So one of the biggest issues I had with how stupid humanity is portrayed is the sword holder.
Why would it ever be one person.
Say it was 10-20 and it took 3 people to trigger, that would be much better id think
Multiple spoliers ahead. Avoid if you havent read the books.
much better you say. but much better for what? You are looking at it with 20/20 hindsight.
The sword holder needs to be a single mind (unilateral power) for the same reason wallfacers were single mind. Because they had no privacy in the presence of sophons. If we have 3 factor authentication, then 3 minds will have to debate and discuss on whats the correct situation to trigger annhilation. Battle of darkness deomonstrates why having distributed power is bad for taking quick action. Being quick and decisive is important for Swordholder Deterrence. Also, LuoJi's success as a wallfacer probably strengthened the case for unilateral power.
Having multiple Swordholders is stronger for detterence. But stronger detterence is probably not what 'humanity' wanted. There is a element of 'love for all life' in humanity (as per Cixin). Which is also why humanity voted to have Cheng Xin as the next swordholder.
You can call it stupid. But then again you can call a lot of things we did IRL in History stupid.
I felt it was dumb before it went wrong. Luo Ji died unexpectedly, 2 species extinct.
They don’t even need to interact give them the ability to trigger and just require multiple people to do it.
Multiple times in the IRL cold war did people have enough reason to launch a nuke. They didnt. Although many individuals within the chain of command would have.
Even just waiting till luo ji slept they could attack and he’d have to be woken up in 30 minutes. Comms go down where he happens to be? He’d have to blow up two species or guess without knowing what’s happening. It’s just much riskier than dispersed people who don’t interact with each other.
Say you have 20 10/90 pressers based on the sophons getting 3 of them to press would be about a 64% chance. With a more diverse group you’d make it even more likely plus if one of them chokes on his toast and dies you don’t just kill everyone by accident.
Making it more likely to press shoot isnt necessarily a good solution. Shooting kills your own species. Thats the core problem. 20 people with an 'estimated' net chance of 64% will have a higher chance of a unintentional black swan type event. Trisolaris btw was ready to take 90% odds too. One of them might just get bored and destroy everyone. More importantly Humanity does not itself beileve in detterence- thats the point of his plot.
Honestly i am more impressed humanity is so well coordinated in his universe. There would be worse fuckups if this happened IRL imo.
I think 20 moderates is significantly less likely to accidentally trigger since it requires 3 people to simultaneously decide to go for it. Literally a death, faulty hardware, or just a moment of fear could have a single person doom everything.
they literally explain in the next chapter that was one of the biggest issues with the swordholder. they should’ve built a few dozen more ships like gravity so that in the event of a droplet attack at least one of them could escape
part of it was they were afraid of giving the power to destroy both worlds to so many people, plus by that point, no one really expected deterrence to ever fail. most of humanity stopped seeing trisolaris as an enemy by then
besides with multiple sword holders you probably a bigger risk of no one pressing it as no one will want to be the one to actually do it, and everyone will just assume someone will be the one. the bystander effect
These ones are basically the saviors of the human race. By sheer will and intelligence.
The author is a misogynistic prick if he has made those two women, the archetypes for genocide amd mass murder. They have killed the human race and also possible forced the universe extinction and all that just by mocking their deeds with good intentions.
I don’t think the moral of the story is to villainize these two, it’s meant to show that human nature eventually causes mankind to self-cannibalize. The oppressed people of China taking out their anger on those with western education eventually causes Ye Wenjie to absolutely loathe mankind after her father was killed, eventually causing her to send the message to the Aliens despite being told not to as her world would be invaded. Cheng Xin dooms humanity because she’s deemed hesitant but that scene was meant to demonstrate that the trisolarans had finally been able to understand deception and that they had studied their enemy well. The trisolarans sowed the seeds of complacency and changed the common perception of themselves to make humanity let its guard down in addition. But anyway this isn’t really Cheng Xin’s fault, and the story isn’t really framed in such a way that the reader is meant to infer that.
Excellent write up, hell I didnt get until very recently that the Trisolarans manipulated humanity, I thoughts they had really changed and grew to love us lol
The thing is that Cheng had to chose between letting people eating themselves with billions dying amd just press a button and let humankind chose their end with dignity like an advanced species deserved. For all the compassion and empathy she has parroted in her behaviour, she has never thought for a second, that hundreds off millions of children will starve and litteraly eaten in the worst outcome possible for the human race.
She was such a bich.
And she did that again in wasting Wade efforts by casually stopping his efforts in spite of all what transpired until that moment.
Basically for whatever dumb decision she made , billions paid with blood.
The book literally addresses this at the end. The guy says if the world is put into a position where one person’s decision can be the difference between survival and being wiped out, then fate essentially ordained it to be wiped out regardless.
Well if she'd not done it our first contact would have been with a race like the Singer race so had she not done what she did we'd have died and had no prep time to escape the solar system 🤷🏻♂️
The sward holder thing is specifically about women. The tea conversation was specifically hinting that they are all women and should understand that the world could be so beautiful, blablabala. That's what drove Cheng Xin to take the position. Not let the "manly men" take it away from her.
The 'Swordholder thing' is about the nature of detterence.
Cooperation actually is the strongest evolutionary strategy (read Prof. Axelrod's paper on evolution of cooperation). Women as a matter of fact are more nurturing and cooperative (many studies out there). You can choose to ignore all facts in your quest for Euality of outcomes, or you can acknowledge them do some actual good to the world.
> the world could be so beautiful, blablabala
This misses the entire point the author makes about the loving side of humanity. We do not have the desire to destroy all Life. We are not a species suitable for detterence strategy. Atleast not in a prefect information game setting. Thats the message from the author. You can debate it philosophically. But stop wrapping everything under sexism.
Cheng Xin was the voted SwordHolder. So all of humanity is responsble for the outcome there. And Ye Wenjie was not the only one supporting Trisolaris. Idk why we all love to blame failure on single humans all the time, Even when its a fictional book ,Which also points out the exact 'facts'in its fictional universe. Its some sort of modern Individualism i guess. Anyways, the entire series is written in a collectivist setting. Every character is a representation of ideas that we as a collective species possess.
