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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Liu Cixin
Read between
August 18, 2018 - May 9, 2023
“First: Survival is the primary need of civilization. Second: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.”
To derive a basic picture of cosmic sociology from these two axioms, you need two other important concepts: chains of suspicion, and the technological explosion.”
Ten thousand times the web could be destroyed, and ten thousand times the spider would rebuild it. There was neither annoyance nor despair, nor any delight, just as it had been for a billion years.
Hmm. I believe spiders have only been around for 380 million years, but maybe I am missing the point.
The thoughts in our brains emit electromagnetic waves on all frequencies, including what is visible light to us. They can be displayed at a significant distance.
Oh! They are illiterate, which explains why their technological growth is linear rather than exponential.
I had a theory (proven wrong many times) that the culture in Star Wars was illiterate. It isn't. The technology in Star Wars is stagnant over millennia because it isn't a Science Fiction story.
Also, it sounds like there might be an "Invention Of Lying" theme here.
EDIT - I think my illiterate theory is falling apart again. They are writing on the irises... Some day I would like to see an illiterate, advanced civilization, but it sounds like it isn't going to be this book. No explanation yet as to why their progress is linear.
mean, your thoughts and memories are transparent to the outside world, like a book placed out in public, or a film projected in a plaza, or a fish in a clear fishbowl. Totally exposed. Readable at a glance.
And yet, the concept of deception is not beyond them. They staged miracles to mislead humanity in the last book.
Spaceships, when their day comes, will probably be even bigger and carry a larger crew than today’s aircraft carriers.
This whole "Space Force" thing is a little too topical all of a sudden...
Human rights and equality have deep roots. Inequality of survival is the worst sort of inequality, and
My whole life is rushing around,
Appropriate for the Russian.
“Do we know whether or not he is a threat?” someone asked. “I don’t know, but the Lord knows, and Evans knew. Evans taught the Lord how to keep this secret, and he’s dead. We can’t know.”
The facts we see under the guidance of our science and reason may not be the true, objective facts. And since that’s the case, we need to learn how to selectively ignore them. We should see how things change as they develop, and we shouldn’t write off the future through technological determinism and mechanical materialism.”
“The Low-Tech Level: Spacecraft speed achieves fifty times the third cosmic velocity10, or roughly eight hundred kilometers per second. Spacecraft are not equipped with life support. Under these conditions, the craft has a combat radius limited to the inner Solar System. That is, within Neptune’s orbit, or thirty AU from the sun. “The Mid-Tech Level: Spacecraft speed achieves three hundred times the third cosmic velocity, or forty-eight hundred kilometers per second. Spacecraft are equipped with partial life support. Under these conditions, the combat radius of the craft extends beyond the
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he said to himself, “Compared to life today, what does the world four centuries from now matter?” Screw the Wallfacer Project.
Right? Those jerks...
The outcome of natural biological evolution requires at least twenty thousand years to manifest itself, but human civilization has just five thousand years of history, and modern technological civilization just two hundred. That means that the study of modern science today is being done by the brain of primitive man.”
Don’t dismiss simplicity. Simple means solid. The entire mansion of mathematics was erected on a foundation of this kind of irreducibly simple, yet logically rock-solid, axiom.
really is a God, then it’s right to believe in him. If there isn’t, then we don’t have anything to lose.” The general’s words prompted laughter, and Ringier said, “The second half is untrue. There is something to lose, at least as far as science is concerned.…
Tianti III was the only space elevator based on the ocean. Its base was located on the Equator on an artificial floating island in the Pacific Ocean that could navigate at sea under its own nuclear power, which meant that the elevator’s position on the Equator could be adjusted if necessary. The floating island was a real-life version of the Propeller Island Jules Verne had described, and so it had been dubbed “Verne Island.”
From now on, energy is not something that Earth needs to conserve.”
media-propelled spacecraft and non-media radiation-drive spacecraft. Two opposing factions have formed around these two directions of research: the aerospace faction advocates research into media-propelled spacecraft, while the space force is pushing radiation-drive spacecraft. The projects will consume enormous resources, and if the two directions can’t progress simultaneously on equal footing, then one direction must take the mainstream.”
Hines said, “Why is it that everyone gets so sensitive at the mention of thought control? From commercial advertising to Hollywood culture, thought control is everywhere in modern society. You are, to use a Chinese phrase, mocking people for retreating a hundred paces when you’ve retreated fifty yourselves.”
When the devil does actually appear, the best option is calmness and rationality.
At the gate to the Faith Center stood a reduced-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty. Its purpose was unknown—perhaps it was an attempt to use “liberty” to dilute the feeling of “control”—but the most notable thing about the statue was the altered poem on its base: Give me your hopeless souls, Your fearful crowds that thirst for victory, The dazed refuse of your treacherous shoals. Send these, the downcast, wand’ring ones to me, For lo, my lamp of golden faith consoles.
The author is prescient. Years later the Trump administration (I think - maybe it was just the Trump supporters) would recommend amending the poem, adding a clause like “who are able to stand on their own feet” or something silly like that.
They ranged in rank from private to senior colonel, the highest rank permitted by national space forces to use the mental seal.
If you get the mental seal, does that bar you from higher promotion?
All of a sudden, her hazy thoughts became unusually clear, like the chilly sky in the dead of winter. She wanted to shout for the hibernation to stop, but it was too late. The ultra-low temperatures had seeped into her body and she had lost the ability to produce sound. The operators and doctors noticed that just as she was entering hibernation, her eyes suddenly opened a crack, revealing an expression full of horror and despair. If the cold hadn’t frozen her eyelids, her eyes would have been wide open. But this was just a normal reflex during the process that had been seen on previous
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Oh… She knows something.
Only two colors were visible on the surface of Mercury: black and gold.
If you like it, say “black and gold”. Go Newbury Park Panthers!
They spread out evenly in orbit, making Mercury the first ringed terrestrial planet.
My understanding is Earth is the first terrestrial ringed planet. The geosynchronous satellites constitute our ring, though they are obviously not as visually spectacular as Mercury’s may be.
“That’s not strange, Mr. Rey Diaz. Everyone says I look like Superman, from the old movies.”
I love those old movies.
“Superman! Ha ha ha ha. I remember now. That … that old Superman. He could fly, and he could reverse the rotation of the Earth, but when he was riding a horse … ha ha ha ha … when he was riding a horse, he fell and broke his neck … ah ha ha ha…” “It was Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman, who fell and broke his neck,” the Wallbreaker corrected him, quietly. “Do you imagine … imagine that your fate will be better than his? Ha ha ha ha…”
Too soon, Diaz.
“Ah, if only we knew how to cherish things back then.”
You never know you are living in the good times until they are over.
“Remote meetings are a common practice now.
Zoomers gonna Zoom.
“The Great Ravine lasted for about half a century,
“Enterprise, of the North American Fleet!”
Make it so!
First, survival is the primary need of civilization. Second, civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.”
In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.”
This is pretty nihilistic, but is also obviously the theme of the book, if not the series. I have a problem with it, and it lies in the second half of the second axiom.
"the total matter in the universe remains constant"
This is fairly uncontroversial, as it is the Law of Conservation of Mass and is widely accepted as a fundamental truth of our universe. However, it can be disproven by the counter-example of the Big Bang.
This doubt can be the seeds of hope for a diverse universe. Now, back to the story...
“I have a dream that one day brilliant sunlight will illuminate the dark forest.”
