Aliens and FBI

[mistermack]

27 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Events that are completely unexplained and highly unusual should not be dismissed and ridiculed. They should be studied and investigated.

You've completely missed the point. We aren't talking about events. We are talking about reports. Nobody is ridiculing events, they are ridiculing claims, firstly because they are fantastical, and secondly becouse they come with either no evidence, or useless evidence. 

 

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Then you need to take another look, the ground effect appears to be directly under the object.

Nobody said it wasn't. I pointed to the similar 'ground effect' 100m down the road, which isn't accompanied by a saucer. That, and the fact that it just looks like dead weeds to me, indicates that the 'ground effect' is probably dead weeds surrounding a barrel. That's what it looks like to me.

[zapatos]

50 minutes ago, mistermack said:

You've completely missed the point. We aren't talking about events. We are talking about reports. Nobody is ridiculing events, they are ridiculing claims, firstly because they are fantastical, and secondly becouse they come with either no evidence, or useless evidence. 

 

There are reports about events. They go hand in hand.

But since you are only talking about someone filing a report without images, radar, or any other evidence to support their claim that an event took place, I'll agree those are not often very useful. However, ridicule of a report from a reliable source is again a rather unscientific (and possibly reckless/unprofessional/immature) response.

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

You've completely missed the point. We aren't talking about events. We are talking about reports. Nobody is ridiculing events, they are ridiculing claims, firstly because they are fantastical, and secondly becouse they come with either no evidence, or useless evidence. 

I would suggest you ignore claims that come with no evidence or useless evidence and concentrate on the dozens if not hundreds of reports that come with an embarrassment of evidence. Such claims are not uncommon, one that I often cite is the Washington DC Merry Go Round in 1952 This event was distorted and obfusticated by the Gov that it remains the most debunked and believed report of all time, IMHO. 

Two things that stood out was that the gov attempted to write it off as nothing but a weather inversion that fooled radar operators yet the objects were seen by multiple independent observers, both military and civilian, multiple independent radars, the objects interacted with both civilian and military aircraft and the idea of a weather inversion, which was the official explanation was trivially falsified. I have my doubts that a weather inversion creates anomalous lights in the sky as seen by many independent  ground observers much less the interaction between the objects and aircraft. 

Do I know what it was... no absolutely not, but I am quite sure the official explanation was pulled from someplace the sun doesn't shine. Not being able to say "I don't know" is one of the gov most profound flaws.

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

 

Nobody said it wasn't. I pointed to the similar 'ground effect' 100m down the road, which isn't accompanied by a saucer. That, and the fact that it just looks like dead weeds to me, indicates that the 'ground effect' is probably dead weeds surrounding a barrel. That's what it looks like to me.

I understand this but neither of us is qualified to really judge the accuracy of the photo. I have to give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who took the photos and not us armchair quarterbacks.  If am correctly identifying what you are talking about it's far to fuzzy to make any kind of judgement call as to what it was if anything.  

On 12/5/2022 at 4:38 AM, exchemist said:

But not Europe, for some reason.

But then, we have our crop circles, the Loch Ness Monster - et le Dahu, bien sûr. 😁

One of the pictures I gave a link to and is often touted as one of the best ever ufo photos was taken in Scotland, a great many sightings are from England, France, Norway, Germany, Russia, and other places around Europe

A little bit of UFO humor to break any hostility that has been building up... if any. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Moontanman

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I have my doubts that a weather inversion creates anomalous lights in the sky as seen by many independent  ground observers much less the interaction between the objects and aircraft....

Not that the DC sightings aren't anomalous, but inversion layers do distort ordinary celestial objects.  I think "people were fooled by optical aberrations" is always a pretty strong hypothesis.  (the meteor hypothesis, however, seemed weaker/

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Do I know what it was... no absolutely not, but I am quite sure the official explanation was pulled from someplace the sun doesn't shine.

It was pulled from Scotland?  Seriously, I recognize that people who are doing PR are not usually impartial and expert scientific analysts.  

