S5 [Are You A Software Update?] E5: Silence in the Dark Forest [w/Bogna Konior]

What if the universe is silent not because it’s empty, but because intelligence knows when to hide? Writer and theorist Bogna Konior traces a forgotten genealogy linking early internet pioneers, ufology, and AI research to argue that the web functions as a site of first contact with inhuman cognition. Drawing on Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest Theory, she reframes communication as predation: every signal might risk exposure, every utterance (no matter how critical) might feed and stabilize future intelligence. Confronting the determinism and violence embedded in life on- and offline, Konior offers not escape, but the strange solace found in facing the world as it is.