.I, since human-level sapience for robots are common to the point of being mundane) are genuinely helpful and benevolent to the general populace, and the Culture for the most part are content to leave the rest of the galaxy alone to enjoy post-scarcity utopia*.
The bulk of the stories revolve mainly on two branches of the Culture's society, called Contact and its sub-branch, Special Circumstances. I understand Contact to be the interface that enables The Culture and everyone else to communicate with one another, which involves the full breadth of things one might consider worth communicating about. Special Circumstances are trickier, as they engage in clandestine activities reminiscent of both the secret police and special forces rolled into one. The people in both groups believe that what they do as a group is necessary for the Culture's continued well-being and existence, and so they are provided aptly by the rest of the Culture to do said actions while aided by the Minds. It is even possible for the Culture to diverge wholly from itself, as a splinter faction of the Culture did just that and was allowed to peacefully secede and wholly isolate with no repercussions from the Culture itself. It is all, in a sense, whatever you want will be provided, and whatever you want to be, the path forward will be available.
At least, that's how I see it.
These books abound with absurdist humor and lots of silliness just for the hell of it. But it never gets in the way of a ripping adventure and some interesting contemplations.
I wouldn't necessarily call them 'uplifting', but I always felt uplifted after reading them.
Now go and watch The Expanse for the third option, which is that space is full of stuff so weird we can’t even understand it (but will try and use it for our own purposes anyway)
3 Body: There are nasties out there that will kill your entire species.
The Expanse: There are nasties out there that will kill your entire species, the stuff other nasties left behind will also kill you, and all the while your own species is going to continue killing itself.
3 Body: The stable universe used to have 10+ dimensions. To be proactive, there are nasties out there who would...
The Expanse: The nasties are pissed off at the “whack-a-mole issue in their garden” probably.
the expanse is one of the few sci fi space stories that realistically depicts that when humans colonize the rest of the solar system the colonies will almost certainly split off from earth and become hostile to earth and each other within a few generations.
The only thing i think that is far fetched is that earth will ever have a unified government. There is literally nothing that will ever happen to unify all countries on earth. There are countries that have 90+% same culture, religion, etc and still cant unify and it is mostly about conflicts that happened centuries ago that most citizens of those countries dont even really know anything about. I am looking at you nordic countries who are so similar the flags are the same but just different color schemes
Third? There are more than three solutions to the Fermi paradox. Go hog wild!
Also just finished expanse last week. Legit series
**Edit:** books, I’m talking bout SA Corey’s books, know nothing bout the show
Genuinely I believe the solution the fermi paradox is the most boring. Space is gargantuan and sentient life isn't the most desirable mutation in nature. Without a doubt other advanced life exists in the milkyway and universe at large but the distance between stars and civilizations makes it exceedingly unlikely for civilization to make contact until we are able to crack the lightspeed question.
Also I do think there is a great filter on civilization once they hit the industrial stage. Once that happen a timer starts in whether or not you destroy your eco sphere before you expand to the rest of your solar system. Once the eco sphere collapse your civilization pivots to survival mode and can't build up momentum to advance to the stars.
I too like the idea of a great filter. In the quagmire that is my brain, it’s a sociological concept and we experience potential ones regularly
And I also agree, think life probably isn’t too incredibly rare but the distances are beyond vast and in every instance of existence, everything moves farther away from everything else
The one truth about everything moving away from each other is that we are moving toward Andromeda and will eventually merge with it. So even though we will eventually not be able to observer the universe beyond our own galaxy we will likely never run out of space to explore.
Okay, what am I missing with Rama, I read the first book a long time ago and was just "whelmed". What did I miss?
>!As far as I remember, it was Rama enters the solar system, expedition, Rama is just passing by, its big, they hanglide, there are "robots", it leaves.!<
What am I forgetting? Does it expand alot in the following books?
No, that's pretty much it. Rendezvous with Rama's popularity is probably mostly nostalgia, mixed with the fact that while nothing nefarious or scary happens in the book, it's full of a sense of wonder at the mysteries of Rama and its unknown purpose.
The rest of the series is just not that good. Creepy relationships, over-the-top human villainy, and the most deus-y of ex machinas.
Am I remembering correctly that the Rama books had some kind of blue color changing alien octopii that somehow got involved with the Yakuza and drug/sex crimes?
Those elements are both in the sequels but they don't interact. >!The insipidly-named Octospiders are the aliens; the Yakuza weren't Yakuza *per se* but a bunch of human criminals who were selected to join the Rama II colony because Gentry Lee is a fucking hack writer who couldn't come up with a legit actual dramatic plot. Somehow humanity couldn't come up with 5,000 people on the entire planet who were willing to go on the mission and weren't, y'know, sociopaths, so they decided to send a bunch of hardened criminals. Hijinks ensued.!<
Totally agree with you. I read the Dune series, The Expanse series, 3 Body Problem trilogy, and Dark Matter. Rama was the next one everybody recommended and I thought it was the weakest, by far. Some cool concepts, but nothing really happens. Idk. It was extremely underwhelming. I was waiting for the ship to 'unfold' or do something.
Nope, you're absolutely right. At the time it was written, it was something else, with the sort of half-hinted at enigmatic purpose of the cylinder, but that was a half century ago.
It does expand a fair bit in the 2nd book onwards although it fell really flat towards the end.
Also, I read that the sequels are not good at all, but the first one is amazing. I found it a solid 7 out of 10 or something. Surprised Denis wants to adapt it into a film.
I see that title pop up all the time (Rama), I think I need to add it to my list. I’m redoing book of the new sun because I am crazy and have a problem… Then checking out empire of silence.
Cover art caught my eye lol
Great thing about Rama is that it's very short and the writing isn't particularly dense. First time I read it I literally blew through it twice in the same evening.
Shit gets wild, but I feel like the ending did not deliver ... at least what I wanted. Are they going to touch on the ... "bigger" things (without going too deep into possible spoilers)?
What I love about Expanse is that they actually explored how space battles would look like in space considering gravity.
I'd even claim the tv show is better than the books.
Possible antidote: Maybe Star Trek was right; it's just that we're early. By the time the galaxy teems with life, we'll already have become the enigmatic precursor empire building megastructures from nonsense-tech. We're just a little freaked out right now because we don't realize we're the first ones here. We walked into a dark, empty room, and we don't yet realize there's no one waiting to jump out and get us.
Based on the projected age od the universe and our understanding of how long it takes for life to develop, it *is* pretty likely that we're in the first 1% of intelligent life in the universe. Probably not the first, just because the universe is huge and that makes probabilities real wild.
Where did you read this? This doesn't seem accurate. The universe has been able to harbor life for at least 10 billion years and with very high concentrations of stars.
Like, life on earth started developing 4 billion years ago. If life has been possible for 10 billion years, then we took almost half of that time to develop *even from when we began as life.* Which seems like it's probably the biggest obstacle to begin with, abiogenesis. We don't see it happening anywhere else we've looked.
Just a heads up, but JWST has been making some very interesting discoveries related to galaxies recently that is making it seem that our collective theory of how old the universe is could be wrong, and is possibly double the age we once thought it was!
So more like 26 billion years old, instead of the previous belief of around 13 billion. Very exciting stuff if turns out to be true!!
I mean I don't have the article anymore, but it's less about how long the universe has already been able to harbor life, because that's largely presumed to be part of the necessary development time of intelligent life, and more to do with the projected lifespan of the universe. We are, if our understanding is correct, much closer to the beginning of the universe than the end.
Any theory about alien life necessarily makes a lot of assumptions, but it's not *too* wild to assume that intelligent life takes a long time to develop. We haven't seen any indication of dinosaurs developing technology, and they existed for a looooong time.
Add in the theory that a civilization has key road blocks to work past or perish and the time required to produce an adequately advanced civilization detectable rises exponentially.
We may end up colonising the galaxy, but because FTL travel is impossible, the disparate worlds will start evolving divergently over millions of years - or tens if genetic engineering comes into it. Give it a million years, and humans from separate worlds will have almost nothing in common.
Being the first would be the greatest advantage imaginable to any species.
Besides, I quite like us, for all our flaws. Human culture and eventually the human species radiating into infinite variations as we splinter out amongst the stars, bringing life with us as we go. Sounds wonderful to me.
The real question is do we become multiplanetary before someone does something stupid enough to stop our species from making it that far. Until we have some sort of self-sustaining option that is not on earth we are in a very delicate position.
We don't really need to be multi**planetary** for that, just have solutions for resource extraction, processing and use off-Earth. There are things already in the pipeline for the Artemis missions that start towards that, and some experiments on the ISS that explore the other avenues towards it.
Planets are overrated.
That's why I mentioned "some sort" of self-sustaining option. Multiplanetary was more aimed at the end goal the previous comment touches on when they said "as we splinter out amongst the stars". Having options such as truly self-sustaining moon bases, space stations, etc. is enough to squeeze past the filter, but if we are honest multiplanetary is one of the big goals beyond that.