It's worth noting that an astronomer at Harvard, Don Menzel, supported the inversion hypothesis.  I respect his opinion more.

And that fifties radar lacked digital filters and were prone to produce bogies from thermal inversion, birds, balloons, etc.  When digital filters came in, radar reports of UFOs plummeted.

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

A little bit of UFO humor to break any hostility that has been building up... if any. 

Haha!  One of my favorite Gary Larson drawings.  

I haven't followed UFO reports much in recent years, so am a little curious if data collection has improved on recent incidents.    

[Intoscience]

13 hours ago, zapatos said:

21 hours ago, Intoscience said:

If it exists then you would expect some form of non intrusive perhaps invisible observational tactics applied. 

I think we need to be careful not to make assumptions about how aliens would think and act. It may be just as likely that they'd hurl an asteroid at us to study how we'd respond to it

I agree, I was just following the theme with aliens following a similar path and traits as humans.

It will be interesting in the near future if/when A.I that we have created becomes sentient. Some may assume that A.I since it was created by us will have what ever agenda we program it to have. But this won't be guaranteed. 

[Markus Hanke]

18 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Motivations of aliens is... alien. we cannot require or even guess what the motivations of extraterrestrials might be or how they go about satisfying these motivations.  

On 12/6/2022 at 7:33 AM, Markus Hanke said:

That’s true, though it is not unreasonable to assume that at a minimum we share the basic motivation to ensure survival of our species. All known forms of life on Earth - irrespective of where and how they evolved - share this. Without such “motivation” (or more generally: biological mechanism), it is doubtful that any form of life would ever reach the stage of becoming a civilisation.

18 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I would be willing to contest this idea with you. 

I think such discussions serve no useful purpose, because we simply have no data available to us to base it on. It’s pretty much all conjecture. The only reason why I personally tend towards Dark Forest is that it is based on a minimal set of basic assumptions, along with the mathematical tools of game theory; it’s the most mathematical conclusion stemming from the smallest possible set of assumptions. I’m not saying that Dark Forest must be right; only that, among a vast array of guesswork and conjecture, it is presently the most scientific approach we have to this subject - though admittedly the outcome isn’t exactly pretty, and one might even say that it is somewhat scary. It would, however, resolve Fermi’s paradox quite neatly.

[Intoscience]

2 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

the outcome isn’t exactly pretty, and one might even say that it is somewhat scary. It would, however, resolve Fermi’s paradox quite neatly.

I think this is an interesting point and one which may influence a person's reasoning.

The optimistic view would be that an advance alien technology is/will visit us and become our friends/carers sharing their success's knowledge and technology.

On the other hand, they could be totally hostile not interested in or consider humans as no value and just take what they want or could just ignore us completely with no consideration for any potential consequence to us detrimental or other influence.

Walking down the street you tread on a few tiny bugs, does this raise your concern? Do you tread more carefully and avoid killing anything ever? Do you try and avoid and accept some loss? Do you carry on regardless with no concern to the bugs's  life or their value and continue about you business? Are the bugs in the way of what you want and therefore you eradicate them in pursuit of your intended goal?  

They/it could have completely unrecognisable motivations that we cannot even begin to relate to. 

As you say, its all conjecture and speculation based upon our own experiences and imagination. 

 

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

The optimistic view would be that an advance alien technology is/will visit us and become our friends/carers sharing their success's knowledge and technology.

 

Hm. To be honest, I think to a neutral and external observer, the current state of humanity mightn’t look so appealing. There’s a lot of greed, hatred, delusion and ignorance. A very large percentage of our current population still lives in abject poverty. At any given time, there’ll be something like half a dozen armed conflicts in progress in different parts of the world. There are at present on the order of 13000 nuclear warheads available for launch (~90% of which in just two countries). Nationalism, militarism and various forms of religious and cultural extremism are rife everywhere. Even in developed nations with good education systems, the average person’s knowledge of scientific, philosophical, ethical, sociological and teleological concepts is at best rudimentary. Of course, our species has also achieved many positive things in the sciences, humanities, arts, etc etc - but it would seem to me that these sadly are not representative of our overall state of affairs, at least not at this point in time.

