>The Dark Forest is my favorite science fiction book

Mine too and Hyperion andandand :)

People who had this thought have also liked "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" by Liu Cixin :) (These are part 2 and 3 in the "Three Body Problem" series.)

I also really enjoyed the books, but definitely more from a "these are cool ideas" perspective than from great narrative storytelling. Something was probably lost in translation, but the ideas were really great. I especially like (and hate) the concept of the Dark Forest.

This is off topic, but I am almost done with the book The Dark Forest, and the concept kind of terrifies me regarding extraterrestrial life.

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Just finished it; great read.

I don't think it's a prequel - he just wrote it before TBP. There is one character in common with The Dark Forest, but only to the extent that this character is regarded as a great physicist in both books and makes some discoveries.

The trilogy is actually named "Remembrance of Earth's Past". That name is apt enough, though a bit bland. The Dark Forest is a pretty good concept though, and much more important to the story than the three body problem.

I just started Death's End! Great books so far, though The Dark Forest felt very slow compared to The Three-body Problem.

The Three-Body Problem series by Chixin Liu

* The Three-Body Problem
* The Dark Forest
* Death's End

Expanded my perception of life, death, love, time and our potential purpose, via some very well written fiction (space opera style). Chixin Liu nailed it!

Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest has the alien enemy ship solve the traveling salesman problem for a moderate n in real time as a way of demonstrating the aliens' superior level of science. That must upset the original poster almost as much...

Would you consider the characters of The Three Body Problem to be all that interesting? Yet it's widely considered to be a great novel. Not sure whether The Dark Forest or the third book do a better job with characters, but the plot and the ideas make the story.

A great summary of the Dark Forest theory without giving away too much of the plot. This trilogy is one of the best books/stories I've ever read.

> The Dark Forest

This is a tangent, but have you found any other books you can recommend for someone having a hard time finding sci fi books they like while absolute adoring The Three-body Problem trilogy / Remembrance of Earth's Past?

Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest explores this idea, mostly to point out that there is no acceptable method to choose who gets evacuated and who stays behind. The author argues through his characters that any attempt at evacuation would create immediate and violent conflict between humans.

Is it any good? I just love the Dark Forest to death, but I dind't care for the 1st and 3rd books.

If this is interesting to you, read The Dark Forest: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168817-the-dark-forest...

After reading The Dark Forest, my bet is that an advanced society would never advertise themselves in such an obvious fashion.

Second book, aptly called “The Dark Forest”

I think it was in Cixin Liu's 'The Dark Forest' where there's a giant telescope at the edge of the solar system with twelve independently floating lenses focused and corrected by tiny thrusters...

It reminds me of the The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin (2nd book of the Three Body Problem trilogy) where one of the wallfacers came up with a chip to overcome defeatism in the troops (the Mental Seal).

Scary but fascinating how fast future approaches.

Remembrance of earth's past trilogy. There are three books in the series: 1) The Three Body Problem, 2) The Dark Forest, and 3) Death's end. It talks about the ongoing tension between humanity and the alien race. It explores many facets of human nature and humanity. Must read.

Whenever I hear about putting beacons in space I'm always reminded of the plot of the book The Dark Forest. I remember too about a decade ago that it was decided the idea of broadcasting our location in deep space might be a bad idea.

Something I noticed about the Dark Forest, in some editions it has a different translator from the other books.

It is not a bad translation but it definitely reads less fluidly than the other books.

Sounds like something straight out of Cixin Liu's "The Dark Forest"

The Dark Forest is the sequel to the Three Body Problem which is part of the trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Path

After reading The Dark Forest last year I almost hope this is true.

It caught my eye that you said 'book' rather than 'books'. You might not be aware Three Body is part of a trilogy? If you've not read The Dark Forest and Death's End, you are in for a real treat.

I hope you have read the sequels. The Dark Forest is I believe the most mind-expanding of them and Deaths End goes pretty wild but is still very interesting.

I had the luxury of finding out about the problematic CCP leanings after finishing them all. But can’t bring myself to pick up anything other by him.

Possibly cultural but the Dark Forest (second book) is definitely worth the read whatever your experience with the first book. It is quite remarkable the breadth of the ideas that were explored.

