Why We Should NOT Look For Aliens - The Dark Forest

[@kurzgesagt]

If this video made you curious and you like reading great and long sci fi books, check out the three body problem by Liu Cixin, who formulated the dark forest idea for the first time. And with that, we say good bye to the year 12,021. It truly was a wild time, and passed so, so quickly. For us at the Kurzgesagt team it was full of changes and achievements and we learned so much and tried so many new things. And we have so many exciting ideas and projects that we can’t wait to share with you next year! I know I say this often but doing Kurzgesagt really is just such a joy. We only can do this because of you, so thank you so, so much. We appreciate it more than you might imagine. Have wonderful holidays and get safely into the year 12,022. We’ll see you on the other side! - Philipp PS: And if you want to help us do what we do, check out our store with sciency products made with love: kgs.link/shop-156

[@FalconType]

You fell off + ratio

[@cubit404]

Same thing you kurzgesagt!

[@nothingexists5066]

First

[@ktryCcloud8642]

First

[@misterchef944]

BS LIFE IS OUT THERE

[@daenite2480]

Imagine finally getting a message from space, and after decoding it, the message says "be quiet, they'll hear you."

[@sticktheok]

oh no

[@pHixiq]

Oh shit 😂. We gonna get got

[@Skemmm]

but they will expose themselves by doing this, so not a smart move.

[@mrcheese3092]

@@Skemmm by expose wym expose and how

[@Arthera0]

@@Skemmm of course they would relay this message far away from themselves if they have that technology

[@Ani]

the art style in this video is perhaps my favourite of any kurzgesagt video so far. the way you guys have animated, portrayed, and narrated (!) aliens is stunning and thought provoking - kudos!

[@LeventButSpeedrunning]

Hello random verified user

[@crocodughetto5613]

I was going to say that

[@ninjaclan83]

It reminds me of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy book.

[@PRINTORO]

YES!

[@groggod666]

same

[@betterchapter]

Imagine someone on another planet seeing a similar space sci-fi vid about our planet

[@jaari2032]

Man with checkmark must like

[@Jay2480]

How only 3 mins ago what

[@A_87mine]

Yo

[@cocoardo4394]

And there is another one writing this reply.

[@rob5393]

Imagine an alien making a coment such as yours on that video

[@Croc21000]

I love how humans are so optimistic about finding intelligent life even though we don't even get along with each other a lot of the time.

[@ninajasmin731]

maybe that's the reason we are like this haha

[@Croc21000]

@ninajasmin731 hmmmm. perhaps the lack of exposure to other intelligent life may cause a lack of opposition in political opinions other lifeforms may have, causing us to feel more important than all other life in the universe.

[@anoobagain5008]

Maybe we arent really intelligent compared to aliens and theyd be peaceful because they’re actually intelligent

[@Randomguy-nr6qr]

@@anoobagain5008idk it feels like the more intelligent a life form is the more cruel they can be

[@anoobagain5008]

@@Randomguy-nr6qr I feel like stupid life forms are cruel too we just dont see it because they are too stupid to do cruel things

[@sayounsang]

I was waiting for Kurzgesagt to cover this book. Such a terrifying concept, and yet I can’t stop thinking about it.

[@Skemmm]

trisolaris? also *amogus*

[@gabrielvicente8406]

.

[@CriticalPosthumanism]

You mean trisolaris?

[@matyascerny8461]

Ah yes, another trisolaris enjoyer

[@crAzytitAn4741]

I believe the Aliens are so advanced that they might be among us and we'd never know

[@PossumReviews]

The universe is only about fourteen billion years old, and the star-forming era is expected to last another hundred trillion. The universe is young, so young in fact that the Earth has been around for about a third of the universe's life so far. If you picture the lifespan of the universe's star-forming era as a clock, we popped up in the first second. It may sound unlikely given how big the universe is, but when you take the Great Filters into consideration, we may very well be the first technological civilization in the universe. There may be countless civilizations over the next hundred trillion years, and we will be the "ancient forerunners" to them.

[@nakedmario6155]

And then humanity will go into war with an alien species referred to as the Covenant because of the mishaps of the ancient forerunners

[@WanderTheNomad]

That's the option that I'm choosing to go with. Obviously we don't know for sure if that is the case, but we should consider the possibility. Assume we are one of the earliest, if not the first, civilization to exist in the universe. What would that entail? To me, it sounds like a lot of responsibility. Like being the eldest child among your siblings.

[@jeremyhahn3612]

Doubt in the universe because there's an insanely vast amount of it we're not able to look at, but I still get your point

[@ouinova]

Checkmark, I must like. Also good point

[@Mostly-Nuts]

@@jeremyhahn3612 not even that. Look at how much we’ve accomplished in so little. Or who’s to even say we accomplished a lot in a little bit of time since it’s relative and we have nothing to base that point on.

[@lencol583]

I’d be really annoyed if our first contact with aliens was them coming to earth as some sort of door to door salesman or trying to recruit us into a pyramid scheme.

[@deividboy2347]

XD I would love it if the first contact is like in independence day 2 With that white orb thing Seemed so nice to me

[@rackcauser]

They're gonna come here and try to tell you about your satellites extended warranty

[@gasterg.continent3118]

“You become you own space capital you only need to give us 200k kg of metal and travel to other planets to recruit them.”

[@deividboy2347]

"Humanity can be their own boss with this this two easy apps"

[@cyfertea8707]

"Good morning! Have you heard of our lord and savior gheanud?"

[@obsoquasi]

"don't reply" was the answer humans got in Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem when the protagonist sent out her first succesful interstellar transmission, powerful enough to reach our neighbors. This book, and the two others in the series, are as terrific as they are terrifying.

[@henrywang3403]

That’s the first story to use the term “dark forest”.

[@smokbig3202]

​@@henrywang3403 The dark forest theory has been around for a very long time.

[@user-gj7lp5iz6k]

​@@smokbig3202prove it

[@manynukes11]

Survival is the most important goal of every civilization Every civilization will continue to expand and grow , but resource in the universe is limited.

[@King-mz8xe]

Ye Wenjie doomed us man 😭

[@Wonkabar007]

The hunter takes a deep breath and makes a decision "I shall try and make friends with this Xenomorph"

[@williamwalrus9473]

Mankind: “If it exists then I can pet it”

[@cassianoeberhardt]

The Xenomorph hugs him back, one day later they have a baby, but the hunter dies during labor XD

[@shanagbaimuru3926]

Tbh an amusing end would've been both the hunters getting skewered by a better hidden hunter observing the whole situation

[@mikesnapper9001]

"hehe, why is my stomach suddenly tickling?"

[@robrobusa]

HERESY

[@GarrettWatts]

Really appreciating this new, slightly more laid back narration style.

[@triopical6884]

Hey baby boy, can I drink all your UwU warm prorostate milk

[@lucasdacosta3835]

It’s been 6 minutes you couldn’t have listened to this video.

[@lanimwar]

Ye

[@olliec5675]

GARRET!

[@olliec5675]

I love you

[@AnotherZenThought]

As Sagan said: “The newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.”

[@crazycatlady183]

❤️👏

[@gdvelasquez2570]

Carl Sagan is wise, indeed.

[@tomcav860]

your mum is pretty good lookin

[@npc5649]

This sounds like a good idea

[@AnthanKrufix]

Or in the words of 4Chan.. "Lurk Moar!"

[@TheJerbol]

3:30 "They'll want to call out for help, but they won't" "Why not?" "Because of the _implication_ "

[@EzequielFigueroa-sw4nb]

😂😂

[@ghxstboyy6638]

The IASIP reference is top tier

[@abigbutterstick1780]

You've said that word a couple of times now...

[@thedeytow8776]

“I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.” -Jack Handey

[@Stroke-it-2-Handed]

Deep Thoughts.

[@WiseOwl_1408]

Violence is a huge part of nature. We can't escape it.

[@infinitehonkworks195]

@@WiseOwl_1408 Violence is the eternal answer to "Or else what" If you aren't willing to use it, you're no more than property of the person that will

[@msguidedbits9511]

I wouldn’t do that

[@FanDidlyTastic]

@Nuup Truth is only the realities we give in to. Violence is only part of our nature so long as we keep giving up, making comments like these. We do things the way we do because those methods are the paths of least resistance. We replace this resistance with technology and tools to ignore them, sometimes forever. Taking violence as a truth may as well be giving up on a goal before you've even started. Absurdly defeatist and pessimistic. It's also in human nature to *grow beyond our base natures.* Did you ever consider that? ;3c

[@KoutetsuSteel]

I mentioned it last time as well, but holy heck do I want to play a simulation/strategy game that has the art/design team from Kurzgesagt. Especially after the strategy game-esque animations we were shown in the middle of the video.

[@duzehalo]

I thought the same. Especially some base/city building sim. I'm pre-ordering.

[@Hellodinho]

AGREEED

[@cats4life161]

I was just about to comment this, every structure looks really interesting and I feel so inspired to play this nonexistant game

[@daviddavid-pt7dv]

Yea

[@andriytarnevyy8957]

The Battle of Polytopia looks very similar to this 2:39. It's a little strategy game ispired by Civilization series but less deep, I played only a trial and liked It, you can play It on mobile too but it's actualy a good game.