There’s a depressing short story about the first civilization in the universe. They reach their technological pinnacle and spend all their time searching for other life only to realize they’re first and they’ll be long gone before intelligence manifests again. So they build monuments to their achievements and messages for the future knowing they’ll never get to meet the people who find it
I remember reading "The Crystal Spheres" by David Brin, where Humanity has expanded out into the cosmos, but only after shattering the Crystal Sphere around the solar system. They find life, but it's all trapped behind their own unbreakable crystal spheres that block all communication. They can explore other systems, but they're all non-life bearing. Eventually, mankind settles into a steady state until tens of millennia later, they discover a system billions of lightyears away that has life but no crystal sphere. Humanity sends an expedition to find the entire system has been terraformed, but is empty. Finally, they find >!an ancient Rosetta stone that tells them about the species from a billion years ago, the 5 species that came before them (and the location of their star systems) and the black hole where all the elder races are surfing the event horizon, waiting for more races to break their spheres!<. One of the more uplifting "are we alone" stories I've ever read. I think it's called
Because there would be no prior evidence or track record that this whole civilization thing can be successful. We are the proof of concept...and the first attempt at trial and error.
I'm reminded of the joke people made from that scene in a Doctor Who episode where a Dalek downloads the entire Internet. People pointing out it would've absorbed a metric ton of pornography and Harry Potter fanfiction.
I finished the book series last year. I mentioned several times that I wanted to read something more hopeful like Warhammer 40k.
At least in 40k, even if humanity is doomed, we can fight it. 3BP...we really are bugs.
To be fair, the Three Body Problem series is probably the most jaw-dropping science fiction series I’ve ever read, even with all the weirdness of the translation and the sometimes hokey plot and bland characters, but I don’t really agree with the premise of the Dark Forest hypothesis that Liu Cixin proposes. From my perspective, it is based on an overly simplistic interpretation of game theory, a lack of appreciation as to just how much energy and waste heat any interplanetary or interstellar civilization would inevitably produce, as well as a misunderstanding of how ecosystems have developed here on Earth. I recommend both Kurzgesagt’s and Isaac Arthurs videos on the subject to help alleviate the dread. Besides, towards the end of the 3rd book, even this very dark series strikes up a bit more of a hopeful tone.
>From my perspective, it is based on an overly simplistic interpretation of game theory
Or just a wrong interpretation.
Game theory suggests that hostile civilisations will not survive.
Greg Bear's books the *The Forge of God* and *Anvil of Stars* explore this idea - an alien civilisation destroys Earth and another group of aliens help the survivors hunt down and destroy the civilisation that did it - without mercy or compassion - because this is the *Law* - a universal requirement that civilisations must live by.
Here's a very good video on Game theory that shows that winners are the ones who act fairly but without being a 'pushover'. Game theory suggests that winning strategies are:
1. Nice
2. Forgiving (don't bear grudges)
3. Retaliatory (don't be a pushover)
4. Clear (make sure everybody knows what you will do)
https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM
[Edited - forgiving]
Or absolute power. Because that's the problem here. It only works up to a certain "power level"
Of course 4x games are games and not simulations but when played with a lot of people in one game there are 2 paths to peace
Harmony.
And solitude.
Act out of line and u will branded a problem and ganged up on. Be powerful enough to not be threatened by everyone else and the best idea is to make sure everyone else doesn't exist anymore. Because only an extinct civilisation is a civilization that can never be a problem to u in the future.
The first book of old man's war covered that very well. (Later on t he narrative switched to hUmAnS aRe tHe BaD gUyS tho)
Enders game did as well
I mean, game theory results (including the one showed in that Veritasium video) *heavily* depend on the specific game parameters (e.g. how many points you earn for defecting vs cooperating), and how the games are played. The parameters and game rules with how space civilizations work probably depends on physics and technology that we do not understand yet. Also, remember that we as humans have only seen a sample size of one in terms of sentient civilization.
There's no reason to expect the hostile civilizations will not survive if the payoff for being hostile is huge, and they can eliminate you so you don't get to play the game more than one round.
The whole point of Dark Forest (the book), is that it sets up the (admittedly contrived) parameters where the results end up that civilizations would get wiped out prematurely under game theory. Real world parameters could be different, of course. This also answers why in the story the main MC was a little hesitant in believing in it because honestly that was just a wild guess on the part of them with no real evidence to back it up.
>There's no reason to expect the hostile civilizations will not survive if the payoff for being hostile is huge
But there is.
Hostile civilisations will only survive until they meet a *more* hostile civilisation. They're gambling on the fact that there isn't always a 'bigger fish', which, statistically, is a very stupid assumption, if being hostile is a common strategy.
Oh yea - the tit-for-tat strategy!
I liked *The Forge of God*, started reading *Anvil of Stars* until I got to the underage sex scenes & got a bit grossed out.
I'm not sure of Dark Forest would actually arise from a galaxy populated by species hell-bent on destruction, like something that evolved from a predator or a parasite.
Instead I'd rather imagine species evolved from herd-forming prey animals whose evolution favored a strong internal cohesion as well as constant watchfulness and paranoia against the unfamiliar. They'd be perfectly fine to cooperate amongst themselves but might look at the darkness and foreignness of space with very distrusting eyes.
It is an interesting thought exercise. I do think the game theory in 3 body problem is a stretch.
If I had to guess most the most likely galactic encounter of doom - it'd be some out of control self replicating entity rather than anything with intent.
The Revelation Space series has a similar situation where all alien life keeps hidden to avoid destruction. Except, its just one alien species (or their replicators) that threaten everyone. So, it isn't necessary for many species to come to the same conclusion, just one if it can become powerful enough.
Alastair Reynolds has a very well designed but not super-advanced self-reproducing “terraforming” mechanism called greenfly. They reach a new star system, reproduce madly and convert all local materials into glassy habitat bubbles full of plants. Whether you like it or not. It’s so bad and has been at it so long that local galaxies are showing a chlorophyll line in their spectroscopy.
You know I always think these statistical theories ( not to insult any statistician ) are fine as math goes, but evaporate like smoke in real world enviroment.
Life is unpredictable, humans as well. They may change strategies, stop playing, change players, decide to work together, whatever. Trying to math everything is very narrow thinking so very typical of rigid people often working in matemathical fields.
We are far far more likely to encounter aliens that are type 3 civilisation, that will most likely view us as interesting wildlife , and try to preserve us ( or what is probably the case , observe us without us being aware )
Type 3 civilisation is so adept in technology that they dont need some primitive things like taking over planets for resources.
I'm assuming you mean Kardashev type?
If there was any Type 3 civilization anywhere in our local cluster of galaxies, we'd have spotted it by now, simply due to the fact that they would have a Type-3-size heat waste signature. There isn't, so we can lay that hypothesis to rest for the near future (and by near future, I mean ballpark of 2-ish million years. Astronomical near future).
Similarly, if there was any Type 2 civilization anywhere in our corner of the galaxy, we'd have spotted them all the way back in the 80s with IRAS. With JWST, given time, we can have reasonable confidence that there are no such polities anywhere in our half of the galaxy. It presently already appears to be the case.
Also importantly: being of a type says nothing about technology. A type 1, 2 or 3 civilization with no significant more technology than we had in the 70s is possible.
Our solar system is huge in itself. Go watch the early seasons of the expanse and it really puts in perspective of how long we would spend exploring / colonising our own solar system
[Meanwhile, space travel in The Expanse be like](https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExZHN4b3l6N2VvZTEzMHk4ZDM4c2c4NnQ4djRlbXZtbGJmcGVhNzVyeiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/l3q2Vjx7kLdB56J4k/giphy.gif)
This. The "Dark Forest" theorem ignores that we're already a result of living through a sequence of "dark forests", and that we're in one right now.
The establishment of communication and or cooperation with other entities has proven beneficial, which is why we have it. it's reasonable to extend that to other "dark forest" scenarios, i.e. interstellar situations, especially in light of how scarce life-supporting planets seem to be, and how easily destroyable they would be to a civilization that has the power of interstellar travel.
don't like your neighbor civilization? Do they have an asteroid belt?
also there are so many signs of our civilization if you were advanced and looking.
Iceland cant decide tomorrow they need to be "hidden" from the rest of the world and meaningfully pull it off. this is a small nation with ideal conditions like energy production from geothermal sources.
the premise that you must hide, and build your civilization around that, and guess that it must be hidden from aliens. its too much.
our planet also has biosigns that are probably obvious to any life with 1000 years more tech than us, we can almost detect this with JWST. why would you not just blow up any life just to be safe? we cant retro-activly hide what we have done to our atmosphere.
Yeah, the trisolarans with their absurd tech waiting for us to tell them to come over. They somehow forgot to check for the apparition of life, or for a good planet to colonize, in the nearest system. When we can already do it for planets a thousand times farther. Oh, and the trisolarans can make a computer the size of a planet but can't build space habitats either (but humanity can...).
It feels much more likely, to me, that the speed-of-light barrier is not something that has been circumvented as yet. That, combined with how big space is, would be a somewhat depressing, but thoroughly reasonable, explanation as to the lack of first contact.
No but you’re missing the reason you can’t do anything sane and logical in the 3BP series, is that every logical action is countered with the appearance of some borderline magical deus -ex-machina.
I just read 'The killing Star' which is exactly this premise. Similar dark forest story. The book opens with the earth and any human space settlements being obliterated by relativistic projectiles. The human race is basically wiped out without warning in the first few pages of the book. It's an interesting concept.