Also of the flag-raising army computer in 'The Dark Forest' by 'Liu Cixin'.

> This particular proposed resolution to Fermi’s Paradox question is a very recent addition. It takes its name from the novel The Dark Forest

The same idea was in Gregory Benford's novel In the Ocean of Night in the 1970s.

The sci-fi book The Dark Forest (sequel to the Three Body Problem) discusses this problem. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I found a lot to agree with in the book.

The Dark Forest is book 2 of Three Body Trilogy

Tools for Conviviality - Ivan Illich; The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin

Well, that is rather the idea in The Killing Star. Also The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin.

Hasn’t anyone read The Dark Forest?

This read very similar to the "Three-body problem" trilogy, specifically the second book "The Dark Forest"

The Three-Body Problem and especially its follow up, The Dark Forest, explore this a bit. Great books to anyone interested in this kind of topic.

TLDR is that technology ramps to effectively infinite levels far faster than anyone can reach the nearest star. The only safe option, strategically, is to kill off any intelligent life you are capable of killing, lest the balance go the other way before you know it. And knowing that, no intelligent species should let itself be found.

Even if you accept the premise, a counter-argument could be that the only way to truly "win" the race would be to be the first one out the gate and ramp your resources to infinity. If a strategy requires an unknown condition to be true to win, you have to assume it's true as all other outcomes are a loss.

I've also heard it argued that any species that makes it that far will need to have overcome its violent impulses.

It's a lot of speculation, but interesting stuff.

I don't think the analogy quite works anyway, but I think the "civilizations must be rivals" aspect is what was being referred to, not the "dark" part.

The Dark Forest is the second book btw.

“What we are facing now is a person whose crime dwarfs all of the crimes ever committed in human history. We were unable to find a single law applicable to his crime. So we recommend that the crime of Extinction of Life on Earth be added to international law ...”

— Cixin Liu, The Dark Forest

Yeah, that is one way of putting it.

Liu escalates the arms race between races in the last third of the book so far that i was genuinely shocked and mildly unnerved at the implications of it. The trilogy really should have been called "The Dark Forest" because that is precisely what is described therein.

Did you read The Dark Forest in Chinese? What about The Three Body Problem?

I read the latter in English. I wonder how much of the sometimes tediously long exposition and ham-handed language was due to translation.

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Red Rising and sequels by Pierce Brown

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

(I read Three Body Problem + sequels in 2016. The first book I thought was ok. I really liked the second book - The Dark Forest - the Dark Forest theory of the universe I thought was quite interesting)

If you like Neal Stephenson, you'll like Cixin Liu (especially when translated by Ken Liu), but you'll have to give Liu a fresh chance and let his work be its own thing. I love NS's work, and I've really enjoyed Cixin Liu's trilogy.

Three Body Problem is very thrilling to read; fast paced with a lot of cliff hangers, and excellent world building. The sci-fi/speculative bits are extrodinary, and although the characters can sometimes feel like their only role is to give a 'first person perspective' of the science, Liu can surprise you with the emotional depth that his characters exude.

The Dark Forest is in my opinion harder to get through than Three Body Problem, but the payoff is extraordinary. The pacing is slower with more world-building, and the perspective bounces around between a lot of characters without much forward movement. I had to put it down for a while and read some other books before I built up the motivation to finish it (it helped that I already bought the next book, so I felt guilty not finishing).

Deaths End, the third book, is unbelievably amazing. The pacing is more similar to Three Body Problem, and the science is astounding. All of the patience necessary for Dark Forest pays off because Liu is able to bring his world-elements into a mesmerizing display of action and conflict. I'm only half-way through and I've lost count of the number of times I've had to take pause and simply exclaim "Wow!".

If you're interested in more of the (fictional) uses and problems presented by this technology, you might enjoy reading Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest, which makes some use of hibernation in its plot. It is the sequel to The Three Body Problem, a hard sci-fi book that would probably be enjoyed by a lot of HNers.

The sequels are where it really takes off. The Dark Forest is far more terrifying - one of the darkest SF books I've read.