[@russiananimatorlol1719]

Imagine an alien version of kurzgesagt explaining why humans exist

[@aushwada]

BRO WTF THAT IS ACTUALLY CRAZY. I thought about an alien civilization watching this video after decoding it to see what we think.

[@Unlimited_Powah]

And then they see their climate change videos

[@rhuttrho88]

I will not imagine that!🤨

[@gmillyy5253]

Sources reveal they have no real explanation

[@thenamesianna]

We would be aliens to them , so it would still be about alien's existance

[@jmlkinc]

'We need to be careful about the type of signal we send out' Ye Wenjie: ....No.

[@RonLarhz]

she really took the internet anti human rage into RL....💀💀💀

[@rotten.dandelions]

bahaha 😂

[@qv2955]

We can't save ourselves. We're hopeless.

[@Scouthedog1]

I feel like the Hunter in the technological forest could spin-off to its own Internet show. I'd watch that

[@eat2788]

@@dilkush_21 k i wont

[@UltraDripstinctSonGoku]

@@dilkush_21 ok no one cares about your profile anyway

[@pustota7254]

@@dilkush_21 ok.

[@koboarchives969]

I swear I just skipped the through the video just to see the hunter. Because it was just hq. Really makes me think, they should make a show about this on youtube and rake in the money for Kurzgesagt.

[@jamesforster7612]

Samurai Jack is what your're looking for.

[@TheBadlandsSandvich]

The Dark Forest scenario reminds me of this writing prompt I saw once: "Due to the vast distances between stars, interstellar wars are often a case of who finds the other first. With such long trival times, any sort of retaliation is impossible, and the one who gets first strike always wins. Because of this, most intelligent species try to remain hidden and not give their position away. This is why everyone is so terrified of humanity, who feel the need to loudly broadcast their location."

[@counttzt5070]

Do you recall where this is from?

[@TheBadlandsSandvich]

@@counttzt5070 r/WritingPrompts

[@olnbgy4444]

They’re scared of humanity because humanity is a loud target ? I don’t understand

[@stardolphin2]

"This is why everyone is so terrified of humanity, who feel the need to loudly broadcast their location." As if no one else does, just because we haven't seen such signals yet? Assuming there is indeed a danger in doing so, all civilizations may go through a period of 'not yet knowing better.' Your assertion also implies that 'everyone' (especially if they're not also already talking to each other) will respond to awareness of our presence in the same way. Some may reach out if sufficiently gregarious, some may pre-empt, if sufficiently paranoid. Or anything in between. This isn't about what humans do, it's about what enough others may do, to be consistent with the Fermi Paradox.

[@vengefulbeauty]

@@olnbgy4444 Like a lion roaring. Think about, if you're in a dark forest and hear a lion roar, are you going towards it or away fast as hell in the opposite direction?

[@tomkandy]

The Killing Star has the best summary of this idea; "We ask that you try just one more thought experiment. Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides. It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds. Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body. How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!" What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out. There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe. There is no policeman. There is no way out. And the night never ends."

[@MPKush]

Your English teacher would be proud.

[@Cronos988]

Or you build a very big gun, take over the park with it, and live happily ever after. Not everyone is equal in our dark forrest, and hiding from someone who's already more powerful than you is not going to work.

[@anishap2000]

@@Cronos988 Yes, building a big gun really would be one of the ways, but that's a call for war. How do we know how 'big' of a gun is actually big enough? What preparations our opponents have made? Without knowing that, it's still a risk stepping out and making yourself known like that. If we can't know the nature or intent of those on the other side, we also cannot be sure of our chances of survival. True, not everyone is equal and that's for sure, but we haven't heard or found anything from these hunters to determine the ranking of strongest to weakest. We can't know who's more powerful. There could easily be civilizations farther off than us. Hence, the least we can do is not make our presence known so that we can stay safe. Thrive beneath the covers, threat-free until someone finds us. At some point we may have to though. This planet alone doesn't seem sufficient to satiate growing human population and desires.

[@smurfyday]

@@Cronos988 Central Park is actually really safe. NYC is much safer than most cities or places in America, esp. the gun-loving ones. It's the homicidal ones that we need to worry about. The ones who think guns solve problems.

[@kairos.2381]

@@smurfyday exactoo

[@hustle4Abuck2]

I saw this video about a year ago. I just finished "The Dark Forest" book two of the series. Your visuals nailed that part of the book, so much so I had to come back to see if you referenced the book. I am on book three now. I will commit again when I finish the series

[@King-mz8xe]

Well you finished this series yet and if so, thoughts on the 3rd book?

[@Viltris]

@@King-mz8xe The best of the series. I finished the third book on a plane today. Liu Cixin has always been good about painting vivid imagery with words, and in the third book, he goes all in on describing the bizarre, the horrifying, the grotesque, and the hauntingly beautiful. He also tightens up the story, cutting out the unnecessary plot threads, and develops the ones he leaves behind all the way to their ultimate conclusion. It also has the most speculative ideas, the most imaginitive, the most optimistic, and the most terrifying.

[@drew284]

@@Viltris I thought the 3rd was the worst because of some of the character decisions and humanity's reactions to certain things. Just didn't add up. I still love the series as a whole though. And I thought the first part of book 3 was really good. Wish I had more people to talk about the series with though, it's such an imaginative and thought provoking series. I think my favorite part is the world building of Trisolaris. Just fascinating and I hope the Netflix series does it justice. Dark Forest was my favorite.

[@MedicFromTF2_REAL]

I'm reading dark forest right now although I've only just started it. I can't wait to see what comes!

[@IsUserADuck]

@@drew284dark forest was for sure the best one for me. The third one got a bit trippy by the end

[@maro]

it's kinda sad that none of us will be alive to witness any of this but it's still comforting to know that one day space exploration is possible and humanity will reach very far into space

[@tourguideofthemultiversesp739]

Anti-aging can make it so we DO witness it.

[@DaggerZ555]

@@tourguideofthemultiversesp739 Yes.. Anti aging.. You know.. That utterly common thing that we as humans have totally figured out how to do by now..

[@tourguideofthemultiversesp739]

@@DaggerZ555 VERY close to figuring out, just not there yet.

[@puddend6912]

one day.

[@DaggerZ555]

@@tourguideofthemultiversesp739 Dude, we still can't even completely prevent covid and people are dying from it, let's not even mention cancer.. And here you are talking about being close to curing death itself

[@ClandestineSnowman]

This sort of reminds me of war stories I've heard where enemy soldiers will encounter each other in a one-on-one situation. Both don't really want to kill the other, but there's always a chance that the second you walk by each other the other will shoot you in the back - and it becomes an unfortunate "better safe than sorry" situation.

[@maccaronich]

I was playing escape from tarkov today. Another PMC killed the scav outside the room I was hiding in. I called out and asked if it was safe, he called back and said he'd cleared it for me. I came out of the room and thanked him, he executed me point blank in the back of the head the second i turned my back

[@HuntingTarg]

@@maccaronich Don't forget what the word 'Alien' means; How 'other' is the other? @IssacArthur has a whole series on Fermi Paradox solutions and various possible alien mindsets.

[@BigOlRub]

@@maccaronich lol. You hid while he risked his life in the fight. I would have done what he did.

[@jayeisenhardt1337]

It's Christmas time and then ya get reminded of Christmas war stories where people pause and stop for a moment to exchange smokes, coffee and sing. lol People are crazy but it's even more dangerous to let them think for themselves and not kill each other according to most.

[@MohammedKin99]

@@maccaronich I play with squads and the smaller groups or soloes are usually more scared to pull a trigger. It's not much that they can do to outplay since inertia is added. I had a streamer friend kidnapped a hatchling threatening him to follow him on twitch or else he dies lmao. Voip is fun.

[@RealTDragon]

Alright Kurzgesagt, when is the RTS game coming out? I see you building a creative asset list.

[@anarchy-authoritarianneo-t180]

I couldn't stop thinking about it lol.

[@primetime3422]

Wait r u jokin or u r 4 real

[@odin2130]

@@primetime3422 Your comment gave me a headache.

[@TheEpiknik]

@@odin2130 Genuinely though, are they joking about Kurzgesagt making a game?

[@hawkeyy924]

@@TheEpiknik I think they said they plan to make one

[@OfficialAilius]

The production value on this video was absolutely amazing. Well done to everyone on the team at Kurzegesagt, be proud of yourselves.

[@jlwilder8436]

They know/they are. 😏 😉

[@comanche1924]

The animation just keeps growing more and more engrossing as time goes by. The narrative is great as well, as usual, and I like the return to these speculative stories, but I think the visual aspect really deserves special praise in this case

[@exoels]

No shit

[@Skemmm]

I'm taking the first spot here. Don't know what to say

[@omariond5269]

I’m taking the second spot here. Don’t know what to say

[@mortalkomment8028]

@@Skemmm I'm taking the third spot here. The dude above doesn't count. Those graphics are crazy.