Would I, as being an advanced civilisation, and based on what I am observing here on Earth right now, be inclined to share my knowledge and technology? I think probably not. A ultra-sharp kitchen knife is a really useful tool that enables you to cook a delicious meal - but you wouldn’t hand it to a toddler, would you?

[Moontanman]

16 hours ago, TheVat said:

Not that the DC sightings aren't anomalous, but inversion layers do distort ordinary celestial objects.  I think "people were fooled by optical aberrations" is always a pretty strong hypothesis.  (the meteor hypothesis, however, seemed weaker/

Yet pilots did report these objects, close up, and one pilot reported "they are all around me... what do I do?' 

16 hours ago, TheVat said:

It was pulled from Scotland?  Seriously, I recognize that people who are doing PR are not usually impartial and expert scientific analysts. 

This is true. 

16 hours ago, TheVat said:

It's worth noting that an astronomer at Harvard, Don Menzel, supported the inversion hypothesis.  I respect his opinion more.

I have no respect for Don Menzel, he was an arch debunker in the pay of the air force and always asserted there was no possibility of any sighting being anything but misidentification or hoaxes.  

16 hours ago, TheVat said:

And that fifties radar lacked digital filters and were prone to produce bogies from thermal inversion, birds, balloons, etc.  When digital filters came in, radar reports of UFOs plummeted.

Still the Radar operators were quite used to weather inversions and this doesn't explain the close up balls of fire that were reported by the the military. Read the reports closely in an neutral mindset. 

16 hours ago, TheVat said:

Haha!  One of my favorite Gary Larson drawings. 

I am fond of Gary Larson as well. 

16 hours ago, TheVat said:

 

I haven't followed UFO reports much in recent years, so am a little curious if data collection has improved on recent incidents.    

The Gov is currently in a big uproar over UFOs being seen from Navy ships and radar and gun camera footage has been released. An official investigation is currently underway. 

5 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

That’s true, though it is not unreasonable to assume that at a minimum we share the basic motivation to ensure survival of our species. All known forms of life on Earth - irrespective of where and how they evolved - share this. Without such “motivation” (or more generally: biological mechanism), it is doubtful that any form of life would ever reach the stage of becoming a civilisation.

I think such discussions serve no useful purpose, because we simply have no data available to us to base it on. It’s pretty much all conjecture. The only reason why I personally tend towards Dark Forest is that it is based on a minimal set of basic assumptions, along with the mathematical tools of game theory; it’s the most mathematical conclusion stemming from the smallest possible set of assumptions. I’m not saying that Dark Forest must be right; only that, among a vast array of guesswork and conjecture, it is presently the most scientific approach we have to this subject - though admittedly the outcome isn’t exactly pretty, and one might even say that it is somewhat scary. It would, however, resolve Fermi’s paradox quite neatly.

The dark forest assumes that aliens conquer each other but even with FTL the logistics of invading and taking over a planet is quite an undertaking. Personally I think it's highly likely that "aliens" ignore planets and colonize places like the Kuiper belt and or asteroids. The gravity wells of planets like Earth preclude any mining of resources when things like Asteroids or Kuiper Belt objects are much easier to obtain resources from. Then you have the potential problem of infectious organisms and rowdy natives. 

I have my doubts that aliens have any use for planets at all, preferring to build artificial habitats from the materials already in orbit of a sun and even between stars. Their interest in us would be academic, akin to us sending researchers to some far flung island to study a new culture. Then there is the Idea of alien missionaries... which is arguably the most disturbing. 

[TheVat]

22 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

have no respect for Don Menzel, he was an arch debunker in the pay of the air force and always asserted there was no possibility of any sighting being anything but misidentification or hoaxes.  

