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Most theories like this are starting from the place of trying to solve the Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

As time goes on, and we find no evidence of aliens, the dark forest model is more and more likely vs. the kindly lumberjack model. In the kindly lumberjack model, we're more likely to detect other civilizations.

The Fermi Paradox is not real if you consider the massive uncertainty we have on the parameters of the Drake equation:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404

The assumptions of the drake equation are not relevant. The idea that we are the only intelligent life in the visible universe begs for an explaination. That it seems like we could colonize the galaxy in 0.1% the age of the universe makes it even more odd.

What time periods are long enough to warrant significant changes to how likely we think it is that the Dark Forest Model corresponds to reality? I would have thought very long, given the scale of astronomical observations.

>> I would have thought very long, given the scale of astronomical observations.

Or not. The great thing about astronomical observations is that they can scan across millions of years in a few seconds. We look at thousands of other galaxies, some old and some ancient, but do not see massive extraterrestrial civilizations doing big things. That is pretty strong evidence that there aren't any lumberjacks chopping down stars for firewood.

The contention is more nuanced and forceful. It's not just that we can do a survey, and are doing them;

it's that our notions of what would be useful to look for are to significant extent conditioned on our own level of technology.

There are axioms, for sure; but we are also axiomatically limited in our imagination to that which we have had insight into with so far.

Our surveys to date have focused almost exclusively on the presumption that an advanced civilization would emit (intentionally or as a byproduct) RF in a manner we can detect in the bands it is convenient for us to examine, and focus on from reasonable first principles.

But there are as many arbitrary assumptions or allowances for our convenience or technology in our surveys as there are motivated ones. Arguably more. (I would so argue.)

Not long ago I read that fascinating blow by blow of the zero-day demonstration of using Apple device discovery exploits to own iPhones, so long as you could get close to them.

As interesting to me as the actual exploit mechanics, was the patient walk through of the state of the art of frequency hopping band-sharing error-and-conflict-tolerant protocols matter of factly surrounding in my in my house.

Were I a HAM operator patiently looking for CQ, I might well miss the massive Zoom party going on on the local Wifi. It would be "noise."

I am not making a specific argument, just saying: our own technology continues to advance so quickly at our own time scale,

that the presumption that the universe we can see is "dark" is IMO not just naive but willfully so.

There is much in basic physics we still are struggling with and/or have no plausible model for yet.

So long as that is the case, we don't even know if we're in a forest, let along a dark one.

>> exclusively on the presumption that an advanced civilization would emit (intentionally or as a byproduct) RF in a manner we can detect

No. That is radio SETI. The search for life also looks includes Dyson-SETI, the search for megastructures, or other technosignatures, which can have nothing to do with RF.

(1) A galaxy without any supernovas, with all the dangerous stars pushed out of the galactic disk -> the lumberjack scenario. (2) A planet with gasses associated with industry -> technosignature. (3) Unexplained planetary phenomena, starlight doing things that suggest large orbiting megastructures (Dyson sphere territory). ... and the list goes on. Radio telescope SETI is one very small corner in the search for other civilizations.

So, alone or they're hiding?

> We simply have no idea whether aliens are more like the predators of the dark forest or the lumberjack.

That is not entirely true, currently it is 1 to 0 for the dark forest theory, as we have at least one data point: Our selves (as to aliens, we are aliens), and you surely don't want to gain our attention.

Right?

Oh, look, a new continent! Let's kill nearly everyone on it.

Oh, look, a new planet! ...

Except that much of the world has culturally outgrown this kind of rape and pillage mindset. It's reasonable to assume that trend will continue as we enter the interstellar age.

Sorry but I think people from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, South America until some 20 years ago and so on... disagree with you... at least for the pillaging part.

For the rape part you have what the UN been doing in Africa or central america.

The bombing of innocents in those places, while tragic, is nowhere near the scale of the destruction of native populations that was happening a few centuries ago, and public outcry is also louder from the countries doing it. So the trend is in the right direction, wouldn't you agree?

Let's not forget the ethnic cleansing in China, similar cleansing of the Rohyinga in Burma, open slave markets in Libya, etc. etc.

Human nature hasn't hasn't changed, we just ran out of easy to settle real estate. And it's not cost effective to go after easily settled areas -- a couple of world wars showed how ugly that can get.

Once climate change starts changing things I'm sure we'll see yet more "colonization" and unpleasant behavior.

A counter-argument I've read to the dark forest theory is that:

* spectroscopic analysis can show that our atmosphere is oxygen-rich, and this can be detected from a range of many light-years away * oxygen-rich atmospheres probably indicate life * we've had an oxygen-rich atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years

So, yes, radio wave emissions have only been going on for 100 years, but we've looked like a life-bearing planet for 100s of millions of years and nobody's taken a successful extinction shot at us that we know of.

> nobody's taken a successful extinction shot at us that we know of.

Are you sure? Someone's been chucking bloody big rocks at us for millions of years, on and off. Some of which appear to have caused some pretty spectacular extinctions.

Maybe the issue is that we think the aliens fly around in saucers when, in fact, they are just playing a gigantic game of pinball.