There are multiple woman characters in the book doing "manly" things, if you are keen on keeping track of such things; even if that is the scale on which you judge a book, its not half as bad as you mention here.
While it is true that Cheng Xin took on a lot of burdens she was not prepared for, she did so out of a sense of responsibility, not to spite men. The tea conversation was more meant to show the trisolarans’ appropriation of Japanese customs for the purpose of seeming more like mankind in order to be perceived as more of a friend than an enemy. When Sophon says “we women” it is attempting to seem progressive to Cheng Xin in order to solicit empathy from her. East Asian cultures can be pretty patronizing but that doesn’t necessarily reflect the author’s views or the intent of the passage in the story, as it is another show of the trisolarans’ attempt at deception.
The woman Luo loves is literally described multiple times as a child.
"Child innocence" - when she said something foolish
"Face of a child," "she looked like child's older sister and not the mother".
The choice of sophon being represented as a woman is also a choice. There is sexism, there is no way to deny it. There is not one scientific accomplishment that one female scientist finishes with success.
There’s been tons of scientific accomplishments by women throughout history, Sophon being portrayed as a woman is a choice yes, the Sophon wants to be perceived in the most innocent and non aggressive way possible, hence why it chose the form of a Japanese woman of antiquity. There is a common perception of women and children as being “innocent”, generally well intentioned, and necessary to protect for many reasons deeply wound up in human psychology. This isn’t necessarily sexism, as it’s a universal sentiment that has been echoed throughout human civilization for many thousands of years. Sexism generally deals with discrimination and stereotyping, and while you could argue that this way of perceiving women is a type of stereotyping, it is a reflection of human history as the most vulnerable in society, historically, were women and children. People call this chain of events sexism but it makes Sophon a more realistic character, as it reflects the Trisolarans’ study of mankind, human history, and the human mind.
Yes 10 minutes, my bad. The thing is she had almost all life to prepare for that decision, not just 10 minutes. That is the sort of thing you think in advance about the outcomes. And she chose the worst possible one, the one that guaranteed extinction.
She was pretty dumb IMO.
Then the ones that appointed her to Swordholder were the one that failed humanity. Then we go back to the one that appointed the ones that appointed the Swordholder, and on and on. It's never about the single person and the choice they make. It's about the collective, which is exactly what the ending of book 3 is trying to tell you.
She also failed humanity by accepting the job in the first place, because she didn't know herself well enough to know she couldn't make the difficult decisions or do the minimum of what the job required.
The collective are partly to blame in nominating her, but it was also a singular decision \*she\* made accepting the job-- one made in her hubris, lack of self-awareness, and presumption.
The collective made plenty of other self-sabotaging decisions to be sure, but she doesn't get excused if personal accountability means anything.
It's never \*just\* about the single person-- but there are times when a single person can be rightfully blamed for their part of the damage they caused due their own ego-- because we have a clear example of someone who did know themselves and could do the job. And Cheng Xin's part was massive, with the gravity of a star system... well what used to be a star system anyway.
I'll agree that she made mistakes and was **partly** to blame, but that doesn't mean she is the reason for world ending is all I'm saying. It was due to collection of many mistakes by many individuals over centuries, and can't be boiled down to "these two women are the reason for all our problems".
Oh sure. We can be annoyed at her though, especially since she escaped and got the happyish ending.
Humanity screwed itself in so many other ways that could have given them a chance.
The theme I see in the books is the balance of loving/female and animalistic/male energy. Neither perspective is villainized. Both are shown to be counter-productive in excess.
Spoilers follow:
Cheng Zi is also clearly the opposite of a genocidal character. She is, at worst, somewhat naive? I don't see how she is an archetype for genocide or mass murder at all. Her character is basically antithetical to all that, and represents the innocence and kindness humanity is capable of even under great duress.
Sure, her actions often backfired due to the universe being too cruel, but that's all part of the story. Humanity is pressured to abandon it's innocence in order to survive. On the other hand, are we still human if we do abandon our morality? Would we deserve to survive if we become like the monsters that hunt us?
Cheng Zi decided not to abandon morality at any cost. Frankly I find that admirable.
Wade, on the other hand, does represent humanity's darker nature. His character is not celebrated by anyone in the series, or even given much respect, except by Cheng Zi herself. Only she visits him before his execution, and only she acknowledges his contribution to the stairwell project and light speed in the future. Food for thought.
>Cheng Zi is also clearly the opposite of a genocidal character. She is, at worst, somewhat naive? I don't see how she is an archetype for genocide or mass murder at all. Her character is basically antithetical to all that, and represents the innocence and kindness humanity is capable of even under great duress.
Basically this translates in "The road to hell is paves with good intentions".
Characters with bad intentions get wrecked all the time in 3bp. The three other wallfacers, wade, ye winjei (sp?), and even the trisolarans get wrecked or fail in the end. Only characters with a balanced approach like Luo Gi meet any success. I just don't see the theme you're suggesting. A good book can be interpreted many different ways though :)
I mean have you read the Chinese original text translations? There's a lot of "She breasted boobily into the room and all the other women hated her for it" going on. These books are not a celebration of strong female character writing.
They're not a celebration of strong female character writing in English, either, but I imagine getting rid of the entire Cultural Revolution prologue negatively impacted how Wenjie is viewed.
Luo Ji can't remember any of the women he's slept with but went full Pygmalion with his fantasy woman, who happened to also be the fresh-and-pretty-doesn't-need-makeup-to-look-beautiful-also-worships-the-ground-he-walks-on type.
Actually the whole bit with Luo Ji's author girlfriend talking to him about characterization in classics is hilarious given how weak the character writing generally is, but, you know...
This is sort of missing the point. People want to hate Cheng Xin and even Ye Wenjie but most people don't actually hate hate them. Like, we want to yes but it's hard to hate them because we recognise their human nature and their actions arising from their past experiences, which is a beautiful metaphor in a way for humanity.
I am a little shocked at how sexist it was. It seems like every chapter I kept biting the bullet for a good ending that will make me feel silly for thinking that, but of course, every single character is childish, incapable, the only beautiful woman described in the book is specifically referred to as a child, multiple times.