I don't see what can be determined about his bias solely from him being paid consulting fees (which is a common procedure when experts are brought in).   Someone who offered to do it for free could also have an agenda.  Arriving at conclusions like misidentification could result from the data that was available to him, and not necessarily personal bias.   I will have to, as you suggest...

28 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Read the reports closely in an neutral mindset. 

...before I would have any chance of discerning any special zeal on Menzel's part to debunk everything.  What would be the best primary source to view all the reports?

Re Dark Forest, I have doubts about that whole evaluation of probability, but maybe will address that in another thread (seems like we had one here in that topic, in the past year).  As you note, the conquering or wiping out of a planetary civilization would be an enormous undertaking.

 

[Markus Hanke]

15 hours ago, Moontanman said:

The dark forest assumes that aliens conquer each other

No. Dark Forest would suggest that in the first instance, civilisations remain silent. 

When you have a substantial number of intelligent races all confined into a galaxy where the total amount of available resources remains constant while civilisations continue to evolve and expand, 2-way communications are subject to the laws of relativity, and all these races are motivated by a basic desire to ensure survival of their own species, then you have what is a called a sequential and incomplete information game. You can now apply the tools of game theory to this scenario, and the result is that the most advantageous and rational course of action (relative to the basic motivation of survival) for each civilisation is to eliminate all known competitors as soon as they are discovered. Conversely, in order to avoid getting eliminated yourself by others, you remain silent and undetectable. So this isn’t about conquering others, but about annihilating them from the game - which can be done easily and effectively from a distance, once you know where they are. In fact, you would want to do this so long as they are still largely planet-bound. The resulting situation would be a galaxy that is potentially full of advanced races, but appears empty and devoid of intelligent life, since these races use their technologies to ensure that their presence remains undetectable by all others. Within such a state of affairs, a newcomer to the scene such as ourselves, who is unaware of the situation and is loudly advertising our presence through various acts of carelessness, will eventually find themselves getting annihilated. 

This is a pretty bleak scenario, and the question then remains whether such civilisations are subject to ethical considerations that are strong enough to override following the most rational course of action as described above. An interesting conundrum.

[Intoscience]

17 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Hm. To be honest, I think to a neutral and external observer, the current state of humanity mightn’t look so appealing. There’s a lot of greed, hatred, delusion and ignorance. A very large percentage of our current population still lives in abject poverty. At any given time, there’ll be something like half a dozen armed conflicts in progress in different parts of the world. There are at present on the order of 13000 nuclear warheads available for launch (~90% of which in just two countries). Nationalism, militarism and various forms of religious and cultural extremism are rife everywhere. Even in developed nations with good education systems, the average person’s knowledge of scientific, philosophical, ethical, sociological and teleological concepts is at best rudimentary. Of course, our species has also achieved many positive things in the sciences, humanities, arts, etc etc - but it would seem to me that these sadly are not representative of our overall state of affairs, at least not at this point in time.

Would I, as being an advanced civilisation, and based on what I am observing here on Earth right now, be inclined to share my knowledge and technology? I think probably not. A ultra-sharp kitchen knife is a really useful tool that enables you to cook a delicious meal - but you wouldn’t hand it to a toddler, would you?

Again, I don't disagree, this would make perfect sense from our own perspective and experiences.

The optimistic view is not the one I share but an example of how some people assume things might play out, often popularised by tv and films. Though most films take the totally opposite approach and tend to depict the alien attack scenario. 

[Markus Hanke]

44 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Though most films take the totally opposite approach and tend to depict the alien attack scenario. 

True. And personally I’m partial to the third option - that we simply aren’t going to see any alien civilisations any time soon. But we may well see more primitive forms of extraterrestrial life in the near future, perhaps even within our own solar system.

