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With nuclear weapons we had MAD - and even if the other side didn’t retaliate, the planet would be ruined by a nuclear war so no one could win.

This is more dangerous. If weapons are absolutely but selectively destructive - I can wipe your planet out quickly before you have time to respond and my planet is just fine - it incentivizes me to attack first and hunt down other potential threats and destroy them before you or they destroy me.

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Yes but it also changes your choice of habitat lest someone do the same to you. Remember with clever aiming these weapons have limitless range so there is no such thing as a border conflict and someone could nuke all of your systems. My point is that this strongly discourages solar system based empires and favours mobile space based civilizations. My hunch is that our galaxy is filled with nomadic hard to detect habitats and that that is the natural progression. There’s probably only a brief period of time where technological civilizations remain bound to their original planet and solar system. That’s my answer to the Fermi paradox.

This is basically what I’m saying. With an alternative to unmovable planets, the Dark Forest scenario becomes a bit less likely because the betrayal scenario in the prisoner’s dilemma becomes a lot less extreme.

Why do you say "had"... MAD is still around. There might be less fear about it in the media, but the danger is still present. As defense technology matures, it might make nuclear war winnable for the side that controls a sufficient nuclear defense. Or it might not.

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