Liu Cixin offers the dark forest as a metaphor. In an actual dark forest (on Earth), you would see an enemy, eliminate it, and look for others. In space, where the limitation of the speed of light means it takes thousands of years to observe and respond, you have to send out drones that eliminate all potential life ... "Kill the seed before it grows."
Intelligent life should not exist in a dark forest. It should only exist in a barren wasteland that is the result of ALMOST perfect total annihilation. Any life (e.g. us) should assume that we are the survivors of an almost perfect galactic weeding program.
A corollary:
Intelligent life may not eliminate ALL life (e.g. wipe out the forest). They might just create drones that selectively eliminate intelligence/competition from the forest so the rest of the forest survives to be harvested. (e.g. a neutron like bomb that eliminates enemies but leaves their buildings and other resources intact). Similarly, alien intelligence might develop the technology to keep us from progressing to the point of being a threat. This would be the opposite of Star Trek where the Federation observes intelligent life and welcomes their progress. Instead, they observe and assure life regresses.
Similar corollaries:Intelligent life destroys itself (link) and others (link). Time travel uninvents itself.
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