I’d also like to point out that, in a Dark Forest scenario, a civilisation acting in the most rational way within the confines of that mathematical game (ie eliminating other civilisations) does not imply malevolence on their part. They simply do what they need to in order to maximise their own evolutionary potential in what is a scenario with few other options, given the constraints imposed by the laws of physics. Even an otherwise benevolent and ethical civilisation may find it necessary to take such drastic steps. Also, just because we place a high ethical value on life (do we??) does not necessarily mean that others share this concept.

[Intoscience]

5 minutes ago, Markus Hanke said:

True. And personally I’m partial to the third option - that we simply aren’t going to see any alien civilisations any time soon. But we may well see more primitive forms of extraterrestrial life in the near future, perhaps even within our own solar system.

I’d also like to point out that, in a Dark Forest scenario, a civilisation acting in the most rational way within the confines of that mathematical game (ie eliminating other civilisations) does not imply malevolence on their part. They simply do what they need to in order to maximise their own evolutionary potential in what is a scenario with few other options, given the constraints imposed by the laws of physics. Even an otherwise benevolent and ethical civilisation may find it necessary to take such drastic steps. Also, just because we place a high ethical value on life (do we??) does not necessarily mean that others share this concept.

I'm most partial to the third option myself it makes logical sense and the odds seem much better.

Yeah interesting,

Though we may consider ourselves to place a high ethnic value on life in reality is this the case? (as you hinted to) We grow and harvest animals and other forms of life for food. We hunt and kill animals for sport. We eradicate entire eco systems to build cities and roads. We step on bugs, swat flies exterminate "pests". We have wars. The list goes on... 

[TheVat]

8 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

I’d also like to point out that, in a Dark Forest scenario, a civilisation acting in the most rational way within the confines of that mathematical game (ie eliminating other civilisations) does not imply malevolence on their part. They simply do what they need to in order to maximise their own evolutionary potential in what is a scenario with few other options, given the constraints imposed by the laws of physics. Even an otherwise benevolent and ethical civilisation may find it necessary to take such drastic steps. Also, just because we place a high ethical value on life (do we??) does not necessarily mean that others share this concept.

Interesting chat, which prompted a couple thoughts:

One, an ET race that coldly calculates and affirms a high value on annihilating an entire planet of sentient beings...strikes me as very likely to be the sort of race that bombs itself back to the Amish farm level of civilization well before they make it into interstellar space.  It's hard for me to see a fairly united planetary civilization evolving that would lack an ethical reluctance towards mass murder.   I would think such an amoral perspective would lead more towards a planet of small balkanized states too busy feuding to be able to allocate sufficient resources to starfaring.  

As for "malevolence," I guess this depends on how one defines that term.  Some might argue that a race that could justify such abhorrent acts as wiping out an entire sentient race, on a mathematical algorithm, would have a rather profound malevolence "baked in" to their character.  And again, it's hard to see this character being one suited for longterm survival of an advanced civilization.  My sense is that they would always be skating over very thin ice above a Hobbesian nightmare.  (this is one reason I found the Klingons a rather improbable spacefaring race in the Star Trek franchise)  

[Markus Hanke]

11 hours ago, TheVat said:

One, an ET race that coldly calculates and affirms a high value on annihilating an entire planet of sentient beings...strikes me as very likely to be the sort of race that bombs itself back to the Amish farm level of civilization well before they make it into interstellar space. 

Yes, that’s a good and valid point.

However, one must remember that we ourselves don’t hesitate to annihilate large groups of sentient individuals belonging to other species, if our own interests are threatened. Consider - just as a random example - spraying large swathes of agricultural land with insecticides, which is still common practice in many places. Such acts lead to the death of millions of insects, and we don’t bat an eyelid. Why? Because very many people do not consider insects to be worthy objects of moral concern, since we regard them as primitive, expendable, undeveloped, unintelligent, and a direct threat to our own interests. If they annoy or threaten us, we simply annihilate them. 