[@Skemmm]

@@mortalkomment8028I'm taking the fourth spot here once again. Are you sure that dude doesn't count?

[@TravelersWarden]

The Dark Forest is honestly one of the few things that deeply and truly terrify me. I was introduced to the concept through Cixin Liu's Dark Forest trilogy and it's haunted me ever since.

[@pepsiatlas5452]

if it makes you feel better any detectable civilization is only going to have a tiny fraction of its population actually living on planets. space stations are just so much more practical. if aliens decided to destroy earth they wouldn't really achieve anything other than pissing off the entire human race

[@mausunk]

I think I take a sort of comfort at that idea of being wiped out within a second before really being even able to know it lmao, and otherwise, life goes on yay!

[@olsenfernandes3634]

"If you want Peace, prepare for War" Makes perfect sense in this context.

[@darken2417]

And that's why we should wipe out the Xenos and not try to set up some cringe galactic united nations.

[@vincentmuyo]

No need to worry, if it was an issue we'd probably already be dead, because it's pretty simple to prepare a kill strike for every solar system in the galaxy. :)

[@aleksandaratanasov1885]

10:22 That's called a pro Wenjie move, and it's a quick way to get your star cursed

[@mechashark5203]

the art is SO GOOD in this episode. the topic, the visuals, and the ending makes this one of my fav kurzgesagt videos of all time. edit: kinda random but i just realised that the human hunter has some kind of prosthetic leg

[@aryangupta6186]

truly remarkable

[@aleclang9735]

dude agreed so hard

[@Da_Dev]

Ikr

[@schwag]

No one asked

[@Keyzy]

Dont forget the music 🎶 The scoring here is incredible

[@Renegad3420]

Let me add a bit more to the existential dread: the 2 hunters stepping out in the clearing are making themselves vulnerable to another hunter who is still hidden and really considers taking both out as quickly as possible.

[@Tjalve70]

True. But at the same time, they are making themselves stronger. Because together, it will be more difficult for a third hunter to kill them both. So this is a short period of calculated risk and temporary vulnerability, that will hopefully pay off with prolonged and possibly permanent increased strength and survivability.

[@alkasaket379]

@@Tjalve70 I hope that's true. But, if the third hunter possibly takes us out with the other one, their location is given away, and a fourth hunter wipes the third one out as well.

[@aeaeeaoiauea]

The 2 hunters see each other, and they act like they don't, then for 2 years they just spy on each other not knowing what to do, then a third hunter just kills them

[@alcambio8923]

The analogy with hunting is ridiculous.

[@Icetea-2000]

But at the same time the other hunter sees that apparently these two are not aggressive as they’re nearing each other. Meaning they won’t be a danger to him as well.

[@thomaslittlefield923]

I think a language barrier between planets could be even more dangerous than what weapons they could have

[@sylvur5441]

vinland saga\american history proves that

[@andresramos7965]

This reminds me that in Halo games, the war that aliens start against humanity, which purpose was to exterminate it, started by a misinterpretation and a misunderstanding.

[@maks-tldr56]

I feel like we just need to find a direct way of universal kindness. Languages wont help because its something we created, food might not work since wed be dealing an entire different race and dont know how it would affect them.

[@sentientmustache8360]

Let’s just pray either we invented universal translation or they have

[@4Curses]

@@maks-tldr56 In stargate the highly developed races used a universal language based on atoms. it seems pretty smart, since the elements should be the same, no matter where in the universe.

[@DraconisV2]

I love that this was tackled in Stellaris! There's a new Origin in the game called Fear of the Dark wherein Venus was totally destroyed by a freak asteroid causing a huge division on Earth on whether the incident is a malicious attack or just a freak accident and is nothing more than mere paranoia. This division led to a lot of people terraforming and colonizing Mars in order to escape Earth because of the belief that somewhere out there, there is someone purposely targeting our home planet in order to destroy it. Ok this next bit is a spoiler so don't continue if you have plans on playing the game with this Origin. Basically, after years of exploration and progress in the game, you'll later find out that in a nearby solar system, an unknown species of alien had built a huge space cannon and was using all their resources in their home system to create huge bullets to attack nearby systems that they had detected that contains life. However, because of the unique gravity of Jupiter on our Sol system that protects us from most asteroids, this huge bullet that was aimed at Earth was actually reorientated by the gravity into destroying Venus instead. By the time that you discover this truth, the alien species that had done the attack are already dead with their home planet barren with life and the space cannon inoperable. It seems that the unknown species was so paranoid that it believed in the idea that any life out there is a threat to their existence which then led to the construction of a space cannon that will guarantee that they will be the one to do the first strike rather than be a victim of one. This paranoia however led to them depleting all the resources in their solar system without even inventing FTL travel which then caused mass extinction of their species, which is fortunate for Earth because it meant that a second strike will never arrive. At this point, the player will have a decision to turn into a Fanatic Purifier since it was proven that aliens in the galaxy are actually willing to exterminate you when given the chance and also a big "I told you so!" from the colonists who fled Earth to Mars. That, or you can stay as a Xenophile and declare that yes, some aliens are bad, but not all of them are out to get you. In the end, you'll get an achievement named "Dark Forest" if you convert into a Fanatic Purifier and eliminate all life in the galaxy, from the most advanced ones, down to the alien species that are still stuck in the stone ages.

[@lolawhyte1277]

where do i find this??

[@colelaton2431]

i am so going to play this game.

[@sorrellion1414]

Everyone's talking about the conjecture and how scary it is (valid), but can we talk about how fantastic this episode looks? The portions within the metaphorical 'dark forest' with the hunter are genuine works of art

[@treeboy6287]

Based on Cixin Liu novels The dark forest, three body problem

[@queeny5613]

Yeah

[@muriloams]

Did you get the reference to the film Driver?

[@corvespid4925]

I thought the same. Absolutely stylish.

[@insertcoolnamehere8516]

The idea of some alien space council that knows we’re here but is waiting for us to “grow up” is actually really comforting for some reason.

[@thewhompingwampa2671]

So, it's basically Mass Effect. Jesus, lets just hope we don't encounter aliens like the Turians or get uplifted prematurely and end up like the Krogan.

[@Pazuzu4219]

There's a group of aliens that are actually keeping us from "growing up". There are many different kinds out there and they have fought over control of this planet for millennia.

[@garrettcorbett3681]

@@thewhompingwampa2671 Lets hope our first encounter isn’t with the Krogan

[@VoteOrDie99]

Isn't that kind of the back story of earth in star trek?

[@rubix4195]

@@VoteOrDie99 Not really - only if you think the Federation is a "welcoming space council" but, in reality, the Federation are like aloof and waiting for the moment a civilisation reaches light speed travel just so they can have a chat of joining like when you move into a new house and the first knock on the door is the Jehovah's Witnesses.. Also, not so much if you are in the Klingon or Romulan neck of the woods: one's a warrior race and the other is a manipulative race out for resouces.

[@joylynbateman4015]

In Liu Cixin’s book series in my opinion he provides a nice take on the Fermi paradox. In his book it talks about that yes the universe is teeming with life, but as civilizations grow and resources in the universe become limited, advanced civilizations will seek to destroy others. This sets a narrative for humans and the Trisolarans that staying quiet is best way to avoid extinction from another race that is purposefully looking for you.

[@navjitgill5554]

We don't even treat each other right, imagine how we'd treat a different civilization

[@VegasRT500]

The Qanon Republicans would start a war with them there is no doubt about it.

[@elrancho8700]

And the Liberals would dumbfound them by saying we have over 60 genders

[@lamalien2276]

@@VegasRT500 Don't scoff, we're living through an event like that right now with China. They grew and grew and grew, and now we see their true intentions.

[@marchforjune]

Bold of you to assume we would have the upper hand.

[@chadphelps5809]

It would be a great unification for earth

[@polydynamix7521]

The 'first strike' concept only works if you're certain the other species only lives on one planet. Any species capable of waging interstellar war is likely living on several planets, hundreds of giant space stations, and probably some moons too. The first strike wipes out a planet, sure... maybe you hit several- but if you don't get them all then you've made an enemy for the rest of that species' entire existence. Not only that, assume that 10% of the species survived elsewhere, they're going to spread out even more- to minimize the chance of being targeted. Such a tactic would certainly work against humans, we would be wiped out except for a slowly starving ISS, but against another species capable of reaching out across stars, it would be very difficult to execute.

[@MacTac141]

That’s kinda my thinking. Even if we were to detect radio transmissions from deep space, it would probably be better to wait until humans have colonized Mars and have a significant portion of the species total population in space. If we keep progressing like we are, that’s definitely feasible within the next half millennia

[@CasabaHowitzer]

Well, obviously, unless you've found every last alien presence of the civilization you wish to destroy and are very sure of it, it's the better option to remain peaceful. I don't think it would be that difficult to find every alien presence with extremely advanced telescope technology (I'm assuming a civilization advanced enough to retaliate would give off quite obvious signs of its presence). E.g., if you know there's a star somewhere and you know its luminosity, it would be suspicious if your calculated value is different from the empirical value - maybe there's someone there who uses a lot of the sun's energy with a dyson sphere or similar device.

