Responding just because it's a pet peeve of mine: Cixin Liu did not invent the dark forest hypothesis. People were discussing it, and writing science fiction books about it, for decades before the 3BP books were published. Nothing against him, and he definitely helped popularize the concept, but I think it's incorrect to refer to it as "Cixin Liu's hypothesis".
Was curious as a lover of the 3BP series, google gave me this:
"We've been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that's why." (The Forge of God, Legend edition, 1989, pg 315).
The Forge of God and its sequel, Anvil of the Stars, are amazing books for anyone interested in the dark forest theory, by the way. A bit slow and contemplative, so you have to be in the right mood, but they're one of my favorite reads of the last few years.
I think there's a passage that even uses an analogy of a forest, though I'm not sure.
Just like Amerigo Vespucci put the name "America" on a map and people starting referring to the New World as such, although he didn't discover it himself.