I think cultural differences play into the read a lot, too. It's an intensely Chinese novel, and I'm pretty sure a lot of Americans find his perspectives on history jarring, and want something more "entertaining" and personal.

Mmm. It has been some time since I read Three-Body Problem and I bounced off The Dark Forest. This also means it's possible my impressions are either erroneous because I forgot something important or it's explained/ ret-conned in the subsequent books.

In Three-Body Problem as I recall there's some pretty hand-waving stuff about sophons in particular. They're basically a MacGuffin which is used to explain whatever is necessary to the plot so as to have the Trisolarans able to interfere in Earth's affairs essentially at whim yet not obviate the invasion itself. So that's not very Hard SF.

Here are a couple I like :

- Seveneves: A really great hard sci-fi. Very thought provoking ideas and excellent plot! Warning this is a heavy themed book. Also keep in mind that at about 3/4 in the novel there's a conclusion to the main story; the rest of the novel feels rushed and doesnt keep up; you won't miss anything if you just skip it.

- The Expanse series (starting with Leviathan wakes). A very good series. It has a light tone and mainly focuses on characters. Some books are better than the others. If you liked the 1st one then you wont regret reading the others. Not much philosofy of hard sci-fi ideas so probably near to your liking.

- Rendezvous with Rama: Probably my favorite Arthur Clarke novel. The plot may not be so interesting but the ideas presented make up for it.

- Red rising series: This is a great read, the plot feels something like a GoT of scifi; although the setting could also be considered a fantasy one. This is a plot intensive series but not many scifi philosophical ideas. Probably good for your linking.

- The three body problem trilogy: This is not so light-hearted; it is serious sci-fi presenting some excellent ideas that would blow your mind. Especially after I read the 2nd one (The Dark Forest) I kept it in my mind for a long time; thinking over the things presented there. This is sci-fi at its best.

Curious if the name DarkForest is based on the Three Body Problem sequel, The Dark Forest, and/or does the dark forest theory outlined in the book somehow relate to any aspect of their learning/decision algorithm?

I would outline the theory here, but it's kind of a book spoiler. So be wary if you have interest in reading it eventually and want to know what I'm referring to now.

"The Three Body Problem" is a nice book, but far from great. However, the 2nd instalment, "The Dark Forest" is going to blow your mind. It's the best sci-fi book ever written in Chinese, and IMHO the best since Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. I have long doubted if any Chinese could write a great Sci-fi. It's such a pleasure proven to be wrong!

A counter to that might be that these signals aren't strong enough to accurately detect our exact location at interstellar distances. Parallax is hard at those distances - if we were to get a signal from a point in the sky, whats to say its coming from one star, or another one "behind" it? Not possible to determine from the signal strength alone, since you don't know the signal's original strength.

In Carl Sagan's Contact, we were only able to determine the signal came from the star Vega because it was the only star that would have been at the right distance to receive our earliest radio signal and transmit it back to us - also Vega is relatively close by compared to other stars, close enough that our parallax created by our orbit around Sol was sufficient to get a read on signal source.

A deliberate attempt at active signaling would remove all doubt for an extrasolar observer.

Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest explores this scenario in depth. I would explain more but don't want to reveal some important spoilers.

I realize the topic says "book" not "books" but I've got two:

"Hard-Core: Life of My Own" by Harley Flanagan

I've been a huge fan of the Cro-Mags for a long long time. I've had the extreme pleasure of seeing them about eight times now. But never with Harley. And until I read this book I never really knew why he wasn't there. I mean, you hear people talk, but they weren't there, they don't know what went down. This book is an absolute must read for anyone who has even a passing interest in punk. It's a look into the life of one of the most colorful and talented musicians the genre has produced. It's written in a very casual conversational style and consists mostly of string of anecdotes told from Harley's point of view as he's remembering his life from his toddler years up until early 2016. Even if New York Hardcore isn't really your thing I still highly recommend it. He manages to capture in a very raw and visceral way the NYHC era he is largely responsible for ushering in. And if you've never heard "The Age of Quarrel" pause whatever you're listening to now and go find it on YouTube or something.