[@alejandroojeda1572]

Actually the three body problem series acknowledges this issue and finds a wacky solution.

[@NoNo-xh7ru]

How do you even react to an attack of this nature though? Invisible missiles traveling faster than you can track taking unpredictable trajectories and then instantly destroying an entire planet. What do you even do? You wouldn’t know where or who they came from. The people hit by them wouldn’t even have a chance to tell you what happened, you would only find out something happened when they stop responding to you.

[@morgenludwig]

Not necessarily. The "dark forest strikes" discussed in the books target the sun of a civilization, not the planet. Even if the civilization is spread all among the solar system, a supernova as a result of a relativistic-speed missile impacting the sun would wipe it all out in a matter of minutes. Beyond that, if the target is a civilization which is spread out among many star systems, if you discover one of the systems that the civilization is inhabiting there's still no reason not to annihilate that system, as it would be impossible to track where the dark forest strike came from, so retaliation would be impossible.

[@MatthewPogi-md7oq]

I like to think one day, parents will tell their kids “be careful about what you send out into the universe…you can’t delete it in entirety!”

[@thetruereality2]

brilliant

[@jasonbaugher2464]

Yeah Huh, Mom! I'll just shoot it into a black hole!

[@PluetoeInc.]

@@jasonbaugher2464 yeaahhh lol

[@addamriley5452]

Time is non local synchronicity, past, present and future exist at once... everything exists now... nothing can be deleted. Energy cannot be created or destroyed...

[@V0rch4]

People are already sending radio signals into space, and it's terrifying

[@puzzLEGO]

Whenever kurtzgesagt makes a video on aliens, it always blows up lol

[@xyvazkrown8048]

Yeah, it's #3 Trending in Gaming

[@oilylondon]

yeah those videos are always their best!

[@Puppyfied]

I mean, whenever he makes a video it blows up lol

[@thomasmitchell4128]

Of course it does. Because of the Implication.

[@rey_nemaattori]

In their defense, whenever we invent new stuff or concepts, our first incline is how to use it as a weapon....

[@ejabraham10]

The Netflix movie 3 Body Problem brought me back here.

[@Niilo2.2]

Hello, I'm alien from another galaxy. I just wantes to say *AMOGUS*

[@Angel-tr5ye]

​@@Niilo2.2GETOUTOFMYHEADGETOUTOFMYHEADGETOUTOFMYHEAD

[@rupenupe1]

Same here.

[@joseantoniomillabrito2764]

Which 3 body problem movie are you referring to? That doesn't exist. A TV show is another story. I prefer the Chinese one at this point.

[@bigmatthews666]

Help

[@pixelcrunch300]

Besides the existential questions proposed in the vid, can we all agree that this is Kurzgesagt's best-animated video yet?

[@baguettedepain3975]

Yeah it's pretty amazing.

[@rosieboomer2910]

Hehe someone's porgie has a 🥖

[@pixelcrunch300]

@@rosieboomer2910 What?

[@viviaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan]

@@pixelcrunch300 they mean lorsque l'intrus commet des actes malveillants

[@dasmilyshelf6999]

But there were no burning birds…

[@undead890]

This reminds me of The First Contact War in the Mass Effect series. Effectively, Humans began colonizing other planets around the galaxy until the Turians found them and attacked them on site, simply because the humans activated a Mass Relay they weren't supposed to activate. This escalated into full on war until the Citadel Council negotiated a peace treaty between the Turians and Humans a couple months later. It was all down to a misunderstanding. The Turians were just doing their jobs of acting as the police and enforcing Council laws, but the Humans, who at this time didn't even know the Council existed, thought that this alien species meant to wipe them out.

[@SikGamer70]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Reapers, they're essentially the Dark Forest's apex predator, regularly scouring the entire forest and assimilating every hunter they find before they grow too powerful.

[@mattstorm360]

@@SikGamer70 There is also the brethern moons from Dead Space. Humanity expands outward and finds hundreds of 'dead' planets rich in resources but lacking life. Reason why is because the planets had life eaten off of it or converted into a new brethern moon. Humans have just been finding the remains.

[@levi2725]

What I find interesting about the Turians and Humans is that they became very close allies once the war settled. IIRC they're the closest allies among the council.

[@Prometheus19853]

@@levi2725 Sometimes you just have to beat the shit out of each other to eventually become best friends.

[@stiffyo6068]

@@Prometheus19853 Just like men. Punch each other, followed up by a hand shake

[@randaranatunga7259]

I have to say, the use of the hunter and the fight for survival being used as a vehicle to drive the narrative is very well thought out. Makes it that much more interesting to listen to.

[@Budymierdas]

It's not a new idea tho. Pretty sure they got it from the Central Park allegory from that one 4chan post from several years ago

[@randaranatunga7259]

@@Budymierdas oh I didn’t know that. Either way it’s really interesting and I’m probably gonna read into it, Thanks for the info :)

[@BADAB0O0O0O0O0M]

it;s actually from the book theu got the idead from. the book is called the dark forest

[@jackcosgrove6351]

We all just finished 3 body problem didn't we

[@earth30212]

Sameeee

[@vandreiv]

Just did yesterday

[@hanzosiku]

Yessss

[@sp1nkata]

On the 3rd book now

[@sportstacker56]

Best book series I've ever read

[@leepope3500]

Watching again from release Of 3 Body Problem on Netflix

[@envar1]

When it comes to finding extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations, we just really got to hope that we are more advanced, or that the other life is docile or peaceful.

[@hagron5702]

What if they are more advanced and more peaceful than us? They could teach us things.

[@teafool753]

@@hagron5702 well that'd be a good situation

[@eyrthren]

@@teafool753 I’d say that’s the best case scenario, we’d see massive technological leaps with a benevolent teachers to guide us

[@jatinbangar4371]

They'll look at us the way we look at ants. If they find us, that means the are far more advanced and annihilate us

[@lrock48]

@@hagron5702 They probably wouldn't want to associate with us, just tap into our network and go through our history, they'll probably set up a blockade and ground us from leaving Earth atmosphere.

[@Rekken200]

Yeah I think I’ll watch this at 4am before going to sleep

[@SomeRandomUserrr1r23.]

L

[@FnLl523]

Yeah lets all take a break from vtubers for once

[@ricoparadiso]

✝️ *LORD JESUS DIED & ROSE AGAIN TO PAY THE DEBT OF UR SIN!* ✅By Faith in the sacrifice God has made are we saved from the penalty of sin! 🔵Turn from your sin that leads to death & accept His Gift that leads to eternal Life! 💜We are all sinners that need God. No one can say they are perfect to be able to pay their debt of sin. This is why only God could pay the penalty for us, that is merciful Love!

[@Nick-dx2pt]

@@ricoparadiso bot

[@HopCatSmash]

This has to be my favourite one of your videos! Existential and unimaginable questions put in perspective with beautiful analogies and animation. Thank you!

[@fernandocortez1783]

What the hell. But yeah true

[@legendofman12]

Same, but not like we could dislike it anyway

[@saltytea7367]

Lol didn't expect to see you here

[@JDGage]

Bottom line is we're pretending we would be the peaceful ones. Can you imagine Biden being in charge of meeting alien life?

[@vaioskoutis7998]

@@JDGage he can’t even stand up straight

[@ednguyen3822]

Three Body Problem novels introduced me to this concept. Great reads!

[@gagamonster1049]

He came up with this concept!

[@dzstoyanov]

My logical counter to the dark forest theory after years of thinking is this: - The theory limits living organisms to single planetary civilizations, if you fire first against a multi planetary or nomadic space faring civilization, you’ve made a certain enemy and have not wiped out the civilization. - It assumes imperfect knowledge of the universe. If a civilization has progressed to a state where they have near perfect information about all planets and solar systems in most galaxies, then effectively only primitive civilizations would be operating in a dark forest. A dark forest civilization who has developed effective galaxy wide weapons must consider the logical consequences of “what if there’s someone else watching me”. Using such weapons against another civilization could potentially trigger unknown consequences from 3rd party observers. And thus based on these reasonings, I’m able to sleep well at night.

[@thalesv5973]

You don't fire from home. You have kill stations spreaded out through interstellar space to shoot down the dangerous civs. Multiplanetary and nomadic civs would know to stay silent in this dangerous galaxy already. And civilizations don't advance to a level of perfect information simply because it considers the galaxy is damn huge and you can't go faster than the speed of light. It's more of a realistic-pessimistic scenario so it considers possible weapons like throwing mass at relativistic speeds at planets or even a star to wipe out the whole star system. You should sleep well at night just because it's damn unlikely anyone actually willing to exterminate us would identify a living and developing species in the solar system from our broken down radio waves and almost non existent space structures.

[@TheAtmosfear7]

Good observation, one would think there is always a bigger civilisation that keeps the others in check, willingly or not keeping up the status quo. However, who keeps that supreme civilisation in check ?

