Against the dark forest
The complex of ideas I’m going to call the Dark Internet Forest emerges from mostly insidery tech thinking, but from multiple directions.
Building in the dark forest
We write from our new home in the Dark Forest. This week we fully committed to our new universe: we abandoned Slack and moved all operations into DFOS, our new tool, available more widely in the coming weeks. It feels good in here. Calm. Cozy. Just enough activity for things
The Dark Forest and the Cozy Web
An illustrated diagram exposing the inner layers of the dark and cozy web
The dark forest theory of the internet
In his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem, author Liu Cixin presents the dark forest theory of the universe. When we look out into space, the theory goes, we’re struck by its silence. It seems like we’re the only ones here. After all, if other forms of
Two questions from the Jagged Frontier
A non-exhaustive list of questions that I do not really see discussed as much as I think they probably deserve to be discussed.
Dead Forest Theory
Internet darkness is turning into deadness and time is running out
Enter the Dark Forest
If you’ve managed to find your way here, you are likely familiar with the Dark Forest Theory of the Internet. You may not yet know it by name but you know it by vibe. Dark Forests are online gathering spaces that are non-indexed, non-optimized and hidden from public view. They are typically hosted in
Trust — Moving Castles: Modular and Portable Multiplayer Miniverses
Something is crawling out of the dark forest.
On Thickets, Enclosure, and Leaving
Every platform I left, I left for the same pattern: enclosure by othering — systems that define what is shameful, create targets, and point an aggressive majority at them. Substack's AI-detection turn is the latest, and it is Dark Forestry in action. The escape is spatial: go where the platforms ar…
Sense of abundance
Expansive, curious, open, unfearful, unhurried. The opposite of Scarcity mindset .NoteLink.Active { background-color: rgba(10, 132, 255, 0.15); } .
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet
A book about how to survive on the internet. It’s about the cozy web, the dark web, the dark forest, the clear net, the dark net, and a new social world emerging around us. This is the Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet.
For something so important for applications (arguably moreso than the forward Game Theory problem), I was surprised at how scattered are the resources to learn about it. Feels very jagged. Started a semble collection: semble.so/profile/mptouzel.bsky.social/…! Will add more later. Please consider adding as well!
Mechanism Design - Learning Resources (by Max Puelma Touzel) — Semble
semble.so
I want to start by talking about some things that seem like potential ways out of the dark forest tangle—even if they’re imperfect, which they all are.