"The Dark Forest" by Cixin Liu

I would include the first book in this series, "The Three-Body Problem", but I read that in December of 2015. All I want to say about this series of books is that you should go into them without knowing anything. Don't read a plot synopsis. Don't even read the little blurb on Amazon product page. Someone recommended I go into it blind, only telling me "It's good.", and I'm so glad I did just that. The moment you find out what the title is referring to gave me goosebumps.

> On a side note, I like how The Expanse sidesteps the scientific issues of interstellar travel with alien magic.

I thought the "alien magic" behind the gates technology was the same old K. Thorne wormholes.

> On yet another note, I read an unsettling sci-fi/theory about how the expansion of space is perhaps being caused by whatever tech allows interstellar travel in lightspeed-like time. So whatever intelligent species that evolved first may have a monopoly on such tech, while inadvertently altering the fabric of physics to make interstellar travel gradually impossible for any younger species.

Do you have a link to read more about that? Reminds me of the FTL technology in the books "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" by Liu Cixin.

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics.

Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

The books I always fall back on giving as a gift:

Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds.

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds.

Remembrance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu
It is hard to explain how deep my love for this series is. My all time favorite science fiction but what it is is just page after page of ideas that get more and more fantastical. Can't recommend this enough

The Three Body Problem (PartI)
The Dark Forest (Part II)
Death's End (Part III)

Necessarily an incomplete list, because I haven't kept close track. 2016 was busy and much of what I read was programming language related, which I will exclude here.

In no particular order...

Cixin Liu -- The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest. Good read, as you'll see on everyone else's list.

Neal Stephenson -- Seveneves. Really good but arguably his weakest in some time; I wish the first three-quarters of the book were shorter and the final quarter a book in and of itself.

Cal Newport -- So Good They Can't Ignore You. I found this longer than necessary but an excellent kick in the pants.

Marcus Aurelius -- Meditations. Feels like a good "life reference" rather than a straight-through read.

Roald Dahl -- Boy, Going Solo. These were fun when I first went through them years ago, and they still _are_ fun, but the lens through which I view live has become one increasingly allergic to entitlement, and boy, if you want entitlement, look to the Brits at the end of the imperialist era.

Ed Catmull -- Creativity, Inc. Read this for work. Enjoyable but ehh.

Peter Tompkins -- The Secret Life of Plants (unfinished). I tried but couldn't get past the rampant bad science.

Steve Martin -- Born Standing Up. This was a fun profile of a comic that I appreciate; if you're already a fan it's worthwhile, otherwise skip it.

Derek Sivers -- Anything You Want. You can blow through this in a day and you should.

Worth highlighting, my most influential read this year:

Tara Brach -- Radical Acceptance. I loved this. No: I _needed_ this. Rather than the many philosophy-influenced books you'll find in this thread that are really business books with new buzzwords, this is just about loving yourself and building on that to live life fully. This will not (at least directly) help you build a startup. This will (directly) help you build important relationships.

The title reminded me of the sci-fi novel The Dark Forest, where potential alien invaders could read all human communication accept of human mind. The UN selects four men to be "Wallfacers". Each one of them is supposed to devise a defence strategy known only to himself and they are granted access to UN resources to carry out the plans.

I really enjoyed The Three-Body Problem/The Dark Forest/Death's End and highly recommend them because of their unusual ideas.

It was also refreshing to read a book coming from totally different cultural mindset that goes after familiar sci-fi goals.

We all have biases and failures in our perspective, and it was interesting read a novel where the authors biases were so different from my own. Liu seemed bipolar in his treatment of women for example. Half the women presented felt vibrant (Ye Wenjie for example) while others, such as Luo Ji's perfect wife were fanfiction quality.

Overall, the ideas presented in The Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest are thought-provoking enough to recommend these books. Death's End on the other hand, was mediocre but worth a read just to finish the series.

Return of a King (William Dalrymple 2013) - A book about the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th century. To paraphrase Mark Twain: History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes

Being Mortal (Atul Gawande, 2014) - Powerful book about old age and confronting the mortality of our loved ones

The Dark Forest (Cixin Liu, 2014) - Wonderful science fiction from China

The Peripheral (William Gibson, 2015) - Bleak, near future science fiction.