[@ApisIniustus]

The problem is that if FTL is indeed a hard limit of the universe, then near perfect information is impossible. A super civilization that detects intelligent life 500 light years away has information that is 500 years outdated. Think about how much technological advancement can occur in that time. Imagine there is a super civilization 100 light years away from Earth. The first radio broadcast that humanity made was in 1920, so they would only about now be capable of detecting it. If they were to immediately send RKVs to every planet in our solar system, they wouldn't get here until well into the 2120's at best, which may be right around the time we might be capable of colonizing those other bodies in our system. And that's for something that's relatively "close". For further civilizations seeing a primitive radio broadcast could indicate that there already exists an advanced civilization there. If you delay until you see clear evidence of malicious behavior, it's already too late to respond to it because *they might have already detected you, and there may already be RKVs headed your way*

[@dmfaccount1272]

Why is some sort of shielding system for planets not possible? We are like caveman thinking "future man can't stop me if I throw spear at him" while he could be wearing full plate armour.

[@fatcat1250]

@@dmfaccount1272 It's way harder to make a magic shield compared to nukes. It's the same reason battleships got phased out in favor of missiles and jets.

[@CGKey]

The fact that Kurzgesagt managed to emulate their 2D style through shaders in 3D is absolutely amazing, well done guys!

[@Chadgigington]

They pay a guy on fiverr

[@MewPurPur]

@@Chadgigington Nah, they are a team of 40 people.

[@shivam7156]

Dammmmmmmmmmmm i didn't even noticed!!! That was smooth af

[@elko1860]

Honest question. Can we really call something displayed in a 2D plane a 3D animation? I understand that for practical purposes, we consider it to be 3D as it “appears” that way. But in reality it is 2D as it appears on our phones, laptops, etc. It’s just our semantical way of framing it, right?

[@MewPurPur]

@@elko1860 The computer does 3D calculations for 3D, even though you can only see it from one direction at a time.

[@emi_marsilli9670]

“Maybe the only way out of the dark forest is to step into the clearing, together” one of my favorites quotes from this channel. ❤️

[@jeneeberry2157]

Or let's chop it all down, we are rlly good at deforestation (joke)

[@TheSuperdarklord100]

inb4 we do that and some other race spots us both and eliminates us both

[@bastienpetit5161]

famous last words

[@hugegamer5988]

It’s too late, we blew the horn. By many many orders of magnitude larger than any purposeful broadcast in human history we have already signaled aliens. It’s the EMP from nuclear detonations, converting a bit of mass to an insane amount of energy in a infinitesimal amount of time , a significant portion of which is electromagnetic radiation. If aliens are listening they didn’t hear our news broadcasts, tv shows, or purposeful signals because the noise of nuclear bombs is far beyond a quadrillion times more powerful.

[@tjw2469]

They say this in the video just to please the audience. Use logic and think what the worst consequences would be and whether our civilization can afford such consequences.

[@giorgikukishvili9767]

Watching this after reading The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu brings a level of nostalgia I cannot put into words. Simply incredible work of SciFi.

[@pranavrumala]

This channel's production quality is so high, it's suspicious one might even say it's *out of this world* is Kurzgeagt secretly a team of aliens trying to stop the humans from finding out

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Yes. You know how they always have pictures of birds? Yeah, that's actually what they look like in real life.

[@Scientistfarcry]

Bruh

[@53Aquilae]

0

[@electronx5594]

0

[@EpsteinsRope]

One thing is certain, Kurzgeagt is definitely a team of people. Certainly not just 1 person

[@TimeBucks]

this channel makes learning fun

[@catlord69]

i dont think you learnt anything useful for life

[@m_winewood]

@@catlord69 this stuff is still so interesting that it motivates me to live harder

[@limp-orange]

@@catlord69 typical of someone with limited brain function to say something like that

[@catlord69]

@@limp-orange I just didnt once in my life heard anything about these things in any school I attended. Nothing here is learning just interesting factography you will once use in a quiz game. Maybe you would understand my point if you didnt limit your huge brain for searching useless insults for someone on the internet you have no clue about

[@limp-orange]

@@catlord69 English is not your first language and it shows

[@nillamajesty1539]

This channel has fueled my love for space and thirst to discover the unknown so much that I have put the constant popularity contest of school behind me and focused on my grades to be an Astrophysicist for NASA. Thank you for passing on the wonder of science to those who thirst for knowledge

[@robinchesterfield42]

Oh, that's amazing! :) I always wanted to be an astronomer, but as soon as I found out it involved being good at math I went "Oh." Still have always been fascinated by space and science in general, though. Good luck! :D

[@Cinnamonbuns13]

I freaking love science!

[@MS-zv9cn]

Keep going!! You got this :)

[@george18almonte]

I wish I would've discovered my love for astrophysics when I was in highschool. I guess it's never late though but I fear I wouldn't be good enough to get a good job. Good luck!

[@CharlieEdmundsen]

Good luck!

[@m.n.7426]

„We want to know if we are alone in the universe“ speak for your selves, lads! Some of us just want to improve life on our planet for all its inhabitants.

[@Onigirli]

Yes, that's why you landed on this video specifically exploring that question

[@AlphaSteboh]

I hope someone is making a collection of all of the lil' aliens that they make on Kurzgesagt, because I love all of them and would love to see more of them ALL the time.

[@javajeff714]

Agreed!

[@acookie7548]

there is now a demand for kurzgesagt compilation videos

[@jaypolas4136]

Yej

[@FRED.shorts]

NFT Idea 😄👍🏻

[@mr.cobbweb1624]

Oh my, you're starting to sneak in some 3D animation now (like in 3:21 with the hay monster being 3D). You are actually evolving and pushing this art style unlike certain other companies and entertainment producers and it really shows you guys' care for quality and innovation.

[@PixelMinez]

How can you tell it's 3D? The way the hair moves?

[@lambsauce1932]

@@PixelMinez you can tell by the way it is

[@ericsilver9401]

@@PixelMinez by the way it is you can tell

[@catalindeluxus8545]

Not sure how I feel about it. I prefer 2D actually!

[@Gaunerchen]

​@@catalindeluxus8545 the problem isnt 3D. The hair was not hand drawn/animated, but instead generated by CGI. That's why it looks a little janky and not fluid.

[@yurusei-eth]

Was introduced to the Dark Forest idea in Liu's books and the concept blew my mind. It's your Great Filter but in a completely different angle - the reason why we haven't heard from anyone is because everyone is hiding from each other, out of fear of annihilation. *mindblown*

[@aifa2692]

Except us. We're apparently out there actively looking for trouble. Not my choice.

[@vali69]

@@aifa2692 well yeah, we are like an ant dancing in the sun rays that come through the foliage on a leaf on a random branch somewhere in the forest.

[@jokhard8137]

@@vali69 If you choose to believe so, then yes.

[@vali69]

@@jokhard8137 as the video suggested, we're small and what we emit isn't enough for other civilizations to detect unless they were close to us. So yeah, our size is that of an ant in the vastness of the forrest that is the universe. That's my idea behind what I said and to me it makes sense. Does it not?

[@jokhard8137]

@@vali69 Ahh, now I think I understand what you were trying to say 😄

[@Degenevesting]

Nice try at the end there, Trisolaris. You can't fool me.

[@mandy2917]

I'm absolutely obsessed with this video and the idea it presents. I've seen all the other Fermi Paradox videos your team has made, but this one is the best in my personal opinion. It presents such a dark, grim, but possibly extremely realistic purview of what the universe might actually be like.

[@deryoad]

You should read the trilogy from Cixin Liu! First book is called the three body problem, second is “the dark forest” - so you can imagine it’s dead on the subject :)

[@Zz7722zZ]

@@deryoad reading the trilogy filled me with existential dread. It was so exhilarating yet depressing at the same time.

[@feodaron89]

there is another possibility...life on other planets and their "technologies" may be just incomprehensible for us. Take for example some kind of zerg from Starcraft, who literally grow their ships from biomass and communicate using psionics. We cannot communicate with such aliens. We will not be able to detect such aliens (they do not use radio waves). Our technologies are simply incompatible. And this is a very ... mundane example, because they can be much more bizarre. And they may not necessarily be a carbon-based life form like us. They could be silicon life form for example. Their physiology will be fundamentally different from ours.

[@The_Blue_Otaku]

Imagine earth finally getting a message from space, and after decoding it, the message says "new phone who dis"

[@Saplingbat]

Any civilization that makes it to an interstellar level will need to have a lot higher regard for sentient life forms than we do. Otherwise, like us, they'll end up offing themselves long before they get to the point where they can effectively travel the stars.

[@alexbehr6193]

As a longtime Kurzgesagt viewer, I've absolutely loved seeing their art style grow and flourish over time. The sequence with the hunter and the forest makes me wonder about a potential spin off series, where they write short stories and animate them in their amazing style. Would love to see something like that in the future!

[@shyguy1845]

That's a brilliant idea, they could use short stories to explore scientific ideas.

[@GarrettCARROTZ]

That part was actually really inspiring, as for an amateur writer myself. Would definitely be cool to see them explore it more.

