The Three Body Problem doesn’t say that environmentalism leads to a desire for the world be conquered by Trisolaris. Liu explains that environmentalism is often a symptom of a deep hatred for humanity. So rather than sharing a link of direct causation, environmentalism and Trisolaran worship are both co-related to an inner hatred for humanity. Many of these environmentalist intellectuals come from a place of hatred towards humanity rather than love for the natural world. It is hard to consciously acknowledge one’s hatred for humanity and it’s next to impossible to hold that view publicly. So these hateful people attach themselves to the ideology that most clearly aligns with their inner desires, environmentalism.
At its most pure, environmentalism really is misaligned with humanity. The concept of environmentalism itself necessitates that it is incongruous with humanism. There are paths that improve the human race, and paths that improve the environment. If these paths are co-aligned then there is no need for separate terms and there would be no conflicts between environmentalists and humanists. But because there are conflicts the paths must be separate. What is best for humans cannot in all cases be best for the environment and vice-versa. An environmentalist is someone who comes to a fork in the road and always chooses the path which is best for the environment to the inevitable detriment of humanity.
If you put some thought into it (or you could say, take a cynical view) you can see then that environmentalism is for many a front for their inner hatred of humanity. Therefore when a new opportunity comes to support a powerful group with the explicit goal of destroying humanity, the ETO, well these environmentalist intellectuals just can’t pass it up. It’s the same way the black nationalists used to ally themselves with civil rights groups because being an explicit black nationalist wasn’t tenable at the time. Now that their true ideology has a place in the world these people have splintered off their previous host ideology and become more true to themselves and their real goals.
You also misunderstand the point of the Dark Forest theory. You misunderstand it most explicitly here,
What is most weird is, all of this applies back on Earth. Life still expands without limit. Resources remain finite. Offense is far cheaper than defense. Why don’t we inhabit the dark forest?
You have completely neglected two of the central points of Dark Forest theory which is that the cosmic civilizations in question have completely separate cultures and the large number of civilizations in the galaxy. At the very least, the level of cross-cultural communication required to sufficiently allay the fears of both sides is nigh impossible between alien civilizations. Earth doesn’t have the issue of cross-cultural communication because compared to cultures from an alien civilization, the Earth has just one culture. The chain of suspicion stretches long and when your only method of communication requires rough translation it is very easy to get stuck at a point where Civilization A thinks there’s a 25% chance that Civilization B thinks that Civilization A is going to launch a preemptive strike against them. Civ A and Civ B are in a continuous prisoner’s dilemma where if one chooses defect the other faces absolute annihilation.
The second point you forget is that it takes just one malevolent civilization out of the millions in the galaxy to ensure enforcement of the dark forest. Even if out of a million civilizations, 990,000 will disregard coordinates for a dark forest strike, even if 9,990 of the rest only respond with subtle probing, all it takes is one out of those ten remaining trigger-happy civilizations to destroy a whole star system. We never reached near that number of distinct civilizations on Earth.
Lastly, while I can see how you would dislike Liu’s take on the ideology of equality, you haven’t provided anything to dispute it. Many people in the modern age explicitly endorse the goal of harming the better off to promote equality in the world. Some of the most common scales used today to judge overall well-being of different nations focus entirely on economic and social inequality. Liu takes this liberal perspective to it’s extreme and quite accurately at that. Escapism is the most extreme form of inequality and any liberal of the modern day would detest the very idea of the rich and powerful getting to flee a burning Earth to live forever as the rest of us suffer and die.
The Three Body Problem doesn’t say that environmentalism leads to a desire for the world be conquered by Trisolaris. Liu explains that environmentalism is often a symptom of a deep hatred for humanity. So rather than sharing a link of direct causation, environmentalism and Trisolaran worship are both co-related to an inner hatred for humanity. Many of these environmentalist intellectuals come from a place of hatred towards humanity rather than love for the natural world. It is hard to consciously acknowledge one’s hatred for humanity and it’s next to impossible to hold that view publicly. So these hateful people attach themselves to the ideology that most clearly aligns with their inner desires, environmentalism.
At its most pure, environmentalism really is misaligned with humanity. The concept of environmentalism itself necessitates that it is incongruous with humanism. There are paths that improve the human race, and paths that improve the environment. If these paths are co-aligned then there is no need for separate terms and there would be no conflicts between environmentalists and humanists. But because there are conflicts the paths must be separate. What is best for humans cannot in all cases be best for the environment and vice-versa. An environmentalist is someone who comes to a fork in the road and always chooses the path which is best for the environment to the inevitable detriment of humanity.
If you put some thought into it (or you could say, take a cynical view) you can see then that environmentalism is for many a front for their inner hatred of humanity. Therefore when a new opportunity comes to support a powerful group with the explicit goal of destroying humanity, the ETO, well these environmentalist intellectuals just can’t pass it up. It’s the same way the black nationalists used to ally themselves with civil rights groups because being an explicit black nationalist wasn’t tenable at the time. Now that their true ideology has a place in the world these people have splintered off their previous host ideology and become more true to themselves and their real goals.
You also misunderstand the point of the Dark Forest theory. You misunderstand it most explicitly here,
You have completely neglected two of the central points of Dark Forest theory which is that the cosmic civilizations in question have completely separate cultures and the large number of civilizations in the galaxy. At the very least, the level of cross-cultural communication required to sufficiently allay the fears of both sides is nigh impossible between alien civilizations. Earth doesn’t have the issue of cross-cultural communication because compared to cultures from an alien civilization, the Earth has just one culture. The chain of suspicion stretches long and when your only method of communication requires rough translation it is very easy to get stuck at a point where Civilization A thinks there’s a 25% chance that Civilization B thinks that Civilization A is going to launch a preemptive strike against them. Civ A and Civ B are in a continuous prisoner’s dilemma where if one chooses defect the other faces absolute annihilation.
The second point you forget is that it takes just one malevolent civilization out of the millions in the galaxy to ensure enforcement of the dark forest. Even if out of a million civilizations, 990,000 will disregard coordinates for a dark forest strike, even if 9,990 of the rest only respond with subtle probing, all it takes is one out of those ten remaining trigger-happy civilizations to destroy a whole star system. We never reached near that number of distinct civilizations on Earth.
Lastly, while I can see how you would dislike Liu’s take on the ideology of equality, you haven’t provided anything to dispute it. Many people in the modern age explicitly endorse the goal of harming the better off to promote equality in the world. Some of the most common scales used today to judge overall well-being of different nations focus entirely on economic and social inequality. Liu takes this liberal perspective to it’s extreme and quite accurately at that. Escapism is the most extreme form of inequality and any liberal of the modern day would detest the very idea of the rich and powerful getting to flee a burning Earth to live forever as the rest of us suffer and die.