The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi, 2015) - More bleak, near future science fiction.

You should read The Three Body Problem series. In the second book, The Dark Forest, it has an extremely plausible answer to the Fermi Paradox: Basically every intelligent civilization is hiding, because Game Theory states if you find aliens, you have to kill them. ( No way of knowing if they are friendly or not, when survival of species is at stake, the smartest move is to kill them immediately just to be safe)

Not op, but I'm a big fan of both authors. I enjoy Vinge more, but I wouldn't say his science is any more plausible than Liu Cixin's (with the exception of "A Deepness in the Sky"). I actually enjoyed "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" more than the Three Body Problem. All three books have some fun, novel ideas. While the plot arc is not very traditional, it is complex and interesting -- lots of characters with vastly different motivations interacting in interesting ways. The main plot driver over all three books (that the universe is a dark forest) is highly plausible.

What a timely coincidence. I just finished reading Cixin Lui's "The Dark Forest" (it and the first book in the series "The Three-Body Problem" I cannot recommend enough). I think the central premise of the book is probably the worst of the possible reasons we haven't found anyone else out there...

"The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox."

Could you be thinking of this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17392748

("The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin)

or maybe this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17391451

("Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson)

If not, I'd poke around some more looking for the reference in this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17389842

or maybe this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17302924

>I’ve been told it gets better after the first book, but why would I subject myself to another book after my experience of the first?

I was not a huge fan of the first book either but saw the potential. Second book, The Dark Forest, is the greatest of the three (IMO anyway). Third book is also amazing. Definitely 'endure' reading through the first one and then you'll be rewarded with 2nd and 3rd.

I absolutely hate the Culture series, I find it predictable, boring and unoriginal.

The Three body problem and its sequels (it's a trilogy) I find absolutely fascinating. Be warned, this is very dry writing with very flat characters, mostly digestible because of the exotic Chinese background which is noticeable, but this book is all about ideas, so in many ways completely the opposite of the space opera Culture series.

Despite its length, much of which I consider filler, these are one of a handful of books which really made me question our position in the universe.

The second book, The Dark Forest, is my favorite. The Three body problem is actually my least favorite, written more like a mystery thriller rather than sci-fi.

And yes, you absolutely need to read all three parts.

The Dark Forest, the second book of Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy (Three Body Problem) goes into a good bit of exploration of the ramifications of space observation, communication and espionage in combination with relativistic distances starting out with roughly current human technology.

A bit off-topic, but I've kind of struggled mentally since finishing The Dark Forest. Even though it's science fiction, it actually seems hard to argue with the theory in the book -- that civilizations must act to eliminate each other or they are overwhelmingly likely to be eliminated themselves. I'd like to believe it's not true, but so long as any two civilizations are likely to have dramatically different rates of technological advancement and so long as crossing the gaps in space between civilizations takes sufficiently long due to the laws of physics, it seems hard to deny that there might be strong reasons for civilizations to fear each other.

Spoilers for The Dark Forest and The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy below.

In the book that the OP article is based on, humanity is doing anything and everything to prevent/defend themselves against an alien invasion happening ~400 years in the future. The character who coins "Dark Forest" theory in the book proposes sending a 'spell' (just a signal containing coordinates) to a nearby star, which is then amplified throughout the universe via "Sci-Fi science". This reveals the location of the star, and shortly after the star is destroyed by some comet-sized object moving at the speed of light. It's later revealed that some other civilization listens for broadcasts on every spectrum, decodes them for coordinates, then destroys the ones that seem to have actually been sent by intelligent life.

I thought this made perfect sense - why wouldn't another intelligent species do this if they possess the technology? I personally agree with "Dark Forest" theory and think that we should /never/ make first contact (lest we are destroyed), but if we were to attempt first contact, we should at the very least have a weapon like you described available to us first.

I thought it was entertaining but also wouldn't recommend it unless I think someone would enjoy the nostalgic bits.