[@pangaea5258]

If only everyone would see this video and realize that we're in this together - as a species. Puts all of our petty disputes in perspective.

[@luigiggig]

this

[@Skemmm]

but like none of the rich care

[@Pskpsi]

@@Skemmm I care :(

[@ethankoh6851]

When a bunch of birds have more sense than most of the world's politicians Warning: Comments below may be controversial

[@animeboitiddies6146]

except were not. the majority of us are little more than livestock, entertained so long as we sustain our betters. human rule is not benevolent.

[@wandrinsheep]

When Kurzegast finishes the 3 body problem trilogy and decides to make a video

[@raghav6271]

I always feel like that this kind of animation should be use in online teaching or E-Learning.I mean just look at this artistic style its would be very hard to distract yourself from these while studying

[@hackedtechnothief]

definitively. schools should learn a lot from content like this and adapt.

[@Shimo_28]

@@hackedtechnothief I wish so much

[@classypharaoh1584]

Schools often use kurzgesagt in classes. (Currently in high school) (AUSTRALIA)

[@Shimo_28]

@@classypharaoh1584 the only problem I have with schools overhere in (Slovakia) is that 40-60% we learn is useless bullcrap that I won't never need in my entire life. It is a bit better in high school but I still must learn some of the useless stuff that I don't care about

[@hackedtechnothief]

@@Shimo_28 I'm in the caribbeans and It's the same if not worst, theres a lot of decay education that is really slow on updating to modern times (on purpose as always)

[@LetsbeHonestOfficial]

I swear I could watch a 12 hour video of this and enjoy it more than most series out there. Thank you for another great year of educational entertainment! I can't wait for what you have in store for 12022.

[@GuilhermeDias-px5uw]

that's quite far from today

[@AlokKumar-tk1ty]

But thats necessity of our species now where most doesnt even know these exist and doesnt want to know being on youtube.... I.e we should prioritize the importance of things existing out there, atleast in our brain.....(not doing is different)

[@Dr.SyedSaifAbbasNaqvi]

If you ever feel disappointed of not seeing aliens just know that we are universe's way of experiencing itself.

[@Louis13XIII]

@@GuilhermeDias-px5uw it's next year

[@dcrxz8717]

Educational entertainment is not how I would describe this personally. It gives me existential crisis every time I see these videos. Haha

[@jonraybon8582]

In 2011, the first DayZ mod was launched, which features permadeath, and allowed players to interact however they wanted, for example teaming up to fight zombies.The exact opposite happened, where humans were far more of a threat than the zombies themselves. Seeing another player meant it was kill or be killed, usually before any type of communication was attempted. While groups did exist, they were set up beforehand and never developed organically. Even if another player only had a can of beans on them, it was far better to just kill them, and remove a potential existential threat. I imagine the universe will be much the same. There are quiet ones, and dead ones.

[@wbertie2604]

I'd be very wary of extrapolating from a video game based on an extreme premise. In video games people kill each other all the time, but it doesn't happen in daily life.

[@nicolas9675]

​@@wbertie2604 we kill eachother and anything that looks like a threat you tell me you wouldn't shoot a tentacle faced alien and you're lying lol

[@RJchaotic]

@@wbertie2604 People kill each other in real life all the time. The only difference is they don't respawn

[@wbertie2604]

@@RJchaotic people in games might kill fifty 'people' a night for years - that almost never happens in the real world, thank goodness.

[@DoporaBHe6o]

yeah. and killing each other on respawn to minimize chances of acquiring resources enough to kill you. great days though..

[@diosnelfrica590]

Now I realized this is a reference to the 3 body problem. What at a good series of books and a very good show

[@zLumi]

I read "The Three Body Problem" a few years ago, an amazing scifi book that has introduced the same concept. It had so many marvelous imaginations and stretched so far wondering for the future of humanity! Highly recommend it!!!

[@Todietipso]

The "Dark Forest Theory" was coined by the second book in the series "The Dark Forest". It is also an amazing follow up to the "The Three Body Problem"

[@woxpop8792]

@@Todietipso Wait the book coined the term? Cixin must be feeling pretty good about that one.

[@Nano12123]

You read the one the author made about ball lightning?

[@Arkume8Beltz]

The Three Body Problem..thanks i search it online.. :)

[@cabanossful]

Currently reading the wandering earth, supernova era and hold up the sky simultaneously

[@mcedge3368]

In some ways this reminds me of the prisoner paradox. There’s really four outcomes from this: 1. Both civilisations choose to cooperate, leading to an exchange of ideas and technology that benefits both civilisations. 2. We strike first, ensuring our own survival at the expense of the other civilisation. 3. They strike first, destroying us. 4. Both civilisations strike at the same time, destroying both akin to mutually assured destruction. The problem is we don’t have any clue what the other civilisation will do or even what they’re capable of doing, leading to option 2 being attractive. This, however, opens the door to option 4, the worst one of all.

[@m1lkG0lD]

Your mum

[@Dinoguy1000]

This is it exactly. The rational thing to do in a first-detection situation is to assume that the detected civilization is peaceful, and to approach any potential interaction peacefully. The other rational thing to do is to have already spread beyond a single planet (or restrain first-contact efforts until we've achieved this), and to not broadcast at least some of our off-planet colonies' existence. (The *other* other rational thing to do is to forego the idea of colonizing *planets*, and instead to build entirely artificial orbital/space-faring habitats, which can be moved at our whim and don't waste billions of kg of material for each habitable square/cubic meter of space.)

[@thekaboominator1]

@@Dinoguy1000 Yes, this is a big issue I have with the way the prisoners dilemma is taught: it's often put as if betraying them is the optimal option for you, when that locks you out of the best option (trusting each other) and very quickly takes you to the worst one (betraying each other). If each person is taught to betray the other, we'll all have a terrible time. But if we're taught that trusting each other leads to the best outcome for everyone, we're all more likely to make that choice and have a better time as a result. As a note, "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky has a very interesting resolution to this problem, one that hadn't occured to me before.

[@hoennnoodle]

it's the prisoner's dilemma. the nash equilibrium here is to strike simultaneously

[@BobertJoe]

@@thekaboominator1 Is the worst one the one where both get eliminated though? Is that worse than being destroyed without retaliation?

[@AnnoyedLion]

Legitimately one of the best pieces of animation I've seen this year, you guys knocked it out of the park with this one

[@chaosdweller]

Yer name lmao!

[@Cogitovision]

I'm glad someone figured this out and provided a great video on the topic. This is a message I used to bring up whenever people talked about alien life, but nobody listened.

[@drewbolton8286]

I was at a point in my life where I stagnated, information was just mundane- not worth collecting as it was no different. You guys helped fuel my curiosity again, I thank you for my recent endeavour to be a Cartographer in university. I'll always tune in to the hub of galactic tutoring- here's to many more years to come! Kurzgesagt to the stars!!

[@Skemmm]

cool

[@jamesbenz3228]

It sounds like you may suffer from arrogance and you might oscillate between that feeling and intense, overt insecurity. I say "suffer" from arrogance because it's not you, but rather your ego trying to protect itself that causes those feelings. It can lead to alienation and depression. Practicing mindfulness of those feelings is a good way to combat them. All the best and stay curious.

[@Goat-on-a-Stick]

Something tells me that if they were dangerous enough to pose a threat, they'd probably know about us first.

[@denisdenak]

Maybe they do

[@bosha6654]

well really any space capable civilisation would be a threat to pretty much every other space capable civilisation because of the big rock technique (tm)

[@Needkey.]

And if they were a threat we'd already be dead. They are already here in any case, as Earth is one big Zoo, and we, the exhibits.

[@alexanfung]

yes, so in contrary, if their (our) weapons are not advance enough, do not detect others as the detection may trigger their technological explosion

[@froggy3047]

No they can't the universe is too big if they knew they needs to be really close to use probably 1 light years away...

[@thesilentastrophotograper6594]

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C Clarke.

[@A_87mine]

E

[@Skemmm]

hello

[@BOTOND8357]

bottom text

[@gabrielvicente8406]

We definitely aren’t alone. We can’t be.

[@ilnur9973]

The former is less terrifying. It means we can play gods and give birth to more life

[@k1b04ALL]

Back after binging on 3 Body Problem ☀️☀️☀️

[@David-iv6je]

Gah read the books first. Doesn't this always go without saying? 95% of the time the book is better than the movie/show.

[@k1b04ALL]

@@David-iv6je who said I didn’t? :)

[@pphead9960]

Space has always fascinated me since I was little. The fact that space is so massive that our brains can’t even comprehend the actual size of it is scary but also incredibly cool to me. I’ve always thought that if the universe was that big there has got to be life somewhere else. I mean we exist after all.

[@avg_user-dd2yb]

It's not massive it's all illusion.

