Another declassified study shows the Air Force misled the public in the 1950s about UFOs to conceal the CIA’s spy plane testing.
Exactly. Imagine developing space travel and then coming across a species that still largely thinks it can achieve anything by leaving all the great development projects to random individuals – 150 years after the discovery of dialectical and historical materialism. Not exactly a mark of distinction.
Then consider that if aliens manage to get here, the native species believes that they won’t have the technology or resources to find out a little about them before they make themselves visible. If aliens do arrive, they’ll know everything about us before they show their ‘faces’ and they’ll be stopping off at Beijing first.
Also imagine paranoid theories like “dark forest” are being peddled with no reason at all, but much reception.
And by a Chinese writer of all people.
I wouldn’t blame Cixin Liu. People forget that sci-fi is often about the present day and that his use of the dark forest in his novels is not necessarily and endorsement of the theory as a solution to the Fermi paradox.
I also feel like, in the series, the dark forest is a reasonable stand in for capitalism, especially considering the obvious references to colonialism and imperialism. The final book even suggests the universe will cease to be livable unless sacrifices are made in the interests of cooperation.
Dark Forest hypothesis is the most paranoid and pessimistic explanation of Fermi’s Paradox. It got huge traction worldwide after it was the topic of otherwise excellent book by Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin.
