To an extent, rebuttals land.

However,

1. You are assuming a lot in the sense that you assume presence of intention -- not something guaranteed to be a feature of an alien civilization, which is, well, alien. People think that anthropocenrism only applies to body shape and having legs, because the way it tends to express itself in popular culture is robots on legs and human body shape in aliens.

And same point goes to communication; just assuming you could is a big leap.

2.Bold assumption that they are self limiting. I think the real question is what , exactly, tends to limit it. I think the answer tends to be resources, which is the foundation of dark forest argument theory to begin with.

What I am saying is that it is not a rebuttal you think it is.

3. :D yes

4. You may be again imposing human perspective on as scale that goes a little bit beyond it.

I will end with a.. semi-optimistic note. I am not sure dark forest theory is valid. We are speculating mostly based on human tendencies. By the same token, I posit that we are about as likely to be turned into an art exhibit by a passing alien artist not unlike some ants that had molten metal poured into their nests [1].

Any real alien reasons would be alien to us.

[1]https://laughingsquid.com/ant-colony-sculptures-made-by-pour...

You can observe patterns of behavior, develop theories understanding, attempt/experiment with interactions, and refine based on the results. That's communication (and doesn't assume anything about the other alien civilization).

Now, civilizations may be more or less willing to do this and more or less successful, but that's not the same thing as no one will dare try, as the dark forest theory wants.

(Personally, I think civilizations that are better at this will outcompete ones that are worse or refuse, though that's just my own opinion.)

> Bold assumption that they are self limiting.

Name the exponential phenomena that aren't self limiting -- that don't consume the medium which allows them to exist in the first place.

> I think the answer tends to be resources, which is the foundation of dark forest argument theory to begin with.

Well, yes. One of the reasons the dark forest theory isn't coherent.

> Any real alien reasons would be alien to us.

Yes, but this doesn't back up the dark forest theory. It also doesn't mean aliens cannot be understood at any level or interacted with in any way.

(The dark forest theory makes very strong claims on the logic, intentions, strategies, resource use/governance of alien civilizations, BTW, and wants this to be uniform amongst them... even though the one civilization we actually know of doesn't adhere to them.)