[@Gluepancake]

@@avg_user-dd2yb what do u mean

[@TheModeler99]

we are seperate by space and time. Take Andromeda for example, it's 2 mill light years away. We could send a message there, but by the time it reaches a planet it only has bacteria life but no intelligent life yet. On the other hand, there could be intelligent life there and they receive our message and send a reply, but by the time it reaches us(4mill years in the future) we may have gone extinct and can't reply

[@egovides3369]

@@Gluepancake cOnSpiRaCy

[@HotLeafJuicer]

@@avg_user-dd2yb yeah, bet you think Earth is flat too lol.

[@smokeymcpot851]

#2 on Trending!!! So happy to see how far Kurzgesagt has come. The best of the best, you guys have earned it!

[@nicluvin3731]

@✪Hidden The narrator of Kurzgesagt is my uncle haha He tells me about the days they'd smoke "the hollandaise sauce" in college and brain storm ideas. But it took bout a decade of sober brain storms for them to really get stuff seriously on track.

[@ashraile]

'Gaming'

[@Alteori]

Now this is my type of video. I say that we're possibly making a big mistake trying to contact aliens if any do exist out there on our level of intelligence or higher. 4:16 Also, I think the only (main) reason we're so "peaceful" is because most countries have weapons of mass destruction and we don't want retaliation. THAT is the main thing. We've become equally dangerous to one another that it is wise to avoid conflict bc of how catastrophic it would be for all

[@gregoirebrougher6564]

I mean it's a risk I'd be willing to take. The only problem is it is a risk that has to be taken on behalf of all of us and it would be unfair to force it upon some of us. There is always the solution of hiding some of the population if they want to stay in hiding and if the aliens just send mega nukes our way they probably don't have time to figure out anyone hid.

[@berserk0077]

It's called the *Prisoner Dilemma*

[@rey_nemaattori]

The same thing would apply to other civilizations, in a few decades we'll be capable of destroying planets aswell. This would imply most galactic civilizations are rather peaceful as well, as destroying one other becomes really easy as evergy availability and technology advances

[@rollerskdude]

If they are "our level of intelligence or higher". It would probably be in our interest to discover the intent any potential alien life. The best means for that would probably be for other planetary colonisations to be unintentional decoys. Just like extending an olive branch with top tier means of fighting held behind the olive branch (e.g. the biggest nukes we have, or whatever the most advanced weaponry at the time is).

[@rob-123]

The video i watch before this was about historical records of UFO. Europe had the best one in the middle ages where there was pretty much a Star wars battle going off and the victor did a fly by in a massive vessel. They recorded it as some miracle of God at the time.

[@두루미-g2t]

정공룡의 추천을 받고 달려옴 공룡님은 이런 거 어케 찾으셨다냐

[@KalebPeters99]

I don't see enough appreciation for the wonderful alien designs in all of your space videos. Between the ships, the weapons, the planets, the architecture and the organisms themselves, they're always so creative and add so much to the atmosphere. This video was as beautiful as ever, you continue to outdo yourself with the animations 😍👌

[@JBUG]

Ah hell yeah, thanks for covering this. A great mix of philosophy and astronomy

[@A_87mine]

Hello Mr verified

[@outsider357]

c h e c k m a r k

[@infernogear571]

Agreed man

[@DagreenApple]

Look at those fellow verified cheakmark

[@Hey-cj9nl]

Never expected to see you here

[@ignorasmus]

One key thing to remember: This all discussion is not just about Aliens but specifically about alien "Civilizations" - beyond certain stage of technological development milestones. If some alien civilization had looked at earth in the Jurassic era (Or even in the 18th century) they would have no reason to fear Earthlings. (Not considering the effects of pathogens etc. which are a totally different kind of threat than gun powder or Nukes.)

[@legohexman2858]

Yah but they would prob keep an eye as they could probably relate the Jurassic to some period in their own history.

[@trollgamer7435]

i think they wouldve actually exterminated earth back then cuz it would show them that most likely eventually earth will have an advanced civilization and taking light lag into account we would most certainly alrdy have an advanced civilization when theyre looking at us so if they actually want to exterminate competition they wouldve done it when there were only a few scaly beasts or even better when there was only prehistoric sludge ... because if u actually think like the drak forest theory suggests u wouldnt wait for the others to be capable of fighting back you would eradicate them long before that

[@BarbarianGod]

@@trollgamer7435 we already got hit by one big rock, it didn't do the job :P

[@Slechy_Lesh]

@@trollgamer7435 Well, this dark forest theory - as expressed in a short video at least - is a bit simplistic. Why would you eradicate something with life on, in a universe (seemingly) full of no life? Even if messages take a long time to send, evolution from dinosaurs takes longer. Also, even getting to the dinosaur stage is rare. There were many hugely lucky events that gave rise to advanced life on our planet, and many failures even then, e.g. whatever suddenly killed off the dinosaurs, probably a comet. The same will be true for the genesis of alien life. And if there is the - even more lucky - fluke occurrence that an alien civilisation comparitively advanced to our own is in the neighborhood at the same time as us? They will surely be aware of all this too. I'm not saying they won't be malicious, but nuking us would be a last resort.

[@demonthegamer3624]

@@BarbarianGod i mean, a space rock is what caused us to exist, without that rock crashing we wouldn't really exist and earth would probably not have any intelligent life for another few billion years or so. So if they tried to prevent competition, then they're terrible at doing it as instead of eliminating competition they just added more

[@emmavfarrellfrost]

Alien using a translator: hello, we have come to maybe form a galactic alliance. Us:🔨💣🧨🪓🔪🗡⚔️

[@willphoenix5464]

Glad to see the Dark Forest theory gain a bit of time in the spotlight. Reading it in the Three Body Problem's trilogy was a sudden and rather dreadful realitzation

[@Skemmm]

oooh, I read some other comments citing this book, gotta read it.

[@TheOnlyDragonGod]

If the next two books good I have read the first but haven't had the chance to get to the next two

[@andrewmurphy2088]

@@TheOnlyDragonGod the second one is the best book I have ever read. Third book is very strong also

[@TheOnlyDragonGod]

@@andrewmurphy2088 interesting I will look to reading them

[@neeneko]

I'm kinda in the opposite direction. Long before Three Body Problem, dark forest was a recurring trope in sci-fi. It fell out of favor at least half a century ago, but Liu Cixin grew up on those books so brought it back from the dustbin of history. It was an idea rooted in an era where mercantilism and colonialism were the dominant economic theories and while the books skip over that aspect (since it would betray its age), the whole idea still rests on VERY outdated economics and political science. So I am actually a bit sad to see it get so much attention again.

[@Erica-nf2tj]

Holy crap guys, you totally outdid yourselves. This video is a visual buffet and I loved every second, especially the parts with "the dark forest." Thank you so much for making my day once again!

[@Doc_Tar]

You should read Liu Cixin's trilogy. I just finished "Dark Forest" and it's every bit as thought provoking as this short video makes it out to be.

[@BloodyMobile]

"vengance!" PEW "nope" It's also interesting how realistic the kinetic planet killer is: all you need is a satellite with enough redundancy to last as long as possible and set it off to it's target. Depending on the distance you can get enough energy with solar sails, it just has to be noticed too late.

[@grime2.085]

Which wouldn’t even be that late if you set off a couple dozen of them they would be screwed

[@anubhavbhura13]

As a matter of fact on modern scale it is much much easier to destroy large amounts of things on a huge scale beyond repair, while even the smallest of things require large efforts to create and maintain. At this point large scale conflict between ourselves, let alone interplanetary will be devastating, like a nuclear war. But maybe like a nuclear standoff we have today, the species will realise, if you have a planet killer satellite, maybe they do too. I hope if not mutual desire for peace, then mutual threat of extinction can keep us safe.

[@adedamolayusuff5995]

@@anubhavbhura13 Ah yes, some Cold War MAD vibes

[@SikGamer70]

And such a devastating weapon still wouldn't make a dent on a relatively simple type 1 civilization that is capable of surviving in deep space within its solar system. Wipe out its home planets? It will turn its near-undetectable deep space weapons on you, then proceed to terraform the damage you caused to its environments and re-colonize using its space stations.

[@jasonreed7522]

How to make it too late: Take a 2m diameter asteroid, paint it black / radio absorbent (like a modern stealth bomber), attach an ion engine with enough power and fuel to push it for a few hundred years, do the math and give the engine enough attitude control to stay on the back side of the rock. We probably won't detect this rock until it got within a few light seconds of earth. But the probable only counter to such a weapon would be to try and hit it with an identical rock on the exact same flight path, which is much harder than hitting a planet even if you knew its flight path and that it was launched from the moment they pressed the button. Maybe if it hit something in the ort cloud the debris wouldn't turn Earth into Alderan.

[@lluissantamarta7774]

Who came here after watching the 3 Body Problem?

[@maxweber06]

This would make a sick 4x Stellaris-like game. One that is massively multiplayer, with the starter tech being the ability to completely wipe out another player's planets with absolutely no warning. Limited resources force the player to expand quickly or face extinction, unlike in other 4x games where most empires are self-sustaining. However, expansion from a player that is too quick, or lacking in proper cloaking, would reveal themselves to others. Thus, the game then revolves around in-depth interstellar espionage. The closest approximation would be anarchy Minecraft servers where bases are days apart, and exposure is near-guaranteed destruction. It's also a deep dive into the psychology of griefing in games and should ensure that the entire playthrough is quite hostile. Finally, an emphasis on quick restarts would allow fast bounce backs and lessen the negative impacts of empire destruction, similar to other quick-start games.