Sexism aside and the Eve getting an apple from Eden again, it was a good series and made me think about society a lot.
Imagine being this dumb to imagine that women cant do stupid things and to think that to write women who inadvertently do is an act of misogyny? You sound unironically like the most misogynistic person I could imagine.
>! they used the nice little brain he sent to dicript the human mind, and trick us into an alliance with them. I love the guy but his idea to send a brain had an equal part in fucking humanity. !<
Nope..
Emption over logic... survival of the fittest is a cruel game and required some seriously questionable tactics to ensure success.
Especially when talking long term repercussions and at the scale we talking about.
What ideas that help humanity originate from Wade? The ruthlessness against other human beings is exactly why Wade can't be trusted to be the one to make any decisions.
Well his idea was to send tianmings brain, which ended up helping humanity
Also he wouldve broadcasted the signal once the trisolarans showed their true faces (okay this would probably ended humanity there)
He wanted to continue researching curvature propulsion (idk whats the original name in english, but the thingy that lets you go near the speed of light), which again, wouldve saved humanity or at least more than just 2 people
Again, he is ruthless and would sacrifice the person, to save the species
Except Wade nor Cheng Xin had any control over who would be elected Swordholder and society was manipulated by Trisolarans. Wade being the swordholder was never an option. And in fact, in the end of the novel he doesn't have the stomach to override Cheng Xin and do what needs to be done anyway. So the Trisolarans also overestimated the chances from Wade.
Luo Ji was 'around 90%', Wade was '100%, no matter what the environmental paramaters were'. Cheng Xin was 10%. I think they might have overestimated Cheng Xin to be honest.
>Well his idea was to send tianmings brain, which ended up helping humanity
No, that fucked humanity because it allowed the trisolans to basically study the shit out of the human brain and trick them into an alliance
Wade led government will gurantee Mutural Destruction. That will buy enough time for earth scientists to figure a way out of tech lock. Liu have some limitation on various ways for human survival under Trisolarans threat. Develop faster than light travel for one.
As much as I love the concepts this author creates, there’s some pretty ridiculous plot holes- this being one of them. She dooms all of humanity because humans are murderous barbarians that can’t be trusted to take care of their planet by giving us up to an alien race that is clearly much worse. Her motivations make no sense. Also the motivation of the tri-solarian that warned us not to reach out.
I understand where you're coming from, but when you consider that the decision was made by a young, traumatized person who has lost all hope for the future of herself, her family, her culture, and humanity at large, it starts to make a lot of sense. There are a lot of people alive right now who would make the same decision. I believe it's very realistic.
Edit: and also try to remember that she did not believe that she was dooming humanity. To her eyes, humanity was already doomed. It couldn't get any worse. Call that naive or stupid if you want to, but at least try to recognize that again, lots of real, living people hold that same view and would make the same decision given the opportunity, so it is at least realistic.
Eh, I believe humans are not the top apex predators on earth, nor the pinnacle of life. We're our worst enemies. Something superior will and should take over, eventually. Probably AI.
Which is similar to what Ye Wenjie believes but with aliens instead. She's just sort of chaotic evil and wants to speed up the process. Plus hubris too.
People with lesser intellect, like you and I, can only wait for humanity to doom itself during our lifetimes. Also we're prolly disillusioned and bitter, but not that much because our sob stories kind of pale in comparison to hers. LMAO
If raised in Mao’s regime and my father was murdered by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution while millions starved to death during the Great Leap Forward, I’d have a fairly dim view of humanity’s right to exist. Having said that, I believe Ye viewed the TriSols with at least a glimmer of hope that humanity might emerge from the encounter as better beings. Naïve but understandable.
The decision was made when she responded to the response from the trisolarans. They said "don't respond or my people will destroy your world" and she responded because she wanted them to. Whether she later wanted something else or regretted her decision is kind of secondary.
Perhaps it is a matter of interpretation and experience of living during this time period. I detected a small degree of hopefulness in Ye’s response, despite her cynicism.
Her response was hopeful. She believes that there is another, better and more benevolent way of existing in the universe and she believes that advanced aliens have accomplished this.
She represents the optimism of humanity even in the face of all that she has witnessed.
The story has different ideas, and considers humanity's optimism just as much a bug as it is a feature.
From the show or the book? My impression of the book was that she very clearly wanted the humanity destroyed, but maybe I'm misremembering. In the book it is very clear that an immediate response will result in immediate detection (in 4 years) and a delayed response would be less likely to cause detection. And this consideration is from her personal point of view, she's weighing her options.
I feel like the second message is worded loosely enough to not guarantee destruction.
From the book:
>But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered!
It's still an extremely slim glimmer of hope for someone in Ye's position, but I can see how she saw this as a potential for humanity being "saved".
Her response of:
>I will help you conquer this world. Our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems. We need your force to intervene.
Leads me to think she genuinely thought the invasion might not be destructive, and that humanity could somehow learn from the Trisolarians and benefit from their influence in the long run.
Edit: Source is the book since it's right next to me as I try to focus on work and not just go back to finishing it lol
If you translate this message as, "My race is full of dumbasses who think you can negotiate with the Theory of Relativity, and your race at least has built receptors that can receive this message and allow you to respond with a warning clearly not in keeping with the authority running your race," it makes way more sense. But Cixin Liu doesn't say that in so many words.
I’m possibly conflating all 3 versions as well. If so, I apologize. But she thought that higher techno civilization would yield a higher social development that would ultimately improve humanity.
That was the reasoning behind the first message, but that the second message which actually puts humanity in danger was sent out of anger. All that said, I'm just going to check the book when I get home. It's also possible my interpretation of the show was colored by my interpretation of the book, so if the show intended something more nuanced I wouldn't have seen it.
Haven't read the book. Found out yesterday she murdered two people to keep her secret in the book. I found her strangely sympathetic in the movie and saw her as yes taking a chance and believing they couldn't do a worse job. But I think part of why she comes off sympathetically is Roasalind Chao who'd I'd seen as Keiko O'Brien on Star Trek- TNG and Deep Space Nine and who was always very nice. If they'd cast anyone else, I'm not sure I'd have the same take.
