Why I Don’t Buy The Dark Forest Hypothesis

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Many of you wanted me to talk about the Dark Forest Hypothesis - an idea popularised (bit not limited to) the the sci-fi novel and Netflix series, "The Three Body Problem" by Liu Cixin. So in this video I'll explain what dark forest says and why I don't buy it. (Note - this is *not* an analysis of Cixin’s story beats set in his fictional universe, but rather the concept of dark forest in our real one! Although, I will refer to the aliens as Trisolarans purely as a placeholder example civilization).

Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping.

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REFERENCES

► Project Nash 2020, ""

► Siraj & Loeb 2021, "The Copernican Principle Rules Out BLC1 as a Technological Radio Signal from the Alpha Centauri System"

► CarrollNellenback et al. 2012, "The Fermi Paradox and the Aurora EffectExocivilization Settlement, Expansion and Steady States", The Astronomical Journal, 158, 117

► Hart 1975, "Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth", Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 16, 128

MUSIC

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CHAPTERS

#DarkForest #ThreeBodyProblem #CoolWorlds