The problem with The Three Body Problem

Netflix are currently streaming an adaptation of the Chinese Sci-Fiction series of novels commonly titled the Thee Body problem which has as its premise the idea (once again) of humanity encountering an advanced but malignant alien species.

I realise that ultimately all such genre is really just a reflection of our own fears around the ill intent of the tribe next door but I’ve come to resent it because it simply doesn’t make any sense if you come a bit closer to fire to see better what it is we are talking about.

What all films about Earth being invaded have to first get you to accept is that a species, having advanced enough to be capable of discovering & deploying faster than light travel, would also, for inexplicable reasons, have not bothered evolving its cultural ethos beyond ruthless domination and savage conquest. That the need to ravage and forcibly plunder wouldn’t in any way dwindle once you’ve reached the intelligence capable of manipulating matter at a sub-atomic level.

In the end we always extrapolate aliens as being but just more us - I think it was was Von Daniken who suggested the Peruvian Nazca lines were in fact runways built by aliens - invoking a civilisation in possession of craft capable of crossing entire galaxies but which could only land and take off like B52's.

The Three Body Problem is based on what is know as The Dark Forest Hypothesis- that Humanity has to keep schtum in case a superior civilisation spots us and gobbles us up - which is itself sublimely reductionist in taking us all the way way back to when we were mouse sized entities scurrying amidst the ferns trying to avoid being eaten by dinosaurs

Curious how it is the antithesis to the Star Trek ‘to boldly go’ here instead our grand mission statement seems to be ‘to quake with uncertainly like no one has quaked before’ - an interesting reflection of the zeitgeist perhaps?

My issue with the entire premise of the Dark Forest is that curiosity is the absolute primary accelerator behind knowledge, intelligence and the quest for wisdom.

It is the drive to investigate & solve problems which fosters progress and development - a risk averse non curious species wouldn’t and couldn’t advance to being contactable - the urge to discover is either unique to humanity so we’re alone or shared as a Universal so why would neighbours who possess that commonality ignore one another’s existence?

Curiosity triumphing over fear is what makes us ‘boldly go” in the first place.