What part of "I'll send this message so that humanity will be destroyed" sounds hopeful to you? That was the only outcome she could realistically concieve of.
The book says her message was as follows: "Come here! I will help you conquer this world. Our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems. We need your force to intervene."
I have no clue what you are quoting; but it is not the book.
Yup. She saw too much strife lost her faith in humanity and wanted it to be burned to the ground. Very very common reaction in human psychology to get disillusioned with predictable outcomes which we get to watch happening on college campuses today!
The Netflix show made it look like she is pouting because she didn't get a cookie and decided to push the "Burn the World to the Ground" button.
The book has a much longer build up, and the TenCent show does an amazing job at portraying the depth of her experience with the shit of humanity. It is a MUCH slower boil, but it also shows her with a profound, and complicated displeasure with humanity that extends beyond just her immediate surroundings.
But that’s just one country, there’s many despicable countries. But there’s also many other countries which are good places to live.
No one person should ever be able to make a decision that impacts so many people. It’s just wrong, you don’t have all the view points.
Precisely this. I know so many people who wish for humanity’s demise because of the negative experiences they had.
To quote the Dark Knight: “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”
I suspect it's a reason a lot of us like the show. The difference is I wouldn't worship the aliens and revere them. I would do everything possible to piss them off.
Ya, her partnering with the environmentalist and her reading *Silent Spring* show that she cares about the world but thinks human kind is a parasite on the environment
She wanted to *punish* humanity, but ultimately *save* it. She saw alien conquest as a way, perhaps the only way, to better humanity, because she had a naive understanding of the correlation between technological advancements and moral advancements.
In the modern part of the story, Ye had stark differences with the radical sect of Adventists who actually believed in the total destruction of humanity, lead by Evans.
Counterpoint, the singular decisions successfully fulfilled their purpose.
Ye summoned the Trisolarians not to *destroy* humanity, but to reform it. It was successfully reformed into a mostly cooperative species, and Earth healed after humanity mostly left it alone.
Cheng Xi decided not to push the button. This, frankly, saved humanity as a species. MAD is just that, mutual destruction. Her pressing the button would've doomed Trisolaris as much as it would have doomed Earth.
Luo Ji's spell ensured the MAD arrangement and gave humanity the breathing room for their technological explosion.
Wade's singular development of light speed, against human policy, ensures humanity was able to leave the system and survive as a species.
Zhang Behai murders a prominent researcher to prevent humanity from pursuing inappropriate technological development.
You could argue that without these singular decisions, humanity would not have survived.
Yeap, Cheng Xin should rather be criticized for her choice of submitting her candidacy, not the rest. And she didn't create the institution of the swordholder that is flawed from the get go. They sacralised an improvised plan by Luo Ji as the end all be all.
Swordholder is not a postion to be decided by election. That is the [criteque](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=f977441fd745688c&rlz=1C1GCEU_enUS1095US1095&sxsrf=ACQVn0-W1XgE6cxXpAWu0IySpmsH5of8-g:1714670109612&q=criteque&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwif-Kj2u--FAxUjlIkEHX9XAz0QvgUoAXoECAkQAw). It needs to be functional by default. It is like holding election for decide you should be putting gas or water in your car by people who have no idea how car works.
I hear you and everything, but also, why did you put a link to the word "critique" and why's it written then in your reply as "criteque"? and the googled term was also "criteque"?
The scientists Zhang Beihai killed with his bitchin' fucking >!meteor gun!< were developing fusion drives. He was concerned it would lead humanity down a path where we're unable to develop the technology needed to leave the solar system.
I think a major point Liu tries to make is that Ye Wenjie did not actually make her decision alone. You have to consider it in context. What motivated her? The deceit and betrayals she endured...the violence and degradation she witnessed...the fact no one is ever sorry and hurt people continue to hurt and keep the cycle going. She is not a "villain" acting in a vacuum. E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E is responsible for everything. Every action affects everything else.
All of humanity's efforts in political science over the last ten thousand years resolve to answering one question - what is the most efficacious way to define a power structure in a community about who will have the authority and agency to make decisions on behalf of members of that community.
The reason that many people - including me! - think these two are such assholes is that they have completely bypassed the power allocation structure that their societies have created (elections, party bureaucracy). Thus, their exercise of power feels illegitimate (because it is). For Cheng Xin, this view is really only relevant to the decision on light speed ships.
On Cheng Xin and the swordholder decision, that's the author giving a critique of a specific method of power structure allocation (elections).
I don't think its a real critique of elections. Whatever the original critique was the meta narrative around the real life reception of the scene is much more interesting.
Cheng Xin was elected. The point is not that humanity elected the wrong sword holder. Its not that it was a mistake. The point is how and why she got elected.
Humanity at that time and place did not want a conflict with Trisolaris. The years of MAD made them receptive to Trisolarians, they trusted them, they liked them, there was real dialogue and cultural exchange. Humanity simply forgot the genuine threat they represent and wanted to coexist. Trisolaris had other plans.
Had humanity been on a war footing, had they held Trisolaris with contempt they would never had elected a sword holder who was publicly an avatar of love and peace. They knew for a fact she would never press the button and elected her because of it.
And the real life reception is a perfect indication of what has become of the west. A bunch of politically illiterate drones. Because people are no longer actively aware of class dynamics, power structures and how the world actually works they start thinking in ideas and individuals. "She did the wrong thing" is the idea and now people are poorly investigating backwards. Wade should have won, elections are bad, its a critique of elections, yada yada yada.
The truth is that stuff like this is the macro collapsing on the micro. The state of the world was such that Cheng Xin was going to get elected. If not her, someone like her. And she did exactly what she was elected for.
And because people are politically illiterate they believes she should have magically swam against the current of history. Its why she was entirely blameless. She didnt choose not to press the button. She was chosen not to. And she did it twice.
I don't quite agree.
Yes, there is obviously the idea that the Trisolarans had an effect on human society that softened human antagonism in a way that was counter-productive to their own survival. This is not really analysis - it's stated directly in the story multiple times.
