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The turbulence was purposeless, but in huge quantities of purposeless turbulence, purpose took shape.
The ant was not unfamiliar with beings of this sort. It knew that they were alive, that they frequently appeared in this region, and that their appearances were closely related to the swiftly disappearing chasms and multiplying formations. The ant continued its climb, knowing that the beings were not a threat, with a few exceptions.
“It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper?”
“I’ve got a suggestion. Why don’t you study cosmic sociology?” “Cosmic sociology?” “A name chosen at random. Suppose a vast number of civilizations are distributed throughout the universe, on the order of the number of detectable stars. Lots and lots of them. Those civilizations make up the body of a cosmic society. Cosmic sociology is the study of the nature of this supersociety.”
Life needed smoothness, but it also needed direction. One could not always be returning to the point of origin.
“But there’s nothing concrete to study in your cosmic sociology, Dr. Ye. Surveys and experiments aren’t really possible.” “That means your ultimate result will be purely theoretical.
“It’s all fascinating, but what would the axioms of cosmic sociology be?” “First: Survival is the primary need of civilization. Second: Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.”
The ant was sensitive to shapes and was confident of being able to work it out, but the limited storage capacity of its tiny neural network meant it had to forget the shapes it had previously crawled through. It did not feel any regret at forgetting the “9,” for constant forgetting was part of life. There were few things that it needed to remember forever, and those were etched by its genes into the storage area known as instinct.
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.”
The ant was sensitive to eyes, because their gaze meant danger. Yet it felt no anxiety now, for it knew the eyes were lifeless. It had already forgotten that when the giant being named Luo Ji knelt down in silence before the formation, he had been looking at those eyes.
Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.
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.
“Your thoughts are completely exposed to the outside world. You can’t hide.” How can thoughts hide? Your ideas are confusing.
“What sort of a society is it when thought is completely transparent? What sort of culture does it produce? What sort of politics? No scheming, no pretending.”
Indeed, they are complicated. All I know now is why I didn’t understand them before. You are right. “My Lord, you need us.” I am afraid of you.
“Isn’t it enough for the work to be done well? Why do you need to know how he thinks?”
This morning when you were distracted, you flicked away a half-smoked cigarette and it landed in the fishbowl. The nicotine that leached into the water was fatal to your fish.
“We were never notified of the attack on the gathering the commander attended, or of the ambush at the Panama Canal. Why did you cast us aside?” We were afraid of you. “Is it because our thoughts aren’t transparent? That doesn’t matter, you know. All of the skills that you lack—deceit, trickery, disguise, and misdirection—we use in your service.” We don’t know if that’s true. Even supposing it is true, the fear remains.
Please help us wipe out humanity, and then we will wipe you out.
Clearly, it’s determined by how you communicate through the display of transparent thoughts, but in our world, even if you express your true thoughts, you must do so in an appropriately euphemistic way.
Your abandonment means that the devotion of our members to our Lord is being tested. To maintain that devotion, ETO desperately needs our Lord’s support.”
That means that full combat capacity will take the space force three centuries from its establishment.
How many people are thinking about the defense of Earth four hundred years in the future?”
The supporters of the socialized technology movement brought up a precedent: At the beginning of the century, several major European pharmaceutical companies exacted high license fees from African countries for the manufacture of state-of-the-art AIDS treatments, prompting high-profile litigation. Under pressure from public opinion and the rapid spread of the disease in Africa, the companies renounced their patent rights prior to trial. The ultimate crisis that Earth is now facing means that open technology is the unavoidable responsibility that advanced countries have to all humanity.
The implications of the frustrated socialized technology movement are far-reaching, and people have been made aware that even in the face of the devastating Trisolar Crisis, the unity of the human race is still a distant dream.
The duty of escaping is to extend human civilization. They’ll naturally want the cream of civilization. Sending a bunch of rich dudes across the cosmos,” he snorted. “What’ll that do? Hmph.”
“Fine. You’re an elite, and you’ve got money. That leaves me. What the hell do I have? I’m just a poor man, so it serves me right that my line will be wiped out?” With obvious effort he restrained himself from kicking over the table, then turned and stormed out. Yang Jinwen followed him.
“The greatest obstacle to flight is not disputes among countries, either.” Then what is it? “Disputes among people. The question of who goes and who stays behind.” That doesn’t seem like a problem to us. “We thought so at first, but it turns out to be an insurmountable obstacle.”
Developing countries don’t have the ability to escape, and developed countries have refused to socialize their technology. But the poorer and smaller countries won’t give up.
the more money you have, the more you think about preserving your line, wouldn’t you say?”
The fundamental axiom of economics is the human mercenary instinct.
“I’ve got to learn how to live. If I can’t swing that, it’ll be a damn shame,”
escape into the cosmos was never going to work. The critical question is who gets to leave, and who has to stay. This isn’t ordinary inequality. It’s a question of survival, and no matter who gets to leave—elites, the rich, or ordinary people—so long as some people get left behind, it means the collapse of humanity’s fundamental value system and ethical bottom line.
Human rights and equality have deep roots. Inequality of survival is the worst sort of inequality, and the people and countries left behind will never just sit and wait for death while others have a way out.
“Beihai, you’ve got a long way to go. I say that because I can still easily understand you, and being understandable to me means that your mind is still too simple, not subtle enough. On the day I can no longer read you or figure you out, but you can easily understand me, that’s when you’ll finally have grown up.”
“Dig deep tunnels, keep vast stores of grain, don’t seek hegemony.”
“It’s a troubled world. Do you get that? Morality isn’t what it used to be. Everyone foists their bad luck off onto other people, so you’ve got to be on your guard.…
Devoting a lifetime of effort to a hopeless endeavor is hard for you to accept.”
the most effective way of dealing with The List is simply to remain silent.” Shi
Real shrewdness means not letting any shrewdness show.
“You’re one of the calmest people I’ve ever met.” “The calmness comes from cynicism. There’s not much in the world that can make me care.”
I believe that for the indefinite future the greatest danger facing the space force is defeatism. Its threat can’t be overstated. The spread of defeatism will not only result in an erosion of morale, but may lead to the total collapse of space-based military power.”
“The source of this defeatism stems primarily from the worship of technology, and the underestimation or complete dismissal of the role of human initiative and the human spirit in war.
So he began constructing a character. He first imagined her face, and then designed her clothes, and then thought of her environment and the people around her, and finally placed her in that environment and had her move about and speak, letting her live. But this soon turned tedious, and he told Bai Rong about the difficulties he had encountered: “She’s like a puppet on a string. Every word and action arises from the design but lacks the spark of life.”
“Rong, I used to think that a character in a novel was controlled by her creator, that she would be whatever the author wanted her to be, and do whatever the author wanted her to do, like God does for us.” “Wrong!” she said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. “Now you realize you were wrong. This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We
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“Now do you believe that the love I write about in my novels really exists?” “Yes, I believe it.”
For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up.
“Do you really believe in the decisive role of the individual in history?”
Therefore, as far as the enemy is concerned, the Earth is a completely transparent world. To them, everything is an open book, one they can read at any time. Humanity has no secrets at all.
“We should be aware of this one fact: Strategic and tactical tricks do not advance in proportion to technological progress.
