Thanks for the thoughtful and interesting responses, looking forward to listening to the podcast. I loved the Cixin trilogy, but hadn’t heard of the dark forest theory applied to online conversations before. I’m not sure I agree with such a strong suggestion, maybe more that the people that are most verbal in a group are rarely the people with the most interesting thoughts. It is sadly becoming increasingly true though that anything you say is now a permanent liability.

Have you read the Three Body Problem trilogy, by any chance? It talks about the dark forest theory, except in terms of alien civilizations.

Upon relistening to that podcast I realized Yancey wrote it as an article originally: “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet” by Yancey Strickler https://link.medium.com/0MeIwL0ET7

The podcast is amazing and worth listening to regardless.