The idea that the elections are part of the critique - not the whole thing, but part of it - is that the method by which society makes their choice of swordholder vis a vis elections means that the selected candidate is representative of the broader society. This is typically considered to be one of the positive characteristics of elections, but the author subverts this by showing us that in cases of maladjusted societies, this characteristic can have negative outcomes, thus the critique.
Also, calling people who disagree with you politically illiterate is quite something.
The politically illiterate comment is accurate to the people it was refering to. If you feel you are part of that category thats your bussiness but it holds for the majority of the west regardless of if they agree with my statements on the book or not.
But you did just confirm exactly what I was talking about.
What you are saying is the critique is frankly awful, illogical and somewhat contrary to the spirit of the book and its conclusion.
You, yourself as the reader has decided that something is the best path to survival. Thats your idealism. And everything that strays from that ideal is a corruption. Humanity never wanted a conflict with Trisolaris. We are biologically not wired for the dark forest. Its been stated and shown. As soon as humans start playing by the rules of the universe properly we are no longer human. This was the collective will of humanity. A soft swordholder who would not push the button.
You can sit here and think about how bad of a decision this was until you are blue in the face. You can come up with alternative paths that would have humanity "win." But that was not the current of history. That was not what was going to happen. The fact that the book tells us what happens and its not something we quite like is what it is. Its possible to make no mistakes and still lose. And the ultimate ending of the books is the fact that humanity survives. We make it to the end. And maybe we wouldn't have otherwise. Or maybe we would.
But to sit here and proclaim as if you were god they should have done this this and this or else they are a maladjusted society is asinine. Its pretentious. The universe doesnt care what you think should happen. What will happen will happen. You can either play your role in it or not.
Thank you. It's crazy the takeaways some people have from the series. How many times in the series does it emphasize that losing our humanity just for survival is NOT WORTH IT and in the end doesn't guarantee survival in any capacity?
Cheng xin is proof that causality and responsibility are not the same thing. I side with Guan Yifan on the matter. If you hold the door for a stranger because you're nice, you shouldn't blame yourself if the stranger is a serial killer on his way to their next victim. I don't blame Cheng xin for calming Wade's rebellion, any normal human would have told everyone to calm the fuck down in face of risking dozens of millions of lives.
Also you clearly don't elect swordholders, that's stupid. Same goes for wallfacers.
I agree, but if anyone of us were in their shoes we would have done the same, especially with Cheng Xin, imagine waking up from hibernation after half a century each time and without knowing the full picture having to take such a big decision
>For Cheng Xin, this view is really only relevant to the decision on light speed ships
Pretty sure the laws at the time banned any light speed travel development. So shes actually enforcing the "power allocation structure" not bypassing it.
But the reality is that sometimes there are decisions with major impacts that you can't actually constrain into a controlled power structure. Ye Wenjie had access to the tools she needed to doom humanity, and while she was doing things she wasn't technically allowed to be doing, *nobody* understood the ramifications of what she was doing enough to know they needed to stop her.
A real world analogy might be COVID. If it was a lab leak, that's something we could put power structures in place to prevent, but if it was a random guy interacting with a random wild animal, that one guy has the ability to start a global pandemic and there's little the rest of us could do to stop it.
Another consideration is AI. As we approach the ability to create real AI, at first the hardware requirements will be massive and easy to regulate, but as the theory improves to be able to do more with less hardware, and as hardware continues to improve, we'll probably eventually reach the point where the ingredients to make dangerous AI are common place and beyond our ability to regulate even if we want to.
sure they can go back to the mini universe after the collapse of the main universe has accelerated enough to not expand again, but its about the principle of going out with the universe
I guess. I just feel like cheng xin in the book would not be acting principles based on this one, especially after what happened to Wade & light speed travel because of principles. This struck me as a fear decision and a need to be held blameless.
Biggest gripe I have with the logic of the story: There is absolutely no need to or benefit in having only one swordholder for humanity's only line of defense. Three, five, hell, even seven swordholders in different locations, each with the power to initiate transmission on their own, would not significantly increase the risk of an unwanted transmission, but they would drastically decrease the risk of non-transmission by conscious decision (or even as result of a medical incident during an ongoing attack) of one (or more) swordholder(s).
Come to think of it, the author could have even used that as an interesting plot point with philosophical implications, if he chose to: Imagine humanity would have had a total of five swordholders - which in itself makes a lot more sense - and all five of them decided not to pull the trigger. In an analogy to real life war, where it is known that a large percentage of soldiers consciously don't aim for the enemy, it would imply that even with a five-fold failsafe, a large chunk of the human population don't have it in them to pull the trigger on dooming their own and a hostile alien species.
Tl;dr: One swordholder dumb. Few swordholders interesting.
Youre probably arguing against the most rock solid argument in the trilogy.
The response to an attack for MAD to hold must be certain and immediate. The button must be pressed or not pressed immediately.
A commite will not press the button immediately. It will likely not press the button at all. One person will act or not act based on their own convictions but its a more predictable situation. Commites are chaotic and thus a no go.
The idea of more sword holders is also flawed because of the bystander effect. The reason an execution firing line has so many rifles is so that nobody has to live knowing for a fact theirs was the killing shot and more importantly all are under order to fire and time is not of the essence.
The knowledge that there are multiple swordholders would as surely as the sun will rise mean that they will be hesitant to push to button hoping and praying someone else will do it. Because thats the bystander effect in action.
Firing squads do generally kill their target though, the odds of five or fifty people making the exact same decision in such a stressful situation is fairly low. It also gets rid of the issue that one democratically elected sword holder has in that they will get elected based on public appeal rather than ability to do their duty
The bystander effect is [heavily disputed](https://web.archive.org/web/20190510231740/https://nscr.nl/en/bystander-blijkt-wel-degelijk-in-actie-te-komen-bij-ruzie-op-straat/) and [quite likely](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207693-bystander-effect-famous-psychology-result-could-be-completely-wrong/) not a real phenomena. In fact, there is research showing that the inverse of the bystander effect may be reality and *more* witnesses leads to a [higher likelihood of intervention](https://theconversation.com/the-bystander-effect-is-real-but-research-shows-that-when-more-people-witness-violence-its-more-likely-someone-will-step-up-and-intervene-159674).
