Bookmarked I Played Fortnite and Figured Out the Universe (The Atlantic)

The best strategy is blasting everyone you see—until it's not.

Is this too optimistic? Should we be more cautious when sending message out into space? Maybe, but I like the idea of starting off with a show of good faith than entering a room gun blazing.

Fortnite is more Dark Forest theory than not, and maybe that’s true of the universe, too. But sometimes, we have a lever against the vise of game theory, and in this case, it is a single bit of communication. I mean “bit” in the programmer’s sense: a flag with a designated meaning. Nothing more. My heart emote didn’t make Fortnite cuddly and collaborative, but it did allow me to communicate: “Hold up. Let’s do this a different way.”