Comment on I'll share a troubling fact with you if you share one with me

eightpix@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This theory was around long before Lee Cuixin and done much better. Saberhagen’s Berserker series is a much better example, and has the added bonus of believable character development in his books.

  Hell, Battlestar Galactica was the same thing done 5 years before TBP came out, and way more interestingly.

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  • eightpix@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’d read that David Brin reviewed something similar in '83, but I didn’t chase it down to Saberhagen.

    In following the links provided in the Wiki article, for the Berserker Hypothesis, there is the following:

    The Berserker hypothesis is distinct from the dark forest hypothesis in that under the latter, many alien civilizations could still exist provided they keep silent. The dark forest hypothesis can be viewed as a special case of the Berserker hypothesis, if the ‘deadly Berserker probes’ are (e.g. due to resource scarcity) only sent to star systems that show signs of intelligent life.

    So, silence is survival in the Dark Forest. The Berserker Hypothesis seeks and destroys.

    And, for my part, Cixin Liu’s second book was a really solid read. The first book, Three Body Problem, suffered all of the hallmarks of the pains taken to establish a story and a world. The last book, Death’s End, while mostly good, also suffered in needing to bring the grand story to a close.

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    • ikidd@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We’re going to have to disagree on those books. I found the first one amateurish and hand-wavy SF with terrible character development, and the second one was just a ridiculous deus-ex-machina plot point that invalidated all the rest of the previous and possible future plot pivot points, with continued terrible character development. I wouldn’t know about the third, by this point I was done giving him any more of my money.

      I’m surprised about Brin’s article there, because all his work has been pretty upbeat about galactic species generally getting along, though with its rough points.

      Personally, I chalk up the great silence to very short species lifespans after achieving spaceflight. Maybe they all go post-singularity and become undetectable, or run out of resources and go primitive again. Or just die off/suicide, which seems like where we’re headed. If we have a century of relatively powerful transmissions, what’s the chance of anyone being close enough in that short period of time to detect us?

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      • eightpix@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I guess we are going to have to disagree. The writing style and, as I perceived it, motivations within the text were clearly not of the Western tradition. It’s true, in lending the benefit of doubt, I may have enjoyed it more precisely because I disregarded standard writing mores, tropes, and conventions because it was a translated work.

        I’m curious: Did you also try Murakami’s 1Q84? I found that I had to suspend expectations there in much the same manner.

        I think I’d agree with you wrt. short species lifespans after developing telecommunications, space flight, and highly concentrated energy sources. The leap in capacity for attendant social distortion — and extortion — has brought us to the brink of global destruction many times since Signal Hill in 1901. The Kardashev Scale comes to mind here. The leap from about Type 0.73, ostensibly where we are now, to Type 1.0 is fraught.

        As for the communications we have sent, the early ones were low-power and, over a distance of 100 ly, would significantly degrade against background EM radiation. At a range of 50 ly, where our first, more powerful and higher fidelity digital transmissions have reached, there are relatively few star systems — about 1300 (source). This source uses data from 1991, so there may be more, but not many, that are magnitude 6.5 or brighter.

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