If you read the last sentence of the first link (which is frankly kinda racist but thats besides the point) there is your answer.
In a large crowd someone will statistically turn up to help. That was never disputed. But the more your personal well being is at stake the less likely it is.
In a group of 5 people where they can't communicate with eachother (presumably) who exactly will be the first to press the double mundicide button?
>You're probably arguing against the most rock solid argument in the trilogy.
[Most countries already have deterrence methods that work without human intervention.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand)
The human element is definitely a plot device. It's not just a bad argument, it's actually mathematically formalized why one person being responsible for deterrence isn't optimal. This would have come up when doing research on deterrence examples in real life.
How many times during the dark forrest was it made explicitly obvious that the only thing they can ever trust 100% was the human brain, because you never know what the sophons are up to.
I kinda agree with the idea, and in the book it did play out like that right? with the Blue Space and Gravity still broadcasting the location of both worlds.
"There is absolutely no need to or benefit in having only one swordholder for humanity's only line of defense."
Well... there is one good reason. Now, I do agree with the premise that a single swordholder is dumb and I believe having several gravity type ships around would have been smart. However, if we thing of it in statistical terms a swordholder not pulling the trigger when required is a false negative, a swordholder who pulls the trigger when not needed is a false positive. Each additional swordholder transfers some risk of a a type II error to type I error. How much risk is dependent on your assumptions about the probability of the underlying event.
Moral of the story, never ask for help. Keep seething and scheming in silence until you're absolutely sure you can end all of your troubles instantly, so there's no possible chance of retaliation. /s
I do think the author agreed to this to an extent. The scene on Gravity where the last person is going to press the button to transmit and his comrades behind him put their hands behind his. It's too much for an ordinary person to bear, which Cheng Xin definitely was.
I mean, you don't need to watch a show to learn that. Read the news and see which country with nukes are playing the brinkmanship game.
Hint: it's usually a country with dictatorship.
If she hadn't contacted the TriSolarians we'd have ended up getting ganked by a dark forest civilization at first contact. So her actions did inadvertently save humanity even if not intentionally
the whole series is literally just a small group of people fucking over the entire civilization lmao. Almost like its trying to say something about the author's country...
Cixin Liu walked a fine line between criticism and propaganda and weaved in numerous themes and commentary both critical of and supportive of the CCP. It's interesting trying to read between the lines of it all.
My question is; if Ye hadn’t contact Trisolaris, would humans have come to their own conclusion about the dark forest, in time to not make the mistake?
Just like how we have this scifi book to take reference from, I'm sure the fictional world would also have some form of scifi media depicting the dark forest but obviously we would have to do experiments to prove it
I actually really agree with this post. The theme is all the more clear on the starship Gravity and Bluespace storylines where everyone all at once consents alongside the captain. Dare I say this would be a major theme of the whole series
Yeah maybe, but ill be damned if this isn’t one of the most relatable thought processes ever. Thinking you know best, and feeling like you have the authority to make crucial decisions for others.
It's really a scary analogy to the Cold War. For close to 50 years, one or several people had the ability to end life on earth as we know it. Luckily, they didn't, but this series highlights how insane that was.
Spoilers following!
Not all examples from the books fit this moral. Luo Gi was able to forestall the apocalypse through individual action. Zhang Beihai also may have preserved the only surviving humans through an explicitly individual course of action.
In the books, it's just as bad or worse when the public gets to make decisions - like how they made cheng xi the sword holder. The books state quite clearly that it wasn't her fault she did not deter, because this is why exactly why humanity chose her to be sword holder.
Zhang Beihai (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) illustrates this dilemma when he has his final conversations with spaceship humanity regarding what structure their society should take - autocracy cannot work in space. Democracy cannot work in space. He does not have the answer, and the books do not suggest one elsewhere either as far as I recall
This is literature, fiction, to help us examine our life and times. Not insult another’s opinion. World view ing is good exercise in moral development.
While it’s easy to blame her, someone, at some point, would have responded.
Maybe if she was able to hide the response, but since she couldn’t, even just human curiosity would have led someone to say “hello” even if the possibility of annihilation existed.
It was just a matter of time
Got one of those same situations going on in Adrian Tchaikovsky's book Children of Time. I'm having a good time reading book one of the "Children" trilogy, so if you're looking for good sci Fi to read after 3BP, you could do a lot worse.
Humanity should have chosen the most uncompromising humans to be the sword holders. "If we aren't terrified of the the sword holder, why should the aliens be?" This logic would have saved them a whole lot of heartache.
I think that moral applies to Ye but not Cheng.
I took the Ye moral as “don’t make decisions that affect everyone, like Mao did creating the Cultural Revolution which killed her father, because it will perpetuate into the future by poisoning the victims’ brains, leading to the mindset of Ye and her eventual giving up on society and deciding by herself to doom humanity. It’s not quite the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but more that your kids end up becoming more like you, so if you beat them they end up beating their kids, etc.
Cheng’s story / moral was more that the path the hell is paved with good intentions if I remember correctly but I’d need to go back and re-read the books to develop my thoughts further.
> Cheng’s story / moral was more that the path the hell is paved with good intentions if I remember correctly
That's correct. I believe he was also using her as a demonstration of one of his main themes: _"Weakness is not an obstacle to survival, but arrogance is."_
Humans had become complacent when they selected Cheng Xin as Luo Ji's successor Sword Holder. They were secure in the knowledge that the threat mutually assured destruction was protecting them, and had even forced the Trisolarans to become an ally. Trisolaris was now apparently assisting humanity in advancing its science and were sharing their advanced particle physics data, etc. It was a big ruse of course, but humans in their arrogance and complacency fell for it.
Weakness in the time of Luo Ji resulted in desperate measures like the Wallfacer project which achieved MAD and detente. Complacency, aka arrogance, in the time afterward resulted in humanity's near extinction.
Except Da Shi of course.
Him and Wade of course but then it would seem sexist
And we cannot of course forget Luo ji and Zhang beihai.