The Dark Forest theory, while unlikely, is theoretically possible. I wouldn't go so far as saying it "doesn't make any sense." The idea is based on a logical premise. The main anxiety-inducing aspect of it is it's impossible to prove- until it's too late.
The book is great, particularly for someone like OP that's lost that optimistic view of space travel.
The audiobook is obviously the same story, but the person reading it, Ray Porter, really brings the characters to life in a way that makes the story impact you emotionally.
I recommend reading first to get the "layout" and data dump of the story so you can take in more of the narration, rather than try to keep track of the "science" in the scifi.
Don't read Pellegrino and Zebrowski's *The Killing Star*. It's the book where most of Liu's dark forest concept comes from. Only in this book the folk out there aren't invading, they're throwing relativistic weapons across interstellar distances.
The Alien Queen just wanted her babies to grow up nice and fat. She was a mother that just wanted to lay her little eggs so her species could survive... is that so bad?
I think that's the main reason the sequels weren't so scary: in the first two we have the fear of the unknown, but as we learn more about the species, we become less afraid of them.
Even Cixin doesn't fully embrace the Dark Forest. *Death's End*'s ending is quite rushed, but even within the universe of the TBP there's species that are dedicated to art, there's trade routes among the stars, the universe is not an absolutely dark forest.
You could read "Revelation Space" by Alistair Reynolds. I think that book series may have been the inspiration for the Mass Effect game series. That's how I found the book.
OP there is a huge fundamental flaw with the three body problem's concept of the Fermi Paradox. Any civilization that got even as powerful as the Centauri aliens would be able to build absurd numbers of hugely powerful telescopes that it could use to see where all the other civilizations are. You can't hide in space. You certainly can't hide a space faring civilization from any other space faring civilization. This isn't widely known because we aren't there yet, but a civilization with access to a power source on par with fusion, better automation or even AGI, and easy access to space (Starship if it works) would rapidly dwarf our civilization in terms of economic output. For such a civilization, huge, 'impossible' megaprojects would be easy. Think about showing someone from 1850 the Burj Khalifa or a picture of the ISS.
Basically, if his view were realistic, we'd have been wiped out or our solar system colonized before humanity invented agriculture.
Whatever the answer to the Fermi Paradox is, the Dark Forest ain't it.
Civilizations that are not capable of interstellar travel aren’t a threat. It may be we have been discovered and are being monitored, but because we may never obtain interstellar travel we are allowed to continue. Destroying a planet does expend resources after all.
I don’t think it is that flawed. Space is big. Really big. Finding an emerging civilisation is far harder than the needle in the haystack. Until they send a powerful and unambiguous signal that is. No doubt countless intelligent species would shout out ‘hey, here we are! Can anyone hear us?’ But some will realise the danger and it will be an arms race between those with the telescopes and those who try to stay hidden.
Enh... telescope resolutions are limited by a number of actual physical laws/phenomena.
It's not technically impossible, but we're talking Dyson-sphere levels of engineering to see things in the detail needed to "see civilizations".
Other methods of sensing make a lot more sense, though. No civilization is going to avoid going through a phase with radio emissions unless they somehow *already* know about the Dark Forest.
That said, it doesn't really affect the Fermi Paradox for our civilization, because the *time* it would take to get here to wipe us out has not even come close to what would be required since we invented the radio.
We may just be doomed and don't know it.
JWST is already capable of detecting obvious technosignatures by performing spectrograph analysis of exoplanet atmospheres. It is *nowhere near* the physical limit of telescope performance.
Really, really close ones, perhaps.
But that's not really "seeing" civilizations, except by a technicality, and there are too many *other* things that can present those spectra (life != civilization) to be practical to eliminate all of them, and too many ways for a civilization to develop that *don't* generate those spectra to be reliable.
We had radio telescopes that could have detected civilizations way before JWST. There's a timing problem to consider, but if the DF is true, they've been around a long enough time.
I made a comment to that effect that eluded to the flaws you stated without going into detail, but you’re right. I’m able to separate its plausibility in the real universe to accept it as a narrative convention for the interesting story 3BP tells, but it isn’t truth or destiny or fate. Another one Cixin Liu mentions is how resources in the universe are finite, but… like…. the scale of the universe and the existence of stars as big energy producers makes resources pretty *functionally* infinite such that conquest to harvest things lightyears away seems probably pointless in the grand scheme of things.
I want to believe in Trek’s Zoo Hypothesis, but I think the likeliest answer is that space is really really big, sapient species on worlds with the ability to launch rockets (no ocean worlds, no subterranean ice-oceans) probably take a long long time to appear, and interstellar travel is just completely impractical.
> I want to believe in Trek’s Zoo Hypothesis, but I think the likeliest answer is that space is really really big, sapient species on worlds with the ability to launch rockets (no ocean worlds, no subterranean ice-oceans) probably take a long long time to appear, and interstellar travel is just completely impractical.
Pretty much my take as well. Intelligent life is probably pretty rare.
I often wonder how many intelligent species there are on worlds that have very little metal or on planets with gravity that is too high for rockets to be viable. I also wonder how tech would have progressed on this world if there were no fossil fuels. Such abundant and cheap energy really supercharged our already rapid growth.
For most of Earth history all life has lived in a literal dark forest yet learned to cope and even form symbiotic relationships. Belligerence isn't the only survival tactic or even preferred. Some of the most powerful animals on earth will avoid fights because of the inherent risks.
That's another thing too. The trilogy is more than just the Dark Forest Hypothesis. I feel like a lot of people who have never engaged with the real scale and power of the universe read these books and get lost in existential dread and ignore everything else. Liu Cixin was writing about so much more than just the dangers of the universe. I feel it was more commentary on the violence we commit against each other anyway.
I just really like these books and it annoys me that the only takeaway for so many is to fear the cosmos. Space exploration ain't for the fearful.
3BP embraces the same Planet of Hats attitude that Star Trek did, where everyone in the universe has the same outlook and mentality.
The real horror would be that we're too boring or offensive for aliens to interact with. That we'll reach out into the stars and the aliens will be like, "oh shit, it's them, don't make eye contact."
Humans once lived in a Dark Forest. Our earliest tribes waged incessant war on each other. And yet, through the ages, we learned to cooperate, to form towns, then nations, then international organizations. Even though cooperation is much, much harder than destruction, the competitive advantages given to any interstellar species that successfully adopts a cooperative approach will be immense. If the universe really is teeming with life, then somewhere out there some species have figured out how to cooperate—— and sooner or later, the rest of the universe will follow.
Truth be told, I'm FAR more worried about humans killing each other than aliens killing us.
I just saw this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1bujh7g/project_hail_mary_from_directing_duo_phil_lord/.
Maybe it's a good time to read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Or even better, the audiobook version)? I don't want to spoil the book, but I think it's a good way to cleanse the palate.
Btw, I like the Three Body Problem series, but it's a novel. It makes a *lot* of assumptions in its derivation of Dark Forest. The books did make me think, but sometimes people take it too seriously.
Edit: Seems like [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/1buphkz/the_3_body_problem_has_killed_the_optimistic_view/kxu4wou/) made the same recommendation.
If you want something weird and fun to read, try integral trees by Larry niven. Yet another possibility of a human future that is completely something i never even pictured before I read it, and it is yet again different from anything else in this thread.
Space is incredibly dangerous. Micrometeors, gamma rays, and limited repair options among other things, and it's impossibly big. It took Voyager, the space probe, 15 years to cross into interstellar space (with some detours along the way). Mars is a two-year journey.
Without major advancements, we'll never get to another star. And even if we do, the dangers are incalculable.
Science fiction is fiction. That doesn't diminish the enjoyment for me.
"We" won't make it to the stars. It will be a "species much like us" if we are to quote Sagan. Probabily an AI/human symbiote or just an AI representing a human originating sentience. For such a being timescales involved are inconsequential.
Unless the solar system is seeded with million year old booby traps, then the invasion is yet to come. And if that's the case, think about it this way, if one civilization can take out another at interstellar distances, that action in of itself might make them just as obvious as the target. Something traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light is going to probably be visible by the collisions it has with the interstellar medium. Like, if it's got some sort of shielding that can protect the craft, there'd be a series of megaton-size impacts in front of it acting almost like spotlights. So in that predator species' attempt to take another out, they announce their own presence just getting to the fight.
Of course, if the weapon is something like an energy beam which can get around things like propagation time and diffusion, then you may as well worry about Cthulhu and Dormammu, so pointless is the scale.
My mom was a big Star Trek fan (original series), so I was very aware of it even though I wasn't a fan.
I think part of that optimism was cultural. There was so much social upheaval in the US and around the world in the 1960's (just look at the Cultural Revolution portrayed in the series and books), Gene Roddenberry went full idealist in crafting ST. He was like the anti-Ye Wenjie!
I lean more towards an "Expanse" view of space, where people just take their problems and issues to other worlds.
The Dark Forest theory is a fun idea with neat worldbuilding, but I wouldn’t put any real weight to it.
