I have recently been listening to the "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" sci-fi series. It is about a Von Neumann probe [1] that aids humanity in expanding past Earth. I find a lot of it is thought provoking.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft
So... an expansionist/colonialist agenda for earth-originating life
"oh also hopefully this doesn't lead to conflict"
_I wonder._
There is definitely possibility for conflict when we encounter other life, be it inteligent or not. But what is wrong with expanding earth-life to planets devoid of life that we terraform?
Even that analogy understates things because as far as we know, the rest of the known universe is lifeless rock. Personally I'll admit to being a chauvinist who favors life over non-life. If we find native life somewhere else, I'm all for leaving it alone, but until then, bringing life to a lifeless universe seems like possibly the most meaningful thing we can do as a civilization.
I'm all for being cautious if there's something significant out there, but so far we haven't even found anything insignificant.
Assuming the dark forest model is valid, as soon as we prove ourselves capable of expansion, we basically seal our doom. Being on one planet is actually safer in the long run.
A large number of free-floating fusion-powered colonies, gradually expanding through the Oort cloud and then to other star systems, would be quite a bit more difficult to destroy.
Any attacker would also have to consider the possibility of retaliation if they don't get us all. If a civilization detects us from a distance of 100 light years, then their information will already be a century out of date, and by the time they hit us we'll have had two hundred years of technological advancement and further expansion.
Given the time lag, the best time to attack a technological civilization is while it's planet-bound. Given how long we've had radio, there could be a relativistic missile heading our way already.
It doesn't. It assumes that the likelihood of the dark forest killing us increases with the size of the target we present. That likelihood is never zero. It's probably at least 50/50.
>A large number of free-floating fusion-powered colonies, gradually expanding through the Oort cloud and then to other star systems, would be quite a bit more difficult to destroy.
Unless we're assuming some kind of magitech, it would probably take thousands of years or longer to establish more than a few colonies (particularly interstellar colonies) and because there's no stealth in space, it would be obvious to anyone watching. Difficult to destroy is relative to time, resources and effort.
>If a civilization detects us from a distance of 100 light years, then we'll have two hundred years of technological advancement and further expansion by the time they hit us.
I'm assuming any civilization capable of successfully attacking us from that distance is sufficiently advanced that 200 years of relative technological development isn't going to matter. And if it does, why would that stop them? If they've already committed to exterminating any advanced species they detect, the risk of retaliation is implied. It's us or them either way.
If there's "no stealth in space" then a dark forest is impossible anyway. If a dark forest is possible, then it's possible for humans to go dark as well.
Generally, how much stealth is possible depends on how far away the adversary is. Usually people are talking about interplanetary distances when they say that, rather than interstellar.
See the "Prologue: The Searcher" linked from there to get an idea why :)
… well, that would be a first.
In the history of human migration, there have always been some who have decided to stay behind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#/media/...