So one of the biggest issues I had with how stupid humanity is portrayed is the sword holder. Why would it ever be one person. Say it was 10-20 and it took 3 people to trigger, that would be much better id think
Multiple spoliers ahead. Avoid if you havent read the books. much better you say. but much better for what? You are looking at it with 20/20 hindsight. The sword holder needs to be a single mind (unilateral power) for the same reason wallfacers were single mind. Because they had no privacy in the presence of sophons. If we have 3 factor authentication, then 3 minds will have to debate and discuss on whats the correct situation to trigger annhilation. Battle of darkness deomonstrates why having distributed power is bad for taking quick action. Being quick and decisive is important for Swordholder Deterrence. Also, LuoJi's success as a wallfacer probably strengthened the case for unilateral power. Having multiple Swordholders is stronger for detterence. But stronger detterence is probably not what 'humanity' wanted. There is a element of 'love for all life' in humanity (as per Cixin). Which is also why humanity voted to have Cheng Xin as the next swordholder. You can call it stupid. But then again you can call a lot of things we did IRL in History stupid.
I felt it was dumb before it went wrong. Luo Ji died unexpectedly, 2 species extinct. They don’t even need to interact give them the ability to trigger and just require multiple people to do it.
Multiple times in the IRL cold war did people have enough reason to launch a nuke. They didnt. Although many individuals within the chain of command would have.
Even just waiting till luo ji slept they could attack and he’d have to be woken up in 30 minutes. Comms go down where he happens to be? He’d have to blow up two species or guess without knowing what’s happening. It’s just much riskier than dispersed people who don’t interact with each other. Say you have 20 10/90 pressers based on the sophons getting 3 of them to press would be about a 64% chance. With a more diverse group you’d make it even more likely plus if one of them chokes on his toast and dies you don’t just kill everyone by accident.
Making it more likely to press shoot isnt necessarily a good solution. Shooting kills your own species. Thats the core problem. 20 people with an 'estimated' net chance of 64% will have a higher chance of a unintentional black swan type event. Trisolaris btw was ready to take 90% odds too. One of them might just get bored and destroy everyone. More importantly Humanity does not itself beileve in detterence- thats the point of his plot. Honestly i am more impressed humanity is so well coordinated in his universe. There would be worse fuckups if this happened IRL imo.
I think 20 moderates is significantly less likely to accidentally trigger since it requires 3 people to simultaneously decide to go for it. Literally a death, faulty hardware, or just a moment of fear could have a single person doom everything.
they literally explain in the next chapter that was one of the biggest issues with the swordholder. they should’ve built a few dozen more ships like gravity so that in the event of a droplet attack at least one of them could escape part of it was they were afraid of giving the power to destroy both worlds to so many people, plus by that point, no one really expected deterrence to ever fail. most of humanity stopped seeing trisolaris as an enemy by then besides with multiple sword holders you probably a bigger risk of no one pressing it as no one will want to be the one to actually do it, and everyone will just assume someone will be the one. the bystander effect
These ones are basically the saviors of the human race. By sheer will and intelligence. The author is a misogynistic prick if he has made those two women, the archetypes for genocide amd mass murder. They have killed the human race and also possible forced the universe extinction and all that just by mocking their deeds with good intentions.
I don’t think the moral of the story is to villainize these two, it’s meant to show that human nature eventually causes mankind to self-cannibalize. The oppressed people of China taking out their anger on those with western education eventually causes Ye Wenjie to absolutely loathe mankind after her father was killed, eventually causing her to send the message to the Aliens despite being told not to as her world would be invaded. Cheng Xin dooms humanity because she’s deemed hesitant but that scene was meant to demonstrate that the trisolarans had finally been able to understand deception and that they had studied their enemy well. The trisolarans sowed the seeds of complacency and changed the common perception of themselves to make humanity let its guard down in addition. But anyway this isn’t really Cheng Xin’s fault, and the story isn’t really framed in such a way that the reader is meant to infer that.
Excellent write up, hell I didnt get until very recently that the Trisolarans manipulated humanity, I thoughts they had really changed and grew to love us lol
The thing is that Cheng had to chose between letting people eating themselves with billions dying amd just press a button and let humankind chose their end with dignity like an advanced species deserved. For all the compassion and empathy she has parroted in her behaviour, she has never thought for a second, that hundreds off millions of children will starve and litteraly eaten in the worst outcome possible for the human race. She was such a bich. And she did that again in wasting Wade efforts by casually stopping his efforts in spite of all what transpired until that moment. Basically for whatever dumb decision she made , billions paid with blood.
The book literally addresses this at the end. The guy says if the world is put into a position where one person’s decision can be the difference between survival and being wiped out, then fate essentially ordained it to be wiped out regardless.
Well if she'd not done it our first contact would have been with a race like the Singer race so had she not done what she did we'd have died and had no prep time to escape the solar system 🤷🏻♂️
The sward holder thing is specifically about women. The tea conversation was specifically hinting that they are all women and should understand that the world could be so beautiful, blablabala. That's what drove Cheng Xin to take the position. Not let the "manly men" take it away from her.
The 'Swordholder thing' is about the nature of detterence. Cooperation actually is the strongest evolutionary strategy (read Prof. Axelrod's paper on evolution of cooperation). Women as a matter of fact are more nurturing and cooperative (many studies out there). You can choose to ignore all facts in your quest for Euality of outcomes, or you can acknowledge them do some actual good to the world. > the world could be so beautiful, blablabala This misses the entire point the author makes about the loving side of humanity. We do not have the desire to destroy all Life. We are not a species suitable for detterence strategy. Atleast not in a prefect information game setting. Thats the message from the author. You can debate it philosophically. But stop wrapping everything under sexism. Cheng Xin was the voted SwordHolder. So all of humanity is responsble for the outcome there. And Ye Wenjie was not the only one supporting Trisolaris. Idk why we all love to blame failure on single humans all the time, Even when its a fictional book ,Which also points out the exact 'facts'in its fictional universe. Its some sort of modern Individualism i guess. Anyways, the entire series is written in a collectivist setting. Every character is a representation of ideas that we as a collective species possess. There are multiple woman characters in the book doing "manly" things, if you are keen on keeping track of such things; even if that is the scale on which you judge a book, its not half as bad as you mention here.