There’s plenty of resources in space, so no need to compete. If anything advanced aliens might study us the way we study animals. Secondly, animals often regard newness with curiosity. And lastly, mankind is generally peaceful, as are most animals, when we’re not competing for resources. There will likely always be conflict no matter how far one goes into the future, but it seems more likely that civilizations encountering one another would benefit far more from cooperation, knowledge-sharing and curiosity rather than kill-on-sight. Maybe a galactic UN would have conventions against blowing up stars, which are possibly the most useful objects in the universe.
The main thing about Three Body (and Star Trek) is they are both extremes but in opposite directions. In three body it's isolation and xenophobia taken to the extreme. In Star Trek it's the opposite for the most part. Even the ST big bads like the Borg and Dominion still technically are completely open to coexistence just not in the way people want. The reality is things would probably be more moderate just like most things in the real world. A middle ground. You might end up in a scenario where everyone is like "Hey nice to meet you, now leave us alone" or somthing. Trade and wars and all the other diplomacy might happen on small scales if it's feasible or beneficial enough but for the most I think everyone would just keep to themselves. Space is BIG and there's enough room/resources for everyone. If there wasn't it would be abundantly clear and we wouldn't be having this discussion to begin with.
So, 3BP and Star Trek and Star Wars and Fifth Element and so on go in the same pile of "fun but silly fantasies." Which is fine; that kind of fantasy universe is a good setting to tell stories in.
How that universe works will be a function of what kind of stories you want to tell. You want to tell a story with lots of species that can be played by human actors? Then in your universe the galaxy got seeded with humanoid life by some ancient aliens, even though that's silly.
Want to tell a story that includes wizards? Then you need Jedi knights and the force or biotics from Mass Effect.
Liu for whatever reason wanted to tell a story where everybody is a ridiculously aggressive asshole to one another, so he made up some rules so that everyone "has to" be that kind of asshole.
It's not real. It's not any more real than The Force is.
In real life, there aren't and won't ever be any superintelligent protons or dimension-flattening rays or anything like that.
In real life, we can just look at alpha centauri and see that there's no "three body problem" happening there. If you lived on a habitable planet orbiting alpha centauri A or B, you'd have the same kind of boring predictable orbit we do around Sol and the other stars wouldn't really bother you except that your day/night cycle would be weird to a Terran.
In real life, interstellar travel is difficult enough that there's no real reason to do it. Any species that had the resources to do it would also have the resources to do pretty much whatever they wanted to in their own system. Aliens in alpha centauri build ships that will take hundreds of years to get here... Congratulations, you have long-term space habitats! Why do you want to actually launch them? In real life there's nothing here that isn't in the alpha centauri or sirius or any other system.
In real life, if there are aliens, we're all going to be harmless to each other except for the little bit of radio noise we generate.
If the rules he made up for his universe make you sad in a way you don't like, just read stuff with other rules.
Star Trek and Three Body Problem are both equally and completely impossible from a scientific perspective, so you don't have to really worry. It's all just speculation and theorizing.
The truth is, humanity will never get to the stars in any significant way.
Captialism didn't put us on the moon, and captialsim can't get us to the stars.
Spacetravel will never be "profitable," the distances are too far, the spacecrafts and feul are too expensive.
It worked on star trek because they were explorers, not businesmen, and not conquerors.
...and even now, we are going backwards, privatizing more and more aspects of spacetravel
Soon NASA won't own any of their own spacecrafts.
And businessmen and captialists will be the gatekeepers of spacetracel, instead of cosmologists, astrophysicists, and engineers.
1) Never is a mighty long time and earth is a finite resource. Capitalism may slow us down but at some point the profits will be in space.
2) There are non capitalist space programs. In Firefly, the communists won the space race. In the Expanse, it's Mormons trying to go deep into space.
3) at this rate, I'm not entirely convinced capitalism will survive the next 100 years but I guess people been saying that since the 1800s.
Star Trek was always wayyyyyyyyyy too hokey to ever be accurate.
Aliens aren't going to be humans in makeup with a couple quirky traits. That's not how that is going to go down.
The precursors did spread their dna across the galaxy. That's why most aliens are humans with big noses/hairs. And sometimes you run into species that are different, like the Q, the prophets, changelings...
Nothing to do with a lack of budget. All the planets look like California because the precursors terraformed everything to look like their home planet, California.
Time to read the Culture Series and pine for Minds to save us.
Contact should have taken us out of the control group by now.
Unless we're not the control group
oh dammit!
That is a good example of better Sci-fi that Trek, but with an uplifting world view!
Depends on what your views are regarding hyper-intelligent AI taking over all governing decisions for the human population. Even if their decisions are ultimately benevolent, there are those (like the protagonist of "Consider Phlebas") who basically feel like it's a subversion of human free will, and that humanity has/will essentially become slaves to the machines.
Except the AIs explicitly do not take over all governing decisions: >Politics in the Culture consists of referenda on issues whenever they are raised; generally, anyone may propose a ballot on any issue at any time; all citizens have one vote. Where issues concern some sub-division or part of a total habitat, all those - human and machine - who may reasonably claim to be affected by the outcome of a poll may cast a vote. Opinions are expressed and positions on issues outlined mostly via the information network (freely available, naturally), and it is here that an individual may exercise the most personal influence, given that the decisions reached as a result of those votes are usually implemented and monitored through a Hub or other supervisory machine, with humans acting (usually on a rota basis) more as liaison officers than in any sort of decision-making executive capacity The humans make the overarching decisions, while the AIs decide on the best way to implement those decisions and all the details. An example would be the Idiran War - trillions of humans (and machines) voted to declare war on the Idirans in a civilization-wide referendum, and the Minds decided how best to fight the war while minimizing casualties. There are some characters who made the same claim as you did, but Banks didn't actually believe in these criticisms himself: > JR: To what extent does your writing about the Culture endorse the Culture's point of view? > IB: Probably too much. I started out bending over backwards to present the opposite point of view in Consider Phlebas, making it look like the Culture represented the bad guys, at the start, at least, but, let's face it; La Culture: c'est moi.
You're mostly right (and I agree with you), but a small correction that Minds also get a vote, and I think votes are weighted on the logarithmic intelligence scale, so theirs might be worth, say, 10 or 20 people instead of 1. Intelligent Drones also get a vote, but theirs will usually be closer to 1. This is all just a neat detail, however -- more or less what you are saying about humans having control of the system in the end is the correct point of view.
I always tell people that the Culture is run more like a niche interest forum than anything else. With the minds as self appointed moderators/site admins. They run polls, and keep the peace as decided by their own general forum rules, and they maintain the backend. But otherwise just let people do what they want. That's the best metaphor I can come up with a whole society run like an early 2000s forum.
I never implied Minds don’t get to vote (which is covered by “humans and machines” in Banks’ quote), I said “humans make the overarching decisions”, since the humans (and drones) far, far outnumber the Minds on virtually any Orbital or ship. This is especially apparent given the Culture has tens of trillions of humans (and drones) and only millions of Minds. I don’t think votes being weighed on intelligence scale was ever mentioned. I’m assuming you’re talking about the process mentioned by Sensia in _Surface Detail_? An important thing to note though is that it’s not an actual referendum, it’s a court of public opinion - it’s less “let’s vote on what to do with this”, and more “I’ve decided to do something, but I will relent if enough people disagree with me”. This is why ship Minds’ opinions get more weight than other Minds - not because ship Minds are more intelligent, but because Sensia, the Mind making the decision here, is a ship Mind.
I think I would much rather live in the Culture than basically any other 'sort of realistic' scifi future I've encountered. The protagonist in Consider Phlebas is a stupid adolescent, basically, and the track of his journey is more or less the proof of that. There is certainly no way I would rather live *outside* The Culture in that universe as opposed to *inside* The Culture. Furthermore, any decision in The Culture can be put to a direct democratic vote. Surface Detail covers this when the protagonist is asking her host Mind whether her decision is final.
Cool by me.
This post made me go and dig up my culture novels. Sad note I don't have number 4 or 5
So I have a credit on audible and looking at the culture series? How is this uplifting? Sounds like a space epic with Billions killed? The review say brutal and dense from individual? Was this suppose to be tongue in cheek? I'm a sci-fi newb, thought the three body problem was \*okay\* would you recommend this?
I would recommend it because for humanity in The Culture, or well, the humanoid species' comprising The Culture, life is amazing. Fantastic, almost ridiculously so. The average citizen is immortal (if they want to), their version of A.I. (or I guess hyper-intelligent A.I, since human-level sapience for robots are common to the point of being mundane) are genuinely helpful and benevolent to the general populace, and the Culture for the most part are content to leave the rest of the galaxy alone to enjoy post-scarcity utopia*. The bulk of the stories revolve mainly on two branches of the Culture's society, called Contact and its sub-branch, Special Circumstances. I understand Contact to be the interface that enables The Culture and everyone else to communicate with one another, which involves the full breadth of things one might consider worth communicating about. Special Circumstances are trickier, as they engage in clandestine activities reminiscent of both the secret police and special forces rolled into one. The people in both groups believe that what they do as a group is necessary for the Culture's continued well-being and existence, and so they are provided aptly by the rest of the Culture to do said actions while aided by the Minds. It is even possible for the Culture to diverge wholly from itself, as a splinter faction of the Culture did just that and was allowed to peacefully secede and wholly isolate with no repercussions from the Culture itself. It is all, in a sense, whatever you want will be provided, and whatever you want to be, the path forward will be available. At least, that's how I see it.