The crucial factor in the DF scenario is incompleteness of information. If two civilisations are, say, 10000LY apart (not unreasonable if there are only a handful per galaxy), and assuming the laws of relativity as we know them cannot be circumvented in some way, then there simply isn’t any workable method for these civilisations to talk to each other in any meaningful sense. As a consequence, neither one of them can truly know what the intentions of the other one are, and (more importantly) what their current level of development and technology capability is, since the latest available information about them will be 10000 years old. You cannot extrapolate how a civilisation might develop over such long periods of time, especially not based on limited data. So you are pretty much left completely in the dark - you have no way of knowing what they are up to, what their intentions are, and how they think about you. Of course you can assume that they are moral beings, but that’s a huge gamble to take, and if you’re wrong then that’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.

So that’s the basic conundrum - the speed of light is very slow when taken to even just galactic scales.

[Intoscience]

3 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Yes, that’s a good and valid point.

However, one must remember that we ourselves don’t hesitate to annihilate large groups of sentient individuals belonging to other species, if our own interests are threatened. Consider - just as a random example - spraying large swathes of agricultural land with insecticides, which is still common practice in many places. Such acts lead to the death of millions of insects, and we don’t bat an eyelid. Why? Because very many people do not consider insects to be worthy objects of moral concern, since we regard them as primitive, expendable, undeveloped, unintelligent, and a direct threat to our own interests. If they annoy or threaten us, we simply annihilate them. 

The crucial factor in the DF scenario is incompleteness of information. If two civilisations are, say, 10000LY apart (not unreasonable if there are only a handful per galaxy), and assuming the laws of relativity as we know them cannot be circumvented in some way, then there simply isn’t any workable method for these civilisations to talk to each other in any meaningful sense. As a consequence, neither one of them can truly know what the intentions of the other one are, and (more importantly) what their current level of development and technology capability is, since the latest available information about them will be 10000 years old. You cannot extrapolate how a civilisation might develop over such long periods of time, especially not based on limited data. So you are pretty much left completely in the dark - you have no way of knowing what they are up to, what their intentions are, and how they think about you. Of course you can assume that they are moral beings, but that’s a huge gamble to take, and if you’re wrong then that’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.

So that’s the basic conundrum - the speed of light is very slow when taken to even just galactic scales.

All good points and ones we should consider. I guess this is the scary scenario to face, an alien/species that considers us as "pests" - primitive, expendable, undeveloped, unintelligent, and a direct threat to their/its own interests. 

Our own A.I if is developed to self evolve may share a similar view. 

Lets hope that there is a universal evolutionary standard directly linked to intelligence that, for all our sakes, as intelligence evolves so does ethnic value of all things, especially other life. 

[dimreepr]

5 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Lets hope that there is a universal evolutionary standard directly linked to intelligence that, for all our sakes, as intelligence evolves so does ethnic value of all things, especially other life. 

There is, unfortunately it's culturally dependent; that's why we couldn't understand a lion, even if it spoke english correctly...

[zapatos]

9 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Yes, that’s a good and valid point.

However, one must remember that we ourselves don’t hesitate to annihilate large groups of sentient individuals belonging to other species, if our own interests are threatened. Consider - just as a random example - spraying large swathes of agricultural land with insecticides, which is still common practice in many places. Such acts lead to the death of millions of insects, and we don’t bat an eyelid. Why? Because very many people do not consider insects to be worthy objects of moral concern, since we regard them as primitive, expendable, undeveloped, unintelligent, and a direct threat to our own interests. If they annoy or threaten us, we simply annihilate them. 

The crucial factor in the DF scenario is incompleteness of information. If two civilisations are, say, 10000LY apart (not unreasonable if there are only a handful per galaxy), and assuming the laws of relativity as we know them cannot be circumvented in some way, then there simply isn’t any workable method for these civilisations to talk to each other in any meaningful sense. As a consequence, neither one of them can truly know what the intentions of the other one are, and (more importantly) what their current level of development and technology capability is, since the latest available information about them will be 10000 years old. You cannot extrapolate how a civilisation might develop over such long periods of time, especially not based on limited data. So you are pretty much left completely in the dark - you have no way of knowing what they are up to, what their intentions are, and how they think about you. Of course you can assume that they are moral beings, but that’s a huge gamble to take, and if you’re wrong then that’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.