One newer sci-fi trilogy I would highly recommend is The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. The writing is a bit different but if you get over that the ideas are really novel and the story is epic and gripping. The Dark Forest (Book 2), in particular is one of my favorite sci-fi stories of all time. My Chinese coworkers all raved about the triology and for good reason. Note: the first and second book are out but the third's English translation is coming this fall (I am eagerly awaiting it).

"Leaving Orbit - Notes from the last days of American spaceflight" - pleasantly sentimental view of the wind down of the shuttle program.

"The Dark Forest" 2nd installment in Three Body Problem series. Quite clever.

"This Changes Everything" - triggered by a quote from the doc on the radio about trying not to think about climate change and whether it's possible to be bored by the end of the world. Lots of good info (including a visit to a climate deniers conference), bit long winded.

"The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics". If I read only 10% still worth it. Lots of things to dip into.

"The Astronomer and the Witch" Kepler fights to save his mother from persecution.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel - Mohsin Hamid. This is my book of choice for the year: I read it cover-to-cover in a single day. Refreshingly written in second-person perspective, totally engaging.

Finally read the Zones of Thought series by Vernor Vinge. Love his slight twist on physics that allows for for both post-singularity tech and low-tech to exist in the same universe.

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (second book in the Remembrance of Earth's Past translated from Mandarin) had a bit of a slow start, but really built up to a good finale.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Ashlee Vance. Good read and made me really appreciate what Elon has done through financially to get Tesla and SpaceX up.

After reading "The Dark Forest" I've leaned towards the idea that we are under pervasive observation (likely by hard-to-detect autonomous AI agents of some form, the origin of which is relatively inconsequential) and once the probability tilts towards a non-zero value that we are a threat beyond a certain blast radius we'll be wiped out.

If that were true, and the message of that being the case were delivered somehow to our governments, the general status quo around these phenomena and the propaganda steering people away from caring about them would be explainable. People have barely gotten used to the idea of mortality, but to know your race was doomed to extinction with certainty would almost certainly cause massive civil unrest and a major disruption to almost all human institutions and culture that assume our collective future is unbounded.

Perhaps this is too tinfoil but it's an internally consistent story, perhaps with the exception of how or why these agents would be detectable at all, when they surely could conceal themselves completely -- perhaps it's just probabilities though since there would not be much downside of detection by a primitive civilization such as ours.

I have massive support for government funded research but I think this is a terrible idea.

Government should absolutely have to justify how it allocates funds and which projects are taken on. This is a transparent attempt at avoiding the need to justify what is done with public money.

> Removing a platform for people that say, in hindsight, ‘it was obvious that was going to fail’ is a step in the right direction.

It really isn't. Covering failures up only makes the problem worse. Anything that does eventually leak will be blown much further out of proportion than if it has been clearly stated that it will probably fail from the start, but the benefits should it succeed outweigh the risks.

You would do even better to build a culture tolerant of failure. But the emergence of that culture depends on improving people's standard of living.

That this secret spending is coming from the same party that just months ago insisted there was no money to continue feeding children during a pandemic and who are also mired in corruption scandals regarding nepotism in government contracts just makes the idea look even more grotesque. Trying to do it during a pandemic you've just majorly fucked up the handling of makes it even less endearing.

Incidentally I happen to be in the middle of reading "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin. A core element of the book is how humanity is affected when standard of living is reduced and basic needs are unmet in order to meet technological research goals that will curtail an "undefeatable" foe. It generally leads to discontent towards the projects that are supposed to "save" them.

If the goal was to prevent the outsourcing of R&D then the government would be much better off taking a greater stake in universities and making sure both parties are compensated more from companies who go on to exploit that research.

1. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

2. One L by Scott Turow

3. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

4. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

5. Believer: My Forty Years in Politics by David Axelrod

6. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

7. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy

8. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (re-read)

9. I, Claudius by Robert Graves

10. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

11. The Fear Index by Robert Harris

12. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (re-read)

13. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (re-read)

14. Hannibal by Thomas Harris (re-read)

15. Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (re-read)

16. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (re-read)

17. Claudius the God by Robert Graves

Re-reads take hardly any time at all, so I'm not sure whether to count them. If you're not, then 11 books read so far.