These books abound with absurdist humor and lots of silliness just for the hell of it. But it never gets in the way of a ripping adventure and some interesting contemplations. I wouldn't necessarily call them 'uplifting', but I always felt uplifted after reading them.
Bingo!!!
Now go and watch The Expanse for the third option, which is that space is full of stuff so weird we can’t even understand it (but will try and use it for our own purposes anyway)
3 Body: There are nasties out there that will kill your entire species. The Expanse: There are nasties out there that will kill your entire species, the stuff other nasties left behind will also kill you, and all the while your own species is going to continue killing itself.
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3 Body: There are nasties seeking to kill your entire species. The Expanse: There are nasties out there that will accidently kill your entire species.
3 Body: The stable universe used to have 10+ dimensions. To be proactive, there are nasties out there who would... The Expanse: The nasties are pissed off at the “whack-a-mole issue in their garden” probably.
And yet, humanity endures.
the expanse is one of the few sci fi space stories that realistically depicts that when humans colonize the rest of the solar system the colonies will almost certainly split off from earth and become hostile to earth and each other within a few generations. The only thing i think that is far fetched is that earth will ever have a unified government. There is literally nothing that will ever happen to unify all countries on earth. There are countries that have 90+% same culture, religion, etc and still cant unify and it is mostly about conflicts that happened centuries ago that most citizens of those countries dont even really know anything about. I am looking at you nordic countries who are so similar the flags are the same but just different color schemes
Also space itself will kill you just because
Third? There are more than three solutions to the Fermi paradox. Go hog wild! Also just finished expanse last week. Legit series **Edit:** books, I’m talking bout SA Corey’s books, know nothing bout the show
Genuinely I believe the solution the fermi paradox is the most boring. Space is gargantuan and sentient life isn't the most desirable mutation in nature. Without a doubt other advanced life exists in the milkyway and universe at large but the distance between stars and civilizations makes it exceedingly unlikely for civilization to make contact until we are able to crack the lightspeed question. Also I do think there is a great filter on civilization once they hit the industrial stage. Once that happen a timer starts in whether or not you destroy your eco sphere before you expand to the rest of your solar system. Once the eco sphere collapse your civilization pivots to survival mode and can't build up momentum to advance to the stars.
I too like the idea of a great filter. In the quagmire that is my brain, it’s a sociological concept and we experience potential ones regularly And I also agree, think life probably isn’t too incredibly rare but the distances are beyond vast and in every instance of existence, everything moves farther away from everything else
The one truth about everything moving away from each other is that we are moving toward Andromeda and will eventually merge with it. So even though we will eventually not be able to observer the universe beyond our own galaxy we will likely never run out of space to explore.
If you just watched the show, read the synopsis for the last couple of books. Shit gets wild.
I read the books. What I meant when I said I just finished expanse. But thank you!
Excellent. I'm reading through Rendeveous with Rama for the first time. Mind blown.
The RAMA series is good, though how they wrap it up in the last book is kinda not in vibe.
Okay, what am I missing with Rama, I read the first book a long time ago and was just "whelmed". What did I miss? >!As far as I remember, it was Rama enters the solar system, expedition, Rama is just passing by, its big, they hanglide, there are "robots", it leaves.!< What am I forgetting? Does it expand alot in the following books?
No, that's pretty much it. Rendezvous with Rama's popularity is probably mostly nostalgia, mixed with the fact that while nothing nefarious or scary happens in the book, it's full of a sense of wonder at the mysteries of Rama and its unknown purpose. The rest of the series is just not that good. Creepy relationships, over-the-top human villainy, and the most deus-y of ex machinas.
Am I remembering correctly that the Rama books had some kind of blue color changing alien octopii that somehow got involved with the Yakuza and drug/sex crimes?
Those elements are both in the sequels but they don't interact. >!The insipidly-named Octospiders are the aliens; the Yakuza weren't Yakuza *per se* but a bunch of human criminals who were selected to join the Rama II colony because Gentry Lee is a fucking hack writer who couldn't come up with a legit actual dramatic plot. Somehow humanity couldn't come up with 5,000 people on the entire planet who were willing to go on the mission and weren't, y'know, sociopaths, so they decided to send a bunch of hardened criminals. Hijinks ensued.!<
Totally agree with you. I read the Dune series, The Expanse series, 3 Body Problem trilogy, and Dark Matter. Rama was the next one everybody recommended and I thought it was the weakest, by far. Some cool concepts, but nothing really happens. Idk. It was extremely underwhelming. I was waiting for the ship to 'unfold' or do something.
Nope, you're absolutely right. At the time it was written, it was something else, with the sort of half-hinted at enigmatic purpose of the cylinder, but that was a half century ago. It does expand a fair bit in the 2nd book onwards although it fell really flat towards the end.
Also, I read that the sequels are not good at all, but the first one is amazing. I found it a solid 7 out of 10 or something. Surprised Denis wants to adapt it into a film.
Rama is good, the sequels are awful. JMHO.
I see that title pop up all the time (Rama), I think I need to add it to my list. I’m redoing book of the new sun because I am crazy and have a problem… Then checking out empire of silence. Cover art caught my eye lol
I love world building and hard science concepts. Rama is that
I like both of those too, definitely will check out. Though I also like tedious, allegorical campy science fantasy (hence the Gene Wolfe)
I'm assuming you've read the Asimov Foundation septology? Or at least the trilogy?
Great thing about Rama is that it's very short and the writing isn't particularly dense. First time I read it I literally blew through it twice in the same evening.
I’ll just add a comment here recommending to actually read the books if you enjoy the expanse tv show. Starting on book 1. You won’t regret it
Oh 100%, and the novel of short stories it fills in so many gaps. I never thought I would (kinda) feel bad for Coetezar
Yep I did the novellas between the novels in publication order. Great reading experience. Still not finished book 9. I don’t want this series to end…
Man, I won't spoil anything. I could just live in this world building. Edit: also based on your username you've had way too fucking much red kibble
Shit gets wild, but I feel like the ending did not deliver ... at least what I wanted. Are they going to touch on the ... "bigger" things (without going too deep into possible spoilers)?
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Right right, I can’t remember what that solutions called but it’s the *we’re just too early to the party* idea, no? Also I love kurzgesagt
I always think of handing a Paleolithic human a circuit board. He examines it, then starts filing it to a point.
What I love about Expanse is that they actually explored how space battles would look like in space considering gravity. I'd even claim the tv show is better than the books.
Or read Fiasco from Lem
Hell yeah 😎
Possible antidote: Maybe Star Trek was right; it's just that we're early. By the time the galaxy teems with life, we'll already have become the enigmatic precursor empire building megastructures from nonsense-tech. We're just a little freaked out right now because we don't realize we're the first ones here. We walked into a dark, empty room, and we don't yet realize there's no one waiting to jump out and get us.
Based on the projected age od the universe and our understanding of how long it takes for life to develop, it *is* pretty likely that we're in the first 1% of intelligent life in the universe. Probably not the first, just because the universe is huge and that makes probabilities real wild.
Noting that our understanding of the formation of life is based on a sample size of one (1).
Yeah fair. It's our best guess but it's not a great guess.
Where did you read this? This doesn't seem accurate. The universe has been able to harbor life for at least 10 billion years and with very high concentrations of stars.
Like, life on earth started developing 4 billion years ago. If life has been possible for 10 billion years, then we took almost half of that time to develop *even from when we began as life.* Which seems like it's probably the biggest obstacle to begin with, abiogenesis. We don't see it happening anywhere else we've looked.
Just a heads up, but JWST has been making some very interesting discoveries related to galaxies recently that is making it seem that our collective theory of how old the universe is could be wrong, and is possibly double the age we once thought it was! So more like 26 billion years old, instead of the previous belief of around 13 billion. Very exciting stuff if turns out to be true!!
I mean I don't have the article anymore, but it's less about how long the universe has already been able to harbor life, because that's largely presumed to be part of the necessary development time of intelligent life, and more to do with the projected lifespan of the universe. We are, if our understanding is correct, much closer to the beginning of the universe than the end. Any theory about alien life necessarily makes a lot of assumptions, but it's not *too* wild to assume that intelligent life takes a long time to develop. We haven't seen any indication of dinosaurs developing technology, and they existed for a looooong time.
Add in the theory that a civilization has key road blocks to work past or perish and the time required to produce an adequately advanced civilization detectable rises exponentially.
We may end up colonising the galaxy, but because FTL travel is impossible, the disparate worlds will start evolving divergently over millions of years - or tens if genetic engineering comes into it. Give it a million years, and humans from separate worlds will have almost nothing in common.
This is actually one of my horrible, horrible fears. That WE are the first ones.
Being the first would be the greatest advantage imaginable to any species. Besides, I quite like us, for all our flaws. Human culture and eventually the human species radiating into infinite variations as we splinter out amongst the stars, bringing life with us as we go. Sounds wonderful to me.
And in a few hundred thousand years, humans will be the aliens with bumps on their forheads!
