Urban Sims

The derivation of the Dark Forest Law is based on the two basic axioms of "Sociology of the Universe".

1. Survival is the first need of civilization.

2. Civilization is constantly growing and expanding, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains basically unchanged.

The above two points are correct to a certain extent, but it is too ridiculous to deduce the "Dark Forest Law" based on these two points alone.

"There are currently 300 billion known galaxies in the universe. The number of stars contained in each galaxy ranges from hundreds of millions to tens of trillions. With such a large number of stars, it is impossible for there to be insufficient resources. Under such circumstances, the number of effectively developed galaxies may be less than one in 100,000.”

"The universe is big and life is bigger!"

Dr. Heng said: "Put a monocyte in a sea. If this cell divides every half hour, then in three days, the entire sea will be filled with such cells! Exponential growth is a devil. In this In front of a demon, no amount of resources can satisfy this demon's needs!"

"This algorithm is correct, but the actual situation is: even if you give this cell three months, it and its descendants cannot fill the entire ocean. The existence of other variables will have a huge impact on this theoretical model. , and no matter what species it is, the increase in population size, on the premise that the living space cannot increase exponentially simultaneously, will change from an exponential curve to a smooth one... No civilization can grow and expand infinitely."

"But it always needs to expand, right? This civilization needs to expand, and so does that civilization. The total amount of resources remains unchanged, and they all need to expand. Will there not be conflicts?"

"The possibility of conflict exists, but there is a premise. Only when both civilizations have expanded to the maximum limit and can no longer expand can a war break out. However, there are very few intelligent civilizations in the galaxy, and each intelligent civilization The distance between civilizations is very wide, and there are a large number of material buffer zones and unclaimed lands. Before these unowned resources are fully developed, it is unlikely that two civilizations will start a war over the unowned resources. According to the Based on the first-come, first-served principle, they will intensify their development efforts.”

"And there has never been such a war in history - a country traveled thousands of miles to occupy another country before conquering the nearby wilderness."

Yun Xinghe added: "Moreover, war has the logic of war. Two civilizations that have never met each other, just because they are close or discover each other's existence, will let each other be destroyed or die together. This kind of thing, history It has almost never happened in the world. War does not necessarily mean destruction. War can also mean conquest, integration, and unification... Even if all the intelligent life forms of the other party's civilization are turned into slaves, it is unlikely that they will all be massacred."

"Of course, it cannot be completely denied that there have been many massacres in the history of some civilizations. This was caused by the gap between strength and weakness. It may also be caused by the large generation gap in weapons. Too great a gap in military strength will indeed lead to The weak one will be completely destroyed.”

"But if both sides have the same technical level and have shotguns with similar attack power, massacre is a stupid act. It will only arouse stronger resistance and bring more heavy losses to ourselves."

"You have admitted that there is massacre. Isn't this the embodiment of the law of the dark forest? What is wrong with this?"

Dr. Heng said, Yun Xinghe himself has proved that this law is correct, how could it be wrong?

Yun Xinghe shook his head:

"The mistake is that this law is too narrow. It crudely compares the competition between civilizations to a life-and-death zero-sum game. In fact, the only way to resolve conflicts is war. The role of diplomacy must not be ignored! If a civilization does not establish a complete diplomatic system, it will be difficult for this civilization to get out of the cradle. Even if it enters the interstellar age, such an extreme civilization will either perish in a war or die in the interstellar era. In the war, become the final winner, and all civilizations will be conquered and destroyed by it."

"The law of the dark forest is actually to completely obliterate the diplomatic attributes in civilization, choose not to trust, not accept, and not contact everything around you, and arbitrarily regard different civilizations in the universe as a killing game. Different players have nothing but killing each other..."

"In fact, if all civilizations followed the so-called dark forest laws, the prospects of this universe and this galaxy would be unimaginable."

but……

After explaining so much, Dr. Heng still shook his head:

"Don't trust any civilization, and don't interact with other civilizations! The laws of the dark forest tell us: every civilization has bad intentions, and we must be vigilant."

"Could it be that you came here with good intentions?"

Dr. Heng questioned.

Yun Xinghe choked.

this……

If you are so stubborn, how can you continue to communicate?

Dr. Heng has been completely brainwashed by the so-called "Dark Forest Law".

"Grandpa, do you still know what point of view the wise captain used to defeat the 'Law of the Dark Forest'? Tell me quickly, how to defeat him?"

"The captain seems to have proposed three positive laws, namely the law of war, the law of competition, and what other laws, yes, the moral law! These three laws are sharp swords that pierce the laws of the dark forest... This I’m not very clear on the specific content of the three laws, but you can put forward a paradox, a paradox that makes him unable to answer and immediately shakes him.”

"What paradox?" Yun Xinghe asked quickly.

"Since there is only destruction among civilizations, why haven't the Three-Eyed People destroyed Erqi Planet so far, and why hasn't the Blue Star Federation destroyed the Three-Eyed People immediately?"

"yes!"

Yun Xinghe's eyes lit up, and he immediately repeated the question to Dr. Heng: "Since you know the existence of the Dark Forest Law, why didn't you kill all the Erqi Planet people? And when we came to your home, why didn't we destroy you immediately? ?”

"Because the Erqi Star people have become our slaves, and slaves are not a threat."

Dr. Heng thought for a while, then looked at Yun Xinghe and said, "As for you not destroying us, it's because... you also want to enslave us!"

"Okay! If we are enslaving you, and all of you three-eyed people have become slaves, do you still think that we will destroy you?" Yun Xinghe asked again.

"Probably not...we still have value."

"Okay! In the same way, if higher civilizations also have the technology and strength to enslave other civilizations, and those lower civilizations have certain utilization value and can be turned into non-threatening slaves, you say, these higher civilizations will also Are you traveling thousands of miles away specifically to destroy the slaves in their eyes?"

"this……"

There was a click.

In Dr. Heng's heart, something unusually strong broke, causing tiny cracks.

Then, the cracks expanded and spread, and with a crash, this solid thing turned into fragments on the ground.

"Yes, since advanced civilizations have highly developed technology, why would they travel thousands of miles to eliminate slaves who pose no threat? Weak people are always afraid of the strong, but in the minds of the strong, What idea, how can a weak person know it?”

After all, an elephant would value a cheetah, but how could it care about the ants beneath its feet?

The biggest flaw in the Dark Forest Law is that it compares all civilizations to "hunters" with guns, and puts all civilizations on the same level. This is actually very inappropriate. In fact, it should be compared to lions, tigers, Eagle, wolf, rabbit, sheep, snake, mouse, ant - this is actually more appropriate.

As for the stars, planets and other resources in the universe, they are like grasslands and forests in nature. They are the stage for these animals to grow, reproduce, compete, and play games.

Predation between the weak and the strong will always exist, but a lion will not appear and kill all the animals in the forest; an elephant will not appear and travel thousands of miles to trample an ant's nest.

Therefore, the reason why a civilization’s progress is limited is never technological backwardness, but narrow-mindedness.

"It's not scary for ants to know that they are weak. What's scary is that the ant's vision is always only as wide as its own eyes... Any civilization, no matter how weak, if it doesn't have a vision as wide as an elephant and a heart as big as an elephant, He will never grow to the level of an elephant!"

In Yun Xinghe's mind, he suddenly remembered a passage said by the teacher of "Cosmic Diplomacy".

Personally, I think the "Dark Forest Law" is indeed a bit narrow. In fact, we can know from the existence of more than 200 countries on the earth that resources, weakness, and poverty will not lead to the demise of small countries, and the complete destruction of opponents is not normal civilized competition.