> so how does it hurt us if some other species do

Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest has an interesting take on this. Basically it's conceivable that the game-theoretically optimal policy is to kill any other sentient species you come across, even if it means you lose access to whatever resources they currently have. This argument falls apart at some point, because it's (presumably) not optimal for all humans to try to kill each other all the time, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

> The reasoning is laid out best in the science fiction novel The Dark Forest, by Liu Cixin.

It annoys me than no credit is given to earlier authors who covered almost exactly the same ground, including Fred Saberhagen, Greg Bear, and Alistair Renyolds.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_(Saberhagen)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space

Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest, the second book in his 3-body problem trilogy, posits a similar philosophy: resources are limited so civilizations annihilate other civilizations. So if an alien civilization knew about earthlings, they will destroy earth ASAP if they are capable, lest the earthlings come after their resources.

This is also why some people believe we should not try to make contact with intelligent alien life. They believe broadcasting our location is dangerous.

There's an exploration of that in book 2 of the Three Body Problem / The Dark Forest. Don't remember exact details, but I think it posited the destruction of the inner solar system, mostly due to solar wind both roasting the inner planets, and slowing them down - which causes more planets to fall into the sun in a chain reaction.

The title reminds me of the sci-fi book The Dark Forest, whose premise is that the galaxy is full of life that stays silent for fear of being annihilated. In retrospect, not a whole lot different from an actual forest.

I sometimes subscribe to the spiritual view of the author, that space (in this case a forest) is part of a larger intelligence that communicates with us. It's not something I bring up a lot, for fear of sounding unhinged, but it lines up with my experiences.

Have you actually read The Dark Forest? Because that scenario is what I was commenting about.

The scenario says that the only logical conclusion is that, since resources are limited, if you are left with another civilization the most logical course of action is to preemptively, immediately strike and destroy it so that you can gain their resources and are in better position for the future encounters.

For that reason all civilizations keep total silence for fear of another civilization wiping them off.

The sci-fi novel "The Dark Forest" by Chinese writer Liu Cixin describes a similar phenomenon. In that case it was achieved by detonating bombs to produce "interstellar dust clouds", in order to cause flickering of the light from the star, visible from other systems.

Maybe the aliens from KIC 8462852 read Chinese sci-fi novels.

The second book introduce the "The Dark Forest Theory". By that alone it is worth reading. This take on the Fermi Paradox and how it is weaved into the plot is very well done. The second book is also interesting from a SF perspective, describing the treat against earth and the phases and solutions earth goes through. The parallel development of the protagonist Luo Ji is also interesting with a satisfactory and clever conclusion.

The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu. The scene is actually from the second book in the trilogy, The Dark Forest, but they are really meant to be read in order, and I don't think The Dark Forest would make much sense without reading The Three Body Problem first.

Outstanding books, highly recommended if you like old-school hard science fiction. I'm currently reading the third book in the trilogy. But when I read this one scene... I had a song a day later. It really knocked me out.

You need to read the 2nd book of the "Three Body Problem" trilogy ("The Dark Forest"). It will explain and improve most ideas found in the 1st book and, when it explains the whole "Dark Forest" concept I guarantee that you'll be amazed (don't research the concept before reading the book).

I also didn't like the 1st part very much but I was blown apart after reading the 2nd. The third was not as good, so at least read the 2nd one

“What we are facing now is a person whose crime dwarfs all of the crimes ever committed in human history. We were unable to find a single law applicable to his crime. So we recommend that the crime of Extinction of Life on Earth be added to international law, and that Rey Diaz be tried under it.”

— Cixin Liu, The Dark Forest

I stopped reading Ni Kuang's work since 14. I'd consider comparing Ni Kuang with Liu a serious offence to Liu's readers.

In my opinion, the second and third instalments of The Three Body Problem are as good as the Foundation series. The first one, really is just a trailer.

The second one, entitled The Dark Forest is far more than Sci-fi. Personally, I interpret it as a serious international political question: could the West really tolerate any other forms of civilisation? the book gave a negative perspective.

Claim: I live in UK and I understand most of EU folks don't like to be simplified as Westerners. However, from a Chinese perspective, the cultural differences between FR/DE/UK/CA/US/AU are invisible.