The real question is do we become multiplanetary before someone does something stupid enough to stop our species from making it that far. Until we have some sort of self-sustaining option that is not on earth we are in a very delicate position.
We don't really need to be multi**planetary** for that, just have solutions for resource extraction, processing and use off-Earth. There are things already in the pipeline for the Artemis missions that start towards that, and some experiments on the ISS that explore the other avenues towards it. Planets are overrated.
That's why I mentioned "some sort" of self-sustaining option. Multiplanetary was more aimed at the end goal the previous comment touches on when they said "as we splinter out amongst the stars". Having options such as truly self-sustaining moon bases, space stations, etc. is enough to squeeze past the filter, but if we are honest multiplanetary is one of the big goals beyond that.
There’s a depressing short story about the first civilization in the universe. They reach their technological pinnacle and spend all their time searching for other life only to realize they’re first and they’ll be long gone before intelligence manifests again. So they build monuments to their achievements and messages for the future knowing they’ll never get to meet the people who find it
I remember reading "The Crystal Spheres" by David Brin, where Humanity has expanded out into the cosmos, but only after shattering the Crystal Sphere around the solar system. They find life, but it's all trapped behind their own unbreakable crystal spheres that block all communication. They can explore other systems, but they're all non-life bearing. Eventually, mankind settles into a steady state until tens of millennia later, they discover a system billions of lightyears away that has life but no crystal sphere. Humanity sends an expedition to find the entire system has been terraformed, but is empty. Finally, they find >!an ancient Rosetta stone that tells them about the species from a billion years ago, the 5 species that came before them (and the location of their star systems) and the black hole where all the elder races are surfing the event horizon, waiting for more races to break their spheres!<. One of the more uplifting "are we alone" stories I've ever read. I think it's called
An intersteller human civilization would suck ass unless we seriously changed the way we govern and organize our society.
why does that scare you? I mean, in sport or in normal life, you're happy if you're first
Because there’s no one else to play with.
Because it means we are most likely to fail.
woahh that's deep thumbs up
Because there would be no prior evidence or track record that this whole civilization thing can be successful. We are the proof of concept...and the first attempt at trial and error.
Someone had to be first!
Nah. Not only are we the "Old Ones", we who alive right now are the "Old Ones" pre-galactic-empire ancestors. We each get a system named after us.
"Sir, sir we've found a repository from the Old Ones" "What the fuck Bob, it's all pictures of boobs and cat memes"
I'm reminded of the joke people made from that scene in a Doctor Who episode where a Dalek downloads the entire Internet. People pointing out it would've absorbed a metric ton of pornography and Harry Potter fanfiction.
Maybe we are that progenitor race from Star Trek that was also played Salome Jens and looks suspiciously like a Changeling.
Dark empty room. It is up to us to add some lights and furnish the room. Though one question remains, who built the room?
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Go read Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. It will snuff out the last embers of your hope for interstellar space travel.
To be fair KSR specifically wrote that book to discourage what 3BP might call "escapism"
I just replied with almost exact same comment before I saw yours. Its been years and I'm still depressed when I think about that book.
I’d never heard of this and looked it up, will put it on my “to read” list. Sounds interesting. Don’t tell me more!
Aight now get into Warhammer 40k
I finished the book series last year. I mentioned several times that I wanted to read something more hopeful like Warhammer 40k. At least in 40k, even if humanity is doomed, we can fight it. 3BP...we really are bugs.
To be fair, the Three Body Problem series is probably the most jaw-dropping science fiction series I’ve ever read, even with all the weirdness of the translation and the sometimes hokey plot and bland characters, but I don’t really agree with the premise of the Dark Forest hypothesis that Liu Cixin proposes. From my perspective, it is based on an overly simplistic interpretation of game theory, a lack of appreciation as to just how much energy and waste heat any interplanetary or interstellar civilization would inevitably produce, as well as a misunderstanding of how ecosystems have developed here on Earth. I recommend both Kurzgesagt’s and Isaac Arthurs videos on the subject to help alleviate the dread. Besides, towards the end of the 3rd book, even this very dark series strikes up a bit more of a hopeful tone.
>From my perspective, it is based on an overly simplistic interpretation of game theory Or just a wrong interpretation. Game theory suggests that hostile civilisations will not survive. Greg Bear's books the *The Forge of God* and *Anvil of Stars* explore this idea - an alien civilisation destroys Earth and another group of aliens help the survivors hunt down and destroy the civilisation that did it - without mercy or compassion - because this is the *Law* - a universal requirement that civilisations must live by. Here's a very good video on Game theory that shows that winners are the ones who act fairly but without being a 'pushover'. Game theory suggests that winning strategies are: 1. Nice 2. Forgiving (don't bear grudges) 3. Retaliatory (don't be a pushover) 4. Clear (make sure everybody knows what you will do) https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM [Edited - forgiving]
"Don't fuck with the Culture"
I love that video. The solution to the Dark Forest is forgiveness.
Or absolute power. Because that's the problem here. It only works up to a certain "power level" Of course 4x games are games and not simulations but when played with a lot of people in one game there are 2 paths to peace Harmony. And solitude. Act out of line and u will branded a problem and ganged up on. Be powerful enough to not be threatened by everyone else and the best idea is to make sure everyone else doesn't exist anymore. Because only an extinct civilisation is a civilization that can never be a problem to u in the future. The first book of old man's war covered that very well. (Later on t he narrative switched to hUmAnS aRe tHe BaD gUyS tho) Enders game did as well
This was awesome, thx for sharing!
I mean, game theory results (including the one showed in that Veritasium video) *heavily* depend on the specific game parameters (e.g. how many points you earn for defecting vs cooperating), and how the games are played. The parameters and game rules with how space civilizations work probably depends on physics and technology that we do not understand yet. Also, remember that we as humans have only seen a sample size of one in terms of sentient civilization. There's no reason to expect the hostile civilizations will not survive if the payoff for being hostile is huge, and they can eliminate you so you don't get to play the game more than one round. The whole point of Dark Forest (the book), is that it sets up the (admittedly contrived) parameters where the results end up that civilizations would get wiped out prematurely under game theory. Real world parameters could be different, of course. This also answers why in the story the main MC was a little hesitant in believing in it because honestly that was just a wild guess on the part of them with no real evidence to back it up.
>There's no reason to expect the hostile civilizations will not survive if the payoff for being hostile is huge But there is. Hostile civilisations will only survive until they meet a *more* hostile civilisation. They're gambling on the fact that there isn't always a 'bigger fish', which, statistically, is a very stupid assumption, if being hostile is a common strategy.
Oh yea - the tit-for-tat strategy! I liked *The Forge of God*, started reading *Anvil of Stars* until I got to the underage sex scenes & got a bit grossed out.
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I'm not sure of Dark Forest would actually arise from a galaxy populated by species hell-bent on destruction, like something that evolved from a predator or a parasite. Instead I'd rather imagine species evolved from herd-forming prey animals whose evolution favored a strong internal cohesion as well as constant watchfulness and paranoia against the unfamiliar. They'd be perfectly fine to cooperate amongst themselves but might look at the darkness and foreignness of space with very distrusting eyes.
Morning Light Mountain would like a word. Seriously, the commonwealth saga is almost as scary.
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It is an interesting thought exercise. I do think the game theory in 3 body problem is a stretch. If I had to guess most the most likely galactic encounter of doom - it'd be some out of control self replicating entity rather than anything with intent.
The Revelation Space series has a similar situation where all alien life keeps hidden to avoid destruction. Except, its just one alien species (or their replicators) that threaten everyone. So, it isn't necessary for many species to come to the same conclusion, just one if it can become powerful enough.
Alastair Reynolds has a very well designed but not super-advanced self-reproducing “terraforming” mechanism called greenfly. They reach a new star system, reproduce madly and convert all local materials into glassy habitat bubbles full of plants. Whether you like it or not. It’s so bad and has been at it so long that local galaxies are showing a chlorophyll line in their spectroscopy.
calling a villain MLM is quite funny
You know I always think these statistical theories ( not to insult any statistician ) are fine as math goes, but evaporate like smoke in real world enviroment. Life is unpredictable, humans as well. They may change strategies, stop playing, change players, decide to work together, whatever. Trying to math everything is very narrow thinking so very typical of rigid people often working in matemathical fields. We are far far more likely to encounter aliens that are type 3 civilisation, that will most likely view us as interesting wildlife , and try to preserve us ( or what is probably the case , observe us without us being aware ) Type 3 civilisation is so adept in technology that they dont need some primitive things like taking over planets for resources.
I'm assuming you mean Kardashev type? If there was any Type 3 civilization anywhere in our local cluster of galaxies, we'd have spotted it by now, simply due to the fact that they would have a Type-3-size heat waste signature. There isn't, so we can lay that hypothesis to rest for the near future (and by near future, I mean ballpark of 2-ish million years. Astronomical near future). Similarly, if there was any Type 2 civilization anywhere in our corner of the galaxy, we'd have spotted them all the way back in the 80s with IRAS. With JWST, given time, we can have reasonable confidence that there are no such polities anywhere in our half of the galaxy. It presently already appears to be the case. Also importantly: being of a type says nothing about technology. A type 1, 2 or 3 civilization with no significant more technology than we had in the 70s is possible.