[@rafaelmartinez9259]

Noice

[@revon7202]

minecraft anarchy isnt that 😂😂 from a player

[@thejeaker384]

You might find of your interest "planetary annihilation: Titans" but that doesn't offer diplomacy or complex ways of administration for your faction as it's a fairly simple RTS

[@tnynfox1669]

I'm considering a Stellaris mod like this.

[@Agent707]

​@@SongokuJidai Denis Villeneuve made a movie about that called "The Arrival."

[@ironhornforge]

It's insane that we are even preparing for and looking for other possible life forms close to us considering only 100+ years ago we hadn't lifted off the ground in aircraft..

[@5000mahmud]

failing to prepare is preparing to fail

[@Unknown-jt1jo]

It's been 120 years since the first heavier-than-air aircraft.

[@fraeve0145]

That's how fast we're progressing technologically

[@MossyMozart]

@@5000mahmud - Did you get that from an inspirational poster that HR taped onto the wall of the kitchenette at work? .^_^.

[@krystalgardiner5591]

That’s bc history is a lie

[@Han-b5o3p]

I just finished the three body problem trilogy. Thank you Kurzgesagt

[@Benjamin_Kraft]

Though I think this idea is one of the more interesting solutions to the fermi paradox, it kinda suffers from similar issues lots of others do. Primarily non-exclusivity. It assumes that every curious peaceful civilization ever won't ever meet a likeminded civilization and start a coalition which could potentially overpower any malevolent aggressive civilisations, even if they don't strike first. Also it assumes that all civilizations will center on planets, whilst a far more likely speculation is that most civilizations between 1 and 2 (and above) on the kardeshev scale will have the vast share of their population in space habitats, which would be far less visible and vulnerable to relativistic kill missiles. I also think that this kind of strike first behavior is quite antithetical to the evolutionist argument at the base of this speculation. Curiosity seems to be one of the primary drivers of human success rather than forceful aggressiveness. And even when humans have treated other humans terribly it has most of the times taken forms of subjugation/assimilation rather than outright extermination. Most of the times... I think there's also an argument to be made that many advanced civilizations might prioritize to spread fast to accumulate resources to enable to protect itself. It wouldn't be impossible to do so while keeping a low profile as a near type 2 or type 2 civ. I see the counter argument here would be that then you risk running into another civ, but no. If a civ reaches type 2 checking for other type 2 civ dyson swarms in the entire galaxy should be relatively simple, even long before type 2 is reached. And even if such a type 2 civ encountered hostile civs they would be below type 2, making their threat level relatively small (excluding extremely speculative clarke-tech). Such a civ would be able to colonize until the entire galaxy was theirs. This naturally brings us back to the Dyson Dilemma, which is essentially the most glaring part of the fermi paradox. Simply; it doesn't make sense for every civ ever to sit back and wait for others to colonize the galaxy, and that every civ ever that do colonize are invariably eliminated. Most, maybe, but not all of them, and eventually one should rise to the top and just colonize everything. Which should have happened by now, if we assume intelligent life was common enough for The Dark Forest to be a concern to begin with. My go to fermi paradox solution is still the combination of rare-earth, rare-life and rare-intelligence arguments. Though it's far too early to confirm any of these, and though they clearly appeal to cognitive biases of us being "special", it seems the most likely speculation among all the others. I think we are, in fact, first, at least in this galaxy.

[@Rayneuki]

I agree entirely. Us being the first to get to this point (however fast that 'first' may be) makes the most sense in general. I don't like the all-or-nothing idea of intelligent life existing means they have to be space fairing, as our own progress was over a very short period of time. There could be a myriad of civilizations around the universe that are just discovering radio, we would never know and they would never be able to know that we exist. Could we possibly meet them in the far flung future? Maybe. How would we as a species react to these people? We don't know.

[@okuno54]

Being the first intelligent life in the galaxy does make sense; it's basically the Anthropic Principle applied to Fermi's Paradox (i.e. if we weren't the first, we wouldn't be around to consider the Fermi Paradox), but with so many unknowns, I'm reluctant to commit to any particular solution.

[@tacitozetticci9308]

I think the most likely solutions would be: 1) the pessimistic one, with the Great Filter still in our future. or 2) advanced civilizations eventually somehow find a way out of the galactic jungles, escaping to an unreachable place we can't imagine while still having some source of energy. (Now the crazy idea: you know we're basically caged inside our local group of galaxies because of the expansion of the universe right? Well, wouldn't that be the ultimate way to isolate oneself from the rest of the universe? Generating such a phenomenon intentionally, a civilization with universal influence … it wouldn't be impossible after billions of years right? But yeah I guess physicists would have noticed by now, the data would point to a sudden acceleration popping out of nowhere in the history of the universe, and I don't think that's the case.)

[@BingChilling5973]

i think you’re actually an alien in the comment section shedding light to your overpowered colonization of the galaxy. but that’s cool dude, spare me.

[@shalleyvalley]

I am not reading I am not reading

[@StephenHenryIV]

Dark Forest Theory was always so discomforting. Like there’s billion of eyes on us waiting for a chance to strike, but they know the 1st that does reveals themselves so they all just let us be.

[@couldntcareless7884]

That’s not really it. I mean, there are multiple ways to strike, while remaining concealed. Simplest one would be to launch a strike from far away from your home system. The idea isn’t that they watch us. The idea is that they watch everything, striking at the one who reveals themselves. We’re alive because we didn’t.

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

Dark forest theory?

[@RGC_animation]

We aren't even a type one civilization yet and it would probably be a couple hundred thousands year before we even come close to being a potential hazard to them, they probably have other more important things to worry about than to kill a random level 1 planet.

[@StephenHenryIV]

@@Cooldude-ko7ps the theory of all other life hiding in the dark forest of space, hoping nothing else finds them, striking hard and fast if something does.

[@gaebolglancer]

When you've just arrived in Greed Island

[@Gohangasalamiimalasagnahog]

Amazing video! I love the fact that the narrator says our theory could be completely wrong just because of our biases and how we only know things from the human experience and there are possibly other non human perspectives out there but we don’t know. A truly masterful mixture of knowledge, creativity , and humility of thought. I’m looking forward to next year’s videos. Cheers to everyone for a great 2022!

[@Skywalker8510]

@DON'T no I don’t think I will

[@aitoluxd]

@DON'T I checked your profile. I DON'T like it

[@prakharsrivastava9568]

Dark forest and Death's End by Liu Cixin cover this topic in fantastic detail, truly widening the scope of this concept. Must read!

[@HandToolRescue]

Always be weary of "the implication".

[@imthetrollman9279]

YOUR'E RIGHT. I DIDN'T THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS. OMG PAUL I DIDN'T THINK ABOUT IT!

[@ButWhyMe...]

lol no m8. *The US fires first

[@ButWhyMe...]

@bruh ? Is this a joke?

[@tulliodesantis4290]

is this from always sunny?

[@vonabod4259]

😄😄😄

[@sz9217]

The Dark Forest theory was raised by Cixin Liu in the second book of his Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novel series The Three-Body Problem (winner of 2015), it's the first Chinese sci-fi novel that has won the Hugo Award and it excelled every expectation for me! I strongly recommend reading all 3 books in the series if you're into hard sci-fi (the 2nd book is the best in my opinion), its English translated version by Ken Liu is exceptionally well done and is available on Amazon, just read the reviews, they are more eloquent than me for sure lol

[@tudoproductions]

Isn't that the movie where humanity leaves earth on a huge spaceship? EDIT - Thats wandering earth, my confusion xD

[@hal9khal]

I liked the first book the most, then the second. Very hardcore sci-fi...

[@TAP-Eruannon]

personally I enjoyed the first book, but ever since second it went downhill to be completely honest; Story built on an obviously faulty premise that holds up only most basic reading of the idea and holds up only in analogy of a hunter alone, and breaks down completely once you take into account the implications of scale of the universe.

[@sparklesparklesparkle6318]

hey man if you like Sci Fi literature check out the manga Spirit Circle. It's only 45 chapters I finished it on Saturday it was so good can't stop thinking about it. This is probably the only time you will ever hear it mentioned.

[@TAP-Eruannon]

@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 thanks for recommendation; I'll take a look at it

[@jleague5749]

It would have been funny if they ended this with the two hunters coming out into the clearing, finally casting off their mutual fear and distrust... only to get hit by a relativisitic kill vehicle.

[@tobymaltby6036]

Their fear and distrust was all...... ......relative.

[@motifity3416]

Their deaths were relative too.

[@Creativestname]

Their life was relative

[@berretta9mm17]

@@Creativestname Even their relatives were relative.

[@Creativestname]

Lol

[@KeeperCharlie]

This reminds me of Ender's game a bit. Can't communicate, must attack first. But in reality not enough effort was made to actually communicate.