The precision it would take to launch an unguided rock from one solar system to another and hit a particular target makes that seem unlikely. Just imagine how many different gravitational forces you’d have to account for over such a long period of time! Depending on how fast you can throw it, you probably have to account for gravitational masses that don’t yet exist or would change significantly before your rock got close. It would be truly impressive. But any civilization worth bombarding like that would also probably be able to protect against that threat model, right? It seems that detection and mitigation are at least theoretically within our grasp already (I’m going to cite the movie Armageddon here), and we pose absolutely zero threat to a civilization in a distant solar system.

> oxygen-rich atmospheres probably indicate life

Is it though? We only have one example of "life" and that is an oxygen based form. Supposing all forms of life are similar is something I consider unproven.

It might be more accurate to say an "unusual" planetary chemistry is indicative of an unusual process, which might include life. But then the question is: How many planets are there with unusual chemistry? I think we are far from observing this - the many planets we now suppose to exist are only just being discovered, starting with the largest, the hottest, and the nearest.

But both of those models start from the assumption that it is possible for an alien civilization to expand beyond its home star in the first place. But if you try to draw parallels to known knowns, one could convincingly argue that such an assumption is not a given. For example, humans are undoubtedly a technologically dominant species on Earth, yet our growth model is not to expand to every corner of the planet in an indiscriminate fashion: throughout history, humans tended to settle (and re-settle) the same areas that were most conducive to civilization, while remote areas remain for the most part remote.

It really isn't a stretch to posit that an alien form with liquid-methane-based chemistry (instead of water-based) would want to stay far far away from places like Earth, just like we wouldn't like to sunbathe in Mercury. And the boring but most likely occam's razor of alien civilizations is that it isn't actually physically possible for a civilization to leave their home star.

Given the long-term span of evolutionary biology, and the short-span of human civilisation, example based on humanity are short-sighted. Many would assume "post-human" existence that escape the trappings of biology, e.g. even now we have a non-biological presence on Mars, in the form of a robotic lander; perhaps in a couple 1000 more years humans can settle wherever we can build functioning machinery capable of supporting AI.

In these "post-singularity" times it's hard to speculate.

Robotics last far less than humans do though. Last year there were literal forest fires in CA because we can't figure out how to hang power cables without succumbing to corrosion from a measly 100 years span. If we want to make arguments about longevity, we could maybe look at microorganisms, but my understanding is they are similar to us in the sense that they thrive where it's conducive for any given strain to thrive, but die where it's not.

Everything needs maintenance in some form, whether organic or not. The only limitation for inorganics right now is an incapability of self-maintenance. We do it through many ways in our biology: nutrients from diet, exercise (on purpose or just day-to-day activities) for muscles & cardiovascular health. On top of that humanity added its own methods, namely everything done in healthcare & pharmaceuticals.

> because we can't figure out how to hang power cables without..

I think it's unfair to cherry-pick one task attempted by a cost-aware electricity company, that didn't involve the majority of humanity, and judge humanity on that basis. The nations best and brightest where not called upon to hang power cables.

I don't think I'm being particularly uncharitable. Look at the Opportunity Mars rover. It died after a record breaking... 15 years. And that is arguably one of the most sophisticated robotics projects humanity has ever deployed. The IIS has been around for only like a quarter of a century and despite being constantly maintained by highly trained astronauts, it already had air leak issues. And FWIW, power line maintenance is much closer to average humanity than NASA is, and also quite a fundamental piece of technology that you'd think we as a species would have figured out by now.

I just don't see a post-human future that is based on silicon: the manufacturing process is far too complex and poisonous to be viable as a self-replicating system and it doesn't last long either. I don't see a biological post-human civilization being feasible either: we've all but depleted all easily accessible natural resources, so any new civilization would have an uphill climb to surpass our technology.

People talk about Dyson spheres but for some reason no one mentions that space debris will puncture every material known to humankind because it's just flying so damn fast. Seems like a fairly obvious and fundamental physics issue IMHO; not exactly something that one can just wave away with theoretical future technology.

Maybe you know something I don't, but as far as I'm concerned, space colonization feels more like wishful thinking than something that could actually realistically happen.

I'm afraid I'm unable to judge how state-of-the-art Mars rover is, but I'll point out public-sector investment in space projects is much lower than it used to be, such that it was possible for SpaceX to eat its lunch - beyond that I have no idea.

> also quite a fundamental piece of technology

I don't think long-term cable maintenance is considered important; whether a technology exists, and whether it was provided (at cost) is different. In most cases the electricity companies where obligated to provide maintenance to small communities, without profit, so did it on a least effort basis.

> I just don't see a post-human future that is based on silicon: the manufacturing process is far too complex and poisonous to be viable as a self-replicating system

I didn't say anything about self-replication; but AI controlled hardware could be self-replicating/sustaining in exactly the way human society is. In the meanwhile, If a sufficiently flexible robot can be remotely controlled by human operators, what stops multiple robots maintaining each other?

Who knows, maybe sufficiently advanced civilizations eventually discover some orthogonal means of existence far superior and “real” compared to our current universe, and we’re just too stupid to see it.

Edit: Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure that’s close to the plot of a Neal Stephenson book I’ve read.