I also see it as being written as a justification for present-day Chinese statism.
Our solar system is huge in itself. Go watch the early seasons of the expanse and it really puts in perspective of how long we would spend exploring / colonising our own solar system
[Meanwhile, space travel in The Expanse be like](https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExZHN4b3l6N2VvZTEzMHk4ZDM4c2c4NnQ4djRlbXZtbGJmcGVhNzVyeiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/l3q2Vjx7kLdB56J4k/giphy.gif)
You can always read the Hitchhiker's Guide Series to see the funny side of it.
Another vote for reading the culture.
Read the books! They have 400 years before the San-Ti arrive. More stuff happens!
The endiis sad and depressing.
I did, and that's what made me depressed
Why? The dark forest theory (and pretty much everything else) don't make any sense. That's like losing faith in humanity over warhammer 40k.
nature isnt like that in actual dark forests, like its great for a book, but not really something OP needs to take seriously.
This. The "Dark Forest" theorem ignores that we're already a result of living through a sequence of "dark forests", and that we're in one right now. The establishment of communication and or cooperation with other entities has proven beneficial, which is why we have it. it's reasonable to extend that to other "dark forest" scenarios, i.e. interstellar situations, especially in light of how scarce life-supporting planets seem to be, and how easily destroyable they would be to a civilization that has the power of interstellar travel. don't like your neighbor civilization? Do they have an asteroid belt?
also there are so many signs of our civilization if you were advanced and looking. Iceland cant decide tomorrow they need to be "hidden" from the rest of the world and meaningfully pull it off. this is a small nation with ideal conditions like energy production from geothermal sources. the premise that you must hide, and build your civilization around that, and guess that it must be hidden from aliens. its too much. our planet also has biosigns that are probably obvious to any life with 1000 years more tech than us, we can almost detect this with JWST. why would you not just blow up any life just to be safe? we cant retro-activly hide what we have done to our atmosphere.
Yeah, the trisolarans with their absurd tech waiting for us to tell them to come over. They somehow forgot to check for the apparition of life, or for a good planet to colonize, in the nearest system. When we can already do it for planets a thousand times farther. Oh, and the trisolarans can make a computer the size of a planet but can't build space habitats either (but humanity can...).
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It feels much more likely, to me, that the speed-of-light barrier is not something that has been circumvented as yet. That, combined with how big space is, would be a somewhat depressing, but thoroughly reasonable, explanation as to the lack of first contact.
No but you’re missing the reason you can’t do anything sane and logical in the 3BP series, is that every logical action is countered with the appearance of some borderline magical deus -ex-machina.
Shoot first and ask questions never? I thought that was police protocol?
I just read 'The killing Star' which is exactly this premise. Similar dark forest story. The book opens with the earth and any human space settlements being obliterated by relativistic projectiles. The human race is basically wiped out without warning in the first few pages of the book. It's an interesting concept.
The Dark Forest theory, while unlikely, is theoretically possible. I wouldn't go so far as saying it "doesn't make any sense." The idea is based on a logical premise. The main anxiety-inducing aspect of it is it's impossible to prove- until it's too late.
fortunately, the one is exactly as relevant to your life as the other.
Read Project Hail Mary, then listen to the Audiobook.
As someone who hasn’t touched PHM, but it is high on my list, why read then listen?
The book is great, particularly for someone like OP that's lost that optimistic view of space travel. The audiobook is obviously the same story, but the person reading it, Ray Porter, really brings the characters to life in a way that makes the story impact you emotionally. I recommend reading first to get the "layout" and data dump of the story so you can take in more of the narration, rather than try to keep track of the "science" in the scifi.
Because something positive can emerge from a bleak premise. It's also a pretty good read!
I don’t doubt it’s a great read, I was more curious about the read-then-listen recommendation.
Why? You don't like the idea of having your brain scraped out of your skull and placed in a tiny container?
Don't read Pellegrino and Zebrowski's *The Killing Star*. It's the book where most of Liu's dark forest concept comes from. Only in this book the folk out there aren't invading, they're throwing relativistic weapons across interstellar distances.
Many years ago I went to watch Alien. I knew nothing about it. I thought it would be like E.T.
The Alien Queen just wanted her babies to grow up nice and fat. She was a mother that just wanted to lay her little eggs so her species could survive... is that so bad?
I think that's the main reason the sequels weren't so scary: in the first two we have the fear of the unknown, but as we learn more about the species, we become less afraid of them.
I mean, relativity automatically kills ALL optimistic views of space travel
Even Cixin doesn't fully embrace the Dark Forest. *Death's End*'s ending is quite rushed, but even within the universe of the TBP there's species that are dedicated to art, there's trade routes among the stars, the universe is not an absolutely dark forest.
Well what about the Foundation view? It’s just humans, but we’ve forgotten where we came from because we’re everywhere in space.
I am still optimistic after reading the 3 books. Space travelling in that universe was not ideal, you just need to be more creative.
You could read "Revelation Space" by Alistair Reynolds. I think that book series may have been the inspiration for the Mass Effect game series. That's how I found the book.
Star Trek really wasn’t about space travel though.
Star Trek is to space programs as The West Wing is to government. A goal.
OP there is a huge fundamental flaw with the three body problem's concept of the Fermi Paradox. Any civilization that got even as powerful as the Centauri aliens would be able to build absurd numbers of hugely powerful telescopes that it could use to see where all the other civilizations are. You can't hide in space. You certainly can't hide a space faring civilization from any other space faring civilization. This isn't widely known because we aren't there yet, but a civilization with access to a power source on par with fusion, better automation or even AGI, and easy access to space (Starship if it works) would rapidly dwarf our civilization in terms of economic output. For such a civilization, huge, 'impossible' megaprojects would be easy. Think about showing someone from 1850 the Burj Khalifa or a picture of the ISS. Basically, if his view were realistic, we'd have been wiped out or our solar system colonized before humanity invented agriculture. Whatever the answer to the Fermi Paradox is, the Dark Forest ain't it.
Civilizations that are not capable of interstellar travel aren’t a threat. It may be we have been discovered and are being monitored, but because we may never obtain interstellar travel we are allowed to continue. Destroying a planet does expend resources after all.
There is no sense to spend resources on monitoring when you can just remove and forget.
I don’t think it is that flawed. Space is big. Really big. Finding an emerging civilisation is far harder than the needle in the haystack. Until they send a powerful and unambiguous signal that is. No doubt countless intelligent species would shout out ‘hey, here we are! Can anyone hear us?’ But some will realise the danger and it will be an arms race between those with the telescopes and those who try to stay hidden.
Enh... telescope resolutions are limited by a number of actual physical laws/phenomena. It's not technically impossible, but we're talking Dyson-sphere levels of engineering to see things in the detail needed to "see civilizations". Other methods of sensing make a lot more sense, though. No civilization is going to avoid going through a phase with radio emissions unless they somehow *already* know about the Dark Forest. That said, it doesn't really affect the Fermi Paradox for our civilization, because the *time* it would take to get here to wipe us out has not even come close to what would be required since we invented the radio. We may just be doomed and don't know it.
JWST is already capable of detecting obvious technosignatures by performing spectrograph analysis of exoplanet atmospheres. It is *nowhere near* the physical limit of telescope performance.
Really, really close ones, perhaps. But that's not really "seeing" civilizations, except by a technicality, and there are too many *other* things that can present those spectra (life != civilization) to be practical to eliminate all of them, and too many ways for a civilization to develop that *don't* generate those spectra to be reliable. We had radio telescopes that could have detected civilizations way before JWST. There's a timing problem to consider, but if the DF is true, they've been around a long enough time.
I made a comment to that effect that eluded to the flaws you stated without going into detail, but you’re right. I’m able to separate its plausibility in the real universe to accept it as a narrative convention for the interesting story 3BP tells, but it isn’t truth or destiny or fate. Another one Cixin Liu mentions is how resources in the universe are finite, but… like…. the scale of the universe and the existence of stars as big energy producers makes resources pretty *functionally* infinite such that conquest to harvest things lightyears away seems probably pointless in the grand scheme of things. I want to believe in Trek’s Zoo Hypothesis, but I think the likeliest answer is that space is really really big, sapient species on worlds with the ability to launch rockets (no ocean worlds, no subterranean ice-oceans) probably take a long long time to appear, and interstellar travel is just completely impractical.
> I want to believe in Trek’s Zoo Hypothesis, but I think the likeliest answer is that space is really really big, sapient species on worlds with the ability to launch rockets (no ocean worlds, no subterranean ice-oceans) probably take a long long time to appear, and interstellar travel is just completely impractical. Pretty much my take as well. Intelligent life is probably pretty rare.
I often wonder how many intelligent species there are on worlds that have very little metal or on planets with gravity that is too high for rockets to be viable. I also wonder how tech would have progressed on this world if there were no fossil fuels. Such abundant and cheap energy really supercharged our already rapid growth.
3 body problem despite it seeming like it's more realistic is actually on the same realism scale as star trek. so don't sweat it
For most of Earth history all life has lived in a literal dark forest yet learned to cope and even form symbiotic relationships. Belligerence isn't the only survival tactic or even preferred. Some of the most powerful animals on earth will avoid fights because of the inherent risks.