So that’s the basic conundrum - the speed of light is very slow when taken to even just galactic scales.

Attacking them might also be a huge gamble. Your current knowledge of them is 10,000 years old. The fastest you can hope to attack them will take at least 10,000 years. As you are assuming they are a threat to "your" resources they have presumably spread beyond their star system. If you don't manage to annihilate enough of them on the first shot, the second shot may be directed at you.

[Markus Hanke]

14 hours ago, zapatos said:

If you don't manage to annihilate enough of them on the first shot, the second shot may be directed at you.

Yes, absolutely. That is why you need to remain invisible, undetectable, and silent yourself, so all anybody ever sees is at most shadows moving in the dark. If done right, your opponents won’t know where to direct that second shot at. It’s called ‘Dark Forest’ for precisely this reason - it’s a game of wiping out all potential threats, ideally before they even become aware of your own existence, in order to ensure your own survival. Like being lost in a deep dark forest, surrounded by silent and unseen predators.

In this scenario, the resolution to the question of whether or not aliens exist might one day appear in the form of a small but massive projectile coming at us at high-relativistic speeds, and we’ll never even know who took the shot or where it came from.

It’s pretty terrifying, and I sincerely hope this is not how things actually are out there. But unfortunately it is a rational scenario backed by game theory and fully compatible with the Fermi paradox, so one cannot simply dismiss it.

[zapatos]

By firing the first shot you've compromised the advantage of the cover you are afforded by Dark Forest. If a military patrol suddenly loses a man to a sniper, they may not know where the sniper is but now they know he is out there and intends to do them harm. Suddenly the hunter becomes the hunted.

As you can never know the intent, complete location or capability of your potential opponent, or your own ability to eliminate with a first strike his potential threat to you, it may be best to just stay hidden until you know with relative certainty that you yourself are at risk.

[Moontanman]

9 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Yes, absolutely. That is why you need to remain invisible, undetectable, and silent yourself, so all anybody ever sees is at most shadows moving in the dark. If done right, your opponents won’t know where to direct that second shot at. It’s called ‘Dark Forest’ for precisely this reason - it’s a game of wiping out all potential threats, ideally before they even become aware of your own existence, in order to ensure your own survival. Like being lost in a deep dark forest, surrounded by silent and unseen predators.

In this scenario, the resolution to the question of whether or not aliens exist might one day appear in the form of a small but massive projectile coming at us at high-relativistic speeds, and we’ll never even know who took the shot or where it came from.

It’s pretty terrifying, and I sincerely hope this is not how things actually are out there. But unfortunately it is a rational scenario backed by game theory and fully compatible with the Fermi paradox, so one cannot simply dismiss it.

Wouldn't FTL be necessary for the dark forest hypothesis to be valad?  

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Wouldn't FTL be necessary for the dark forest hypothesis to be valad?  

Why do you think it would be?

[Moontanman]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

Why do you think it would be?

Without FTL the idea of invading another planet becomes a many thousands of years effort. Even the fastest STL speeds practical it would be many decades between the Earth and it's nearest neighbors. Seems a herculean effort to stop someone who has the same problems travel to you to cause you any harm. 
I honestly do not see the logic in it. It would be far easier to maintain a defense than to attack across light years. 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Without FTL the idea of invading another planet becomes a many thousands of years effort. Even the fastest STL speeds practical it would be many decades between the Earth and it's nearest neighbors. Seems a herculean effort to stop someone who has the same problems travel to you to cause you any harm. 
I honestly do not see the logic in it. It would be far easier to maintain a defense than to attack across light years. 

That’s just an argument against alien invasion, not against the strategy of keeping silent. Also the solar systems don’t have to be 10,000 LY apart. 

The issue of sending an invasion fleet with technology that may be obsolete by the time it arrives at its destination probably has a much shorter horizon.