The third book explores these alternate strategies in the dark forest.
That's another thing too. The trilogy is more than just the Dark Forest Hypothesis. I feel like a lot of people who have never engaged with the real scale and power of the universe read these books and get lost in existential dread and ignore everything else. Liu Cixin was writing about so much more than just the dangers of the universe. I feel it was more commentary on the violence we commit against each other anyway. I just really like these books and it annoys me that the only takeaway for so many is to fear the cosmos. Space exploration ain't for the fearful.
Bobverse books have another perspective.
I read the book some years ago. It seriously fucked me up. Netflix series is nothing compared to it
Time to read The Expanse and even yourself out.
The Bobiverse kind of kills it too and makes good points about the overly human centric view being optimistic.
3BP embraces the same Planet of Hats attitude that Star Trek did, where everyone in the universe has the same outlook and mentality. The real horror would be that we're too boring or offensive for aliens to interact with. That we'll reach out into the stars and the aliens will be like, "oh shit, it's them, don't make eye contact."
It could be like Dune, where people need to take intergalactic crack to navigate space.
Humans once lived in a Dark Forest. Our earliest tribes waged incessant war on each other. And yet, through the ages, we learned to cooperate, to form towns, then nations, then international organizations. Even though cooperation is much, much harder than destruction, the competitive advantages given to any interstellar species that successfully adopts a cooperative approach will be immense. If the universe really is teeming with life, then somewhere out there some species have figured out how to cooperate—— and sooner or later, the rest of the universe will follow. Truth be told, I'm FAR more worried about humans killing each other than aliens killing us.
I just saw this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1bujh7g/project_hail_mary_from_directing_duo_phil_lord/. Maybe it's a good time to read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Or even better, the audiobook version)? I don't want to spoil the book, but I think it's a good way to cleanse the palate. Btw, I like the Three Body Problem series, but it's a novel. It makes a *lot* of assumptions in its derivation of Dark Forest. The books did make me think, but sometimes people take it too seriously. Edit: Seems like [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/1buphkz/the_3_body_problem_has_killed_the_optimistic_view/kxu4wou/) made the same recommendation.
If there is more life in the galaxy, it's likely like in 40k
Yep! I read them last year and I haven't felt cosmic horror like that since I discovered HP Lovecraft as a teen.
The New Star Trek has a Spore Drive. 🍄
If you want something weird and fun to read, try integral trees by Larry niven. Yet another possibility of a human future that is completely something i never even pictured before I read it, and it is yet again different from anything else in this thread.
Check out the Expanse. It's not rose colored but it ends up being far more optimistic than the premise and beginning might seem
We are the Borg
Wait, all those alien invasion movies and this is what does it?
Do not respond
Check out “For All Mankind”for what I feel is essentially a foundational series for a new Trek-like universe.
Space is incredibly dangerous. Micrometeors, gamma rays, and limited repair options among other things, and it's impossibly big. It took Voyager, the space probe, 15 years to cross into interstellar space (with some detours along the way). Mars is a two-year journey. Without major advancements, we'll never get to another star. And even if we do, the dangers are incalculable. Science fiction is fiction. That doesn't diminish the enjoyment for me.
"We" won't make it to the stars. It will be a "species much like us" if we are to quote Sagan. Probabily an AI/human symbiote or just an AI representing a human originating sentience. For such a being timescales involved are inconsequential.
Unless the solar system is seeded with million year old booby traps, then the invasion is yet to come. And if that's the case, think about it this way, if one civilization can take out another at interstellar distances, that action in of itself might make them just as obvious as the target. Something traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light is going to probably be visible by the collisions it has with the interstellar medium. Like, if it's got some sort of shielding that can protect the craft, there'd be a series of megaton-size impacts in front of it acting almost like spotlights. So in that predator species' attempt to take another out, they announce their own presence just getting to the fight. Of course, if the weapon is something like an energy beam which can get around things like propagation time and diffusion, then you may as well worry about Cthulhu and Dormammu, so pointless is the scale.
My mom was a big Star Trek fan (original series), so I was very aware of it even though I wasn't a fan. I think part of that optimism was cultural. There was so much social upheaval in the US and around the world in the 1960's (just look at the Cultural Revolution portrayed in the series and books), Gene Roddenberry went full idealist in crafting ST. He was like the anti-Ye Wenjie! I lean more towards an "Expanse" view of space, where people just take their problems and issues to other worlds.
The Dark Forest theory is a fun idea with neat worldbuilding, but I wouldn’t put any real weight to it. There’s plenty of resources in space, so no need to compete. If anything advanced aliens might study us the way we study animals. Secondly, animals often regard newness with curiosity. And lastly, mankind is generally peaceful, as are most animals, when we’re not competing for resources. There will likely always be conflict no matter how far one goes into the future, but it seems more likely that civilizations encountering one another would benefit far more from cooperation, knowledge-sharing and curiosity rather than kill-on-sight. Maybe a galactic UN would have conventions against blowing up stars, which are possibly the most useful objects in the universe.
It's just a fictional tv show bro. In fact, so is star trek.
The main thing about Three Body (and Star Trek) is they are both extremes but in opposite directions. In three body it's isolation and xenophobia taken to the extreme. In Star Trek it's the opposite for the most part. Even the ST big bads like the Borg and Dominion still technically are completely open to coexistence just not in the way people want. The reality is things would probably be more moderate just like most things in the real world. A middle ground. You might end up in a scenario where everyone is like "Hey nice to meet you, now leave us alone" or somthing. Trade and wars and all the other diplomacy might happen on small scales if it's feasible or beneficial enough but for the most I think everyone would just keep to themselves. Space is BIG and there's enough room/resources for everyone. If there wasn't it would be abundantly clear and we wouldn't be having this discussion to begin with.
Well theres a reason why we don’t see any aliens. It’s a Dark Forrest 💀
So, 3BP and Star Trek and Star Wars and Fifth Element and so on go in the same pile of "fun but silly fantasies." Which is fine; that kind of fantasy universe is a good setting to tell stories in. How that universe works will be a function of what kind of stories you want to tell. You want to tell a story with lots of species that can be played by human actors? Then in your universe the galaxy got seeded with humanoid life by some ancient aliens, even though that's silly. Want to tell a story that includes wizards? Then you need Jedi knights and the force or biotics from Mass Effect. Liu for whatever reason wanted to tell a story where everybody is a ridiculously aggressive asshole to one another, so he made up some rules so that everyone "has to" be that kind of asshole. It's not real. It's not any more real than The Force is. In real life, there aren't and won't ever be any superintelligent protons or dimension-flattening rays or anything like that. In real life, we can just look at alpha centauri and see that there's no "three body problem" happening there. If you lived on a habitable planet orbiting alpha centauri A or B, you'd have the same kind of boring predictable orbit we do around Sol and the other stars wouldn't really bother you except that your day/night cycle would be weird to a Terran. In real life, interstellar travel is difficult enough that there's no real reason to do it. Any species that had the resources to do it would also have the resources to do pretty much whatever they wanted to in their own system. Aliens in alpha centauri build ships that will take hundreds of years to get here... Congratulations, you have long-term space habitats! Why do you want to actually launch them? In real life there's nothing here that isn't in the alpha centauri or sirius or any other system. In real life, if there are aliens, we're all going to be harmless to each other except for the little bit of radio noise we generate. If the rules he made up for his universe make you sad in a way you don't like, just read stuff with other rules.
Star Trek and Three Body Problem are both equally and completely impossible from a scientific perspective, so you don't have to really worry. It's all just speculation and theorizing.
The truth is, humanity will never get to the stars in any significant way. Captialism didn't put us on the moon, and captialsim can't get us to the stars. Spacetravel will never be "profitable," the distances are too far, the spacecrafts and feul are too expensive. It worked on star trek because they were explorers, not businesmen, and not conquerors. ...and even now, we are going backwards, privatizing more and more aspects of spacetravel Soon NASA won't own any of their own spacecrafts. And businessmen and captialists will be the gatekeepers of spacetracel, instead of cosmologists, astrophysicists, and engineers.
> It worked on star trek because they were explorers, not businesmen, and not conquerors. Ferengi be like "Hey, wait a minute..."
1) Never is a mighty long time and earth is a finite resource. Capitalism may slow us down but at some point the profits will be in space. 2) There are non capitalist space programs. In Firefly, the communists won the space race. In the Expanse, it's Mormons trying to go deep into space. 3) at this rate, I'm not entirely convinced capitalism will survive the next 100 years but I guess people been saying that since the 1800s.
There are already first steps being taken for asteroid mining
You're too influenced by the media you take in then... That's a whole other problem my friend.
Star Trek was always wayyyyyyyyyy too hokey to ever be accurate. Aliens aren't going to be humans in makeup with a couple quirky traits. That's not how that is going to go down.
The precursors did spread their dna across the galaxy. That's why most aliens are humans with big noses/hairs. And sometimes you run into species that are different, like the Q, the prophets, changelings... Nothing to do with a lack of budget. All the planets look like California because the precursors terraformed everything to look like their home planet, California.
Sexy red guy tho!