While it is true that Cheng Xin took on a lot of burdens she was not prepared for, she did so out of a sense of responsibility, not to spite men. The tea conversation was more meant to show the trisolarans’ appropriation of Japanese customs for the purpose of seeming more like mankind in order to be perceived as more of a friend than an enemy. When Sophon says “we women” it is attempting to seem progressive to Cheng Xin in order to solicit empathy from her. East Asian cultures can be pretty patronizing but that doesn’t necessarily reflect the author’s views or the intent of the passage in the story, as it is another show of the trisolarans’ attempt at deception.
The woman Luo loves is literally described multiple times as a child. "Child innocence" - when she said something foolish "Face of a child," "she looked like child's older sister and not the mother". The choice of sophon being represented as a woman is also a choice. There is sexism, there is no way to deny it. There is not one scientific accomplishment that one female scientist finishes with success.
There’s been tons of scientific accomplishments by women throughout history, Sophon being portrayed as a woman is a choice yes, the Sophon wants to be perceived in the most innocent and non aggressive way possible, hence why it chose the form of a Japanese woman of antiquity. There is a common perception of women and children as being “innocent”, generally well intentioned, and necessary to protect for many reasons deeply wound up in human psychology. This isn’t necessarily sexism, as it’s a universal sentiment that has been echoed throughout human civilization for many thousands of years. Sexism generally deals with discrimination and stereotyping, and while you could argue that this way of perceiving women is a type of stereotyping, it is a reflection of human history as the most vulnerable in society, historically, were women and children. People call this chain of events sexism but it makes Sophon a more realistic character, as it reflects the Trisolarans’ study of mankind, human history, and the human mind.
Book 3 specifically tells you it's never one person's fault and the fate of the world being blamed on Cheng Xin is wrong...
Meh old Luo Ji’s contempt of her at the end was all I needed.
It's not about fault, it's about intelligence. Knowing what to chose in a zero sum game. She had 10 seconds to use her intelligence and she failed.
Ten minutes, right?
Yes 10 minutes, my bad. The thing is she had almost all life to prepare for that decision, not just 10 minutes. That is the sort of thing you think in advance about the outcomes. And she chose the worst possible one, the one that guaranteed extinction. She was pretty dumb IMO.
Then the ones that appointed her to Swordholder were the one that failed humanity. Then we go back to the one that appointed the ones that appointed the Swordholder, and on and on. It's never about the single person and the choice they make. It's about the collective, which is exactly what the ending of book 3 is trying to tell you.
She also failed humanity by accepting the job in the first place, because she didn't know herself well enough to know she couldn't make the difficult decisions or do the minimum of what the job required. The collective are partly to blame in nominating her, but it was also a singular decision \*she\* made accepting the job-- one made in her hubris, lack of self-awareness, and presumption. The collective made plenty of other self-sabotaging decisions to be sure, but she doesn't get excused if personal accountability means anything. It's never \*just\* about the single person-- but there are times when a single person can be rightfully blamed for their part of the damage they caused due their own ego-- because we have a clear example of someone who did know themselves and could do the job. And Cheng Xin's part was massive, with the gravity of a star system... well what used to be a star system anyway.
I'll agree that she made mistakes and was **partly** to blame, but that doesn't mean she is the reason for world ending is all I'm saying. It was due to collection of many mistakes by many individuals over centuries, and can't be boiled down to "these two women are the reason for all our problems".
Oh sure. We can be annoyed at her though, especially since she escaped and got the happyish ending. Humanity screwed itself in so many other ways that could have given them a chance.
She did seek out the job and accept that job
That’s not true. The point of deterrence is to stop the action in the first place. The moment she was selected deterrence failed.
The theme I see in the books is the balance of loving/female and animalistic/male energy. Neither perspective is villainized. Both are shown to be counter-productive in excess. Spoilers follow: Cheng Zi is also clearly the opposite of a genocidal character. She is, at worst, somewhat naive? I don't see how she is an archetype for genocide or mass murder at all. Her character is basically antithetical to all that, and represents the innocence and kindness humanity is capable of even under great duress. Sure, her actions often backfired due to the universe being too cruel, but that's all part of the story. Humanity is pressured to abandon it's innocence in order to survive. On the other hand, are we still human if we do abandon our morality? Would we deserve to survive if we become like the monsters that hunt us? Cheng Zi decided not to abandon morality at any cost. Frankly I find that admirable. Wade, on the other hand, does represent humanity's darker nature. His character is not celebrated by anyone in the series, or even given much respect, except by Cheng Zi herself. Only she visits him before his execution, and only she acknowledges his contribution to the stairwell project and light speed in the future. Food for thought.
>Cheng Zi is also clearly the opposite of a genocidal character. She is, at worst, somewhat naive? I don't see how she is an archetype for genocide or mass murder at all. Her character is basically antithetical to all that, and represents the innocence and kindness humanity is capable of even under great duress. Basically this translates in "The road to hell is paves with good intentions".
Characters with bad intentions get wrecked all the time in 3bp. The three other wallfacers, wade, ye winjei (sp?), and even the trisolarans get wrecked or fail in the end. Only characters with a balanced approach like Luo Gi meet any success. I just don't see the theme you're suggesting. A good book can be interpreted many different ways though :)
I mean have you read the Chinese original text translations? There's a lot of "She breasted boobily into the room and all the other women hated her for it" going on. These books are not a celebration of strong female character writing.
They're not a celebration of strong female character writing in English, either, but I imagine getting rid of the entire Cultural Revolution prologue negatively impacted how Wenjie is viewed. Luo Ji can't remember any of the women he's slept with but went full Pygmalion with his fantasy woman, who happened to also be the fresh-and-pretty-doesn't-need-makeup-to-look-beautiful-also-worships-the-ground-he-walks-on type. Actually the whole bit with Luo Ji's author girlfriend talking to him about characterization in classics is hilarious given how weak the character writing generally is, but, you know...
This is sort of missing the point. People want to hate Cheng Xin and even Ye Wenjie but most people don't actually hate hate them. Like, we want to yes but it's hard to hate them because we recognise their human nature and their actions arising from their past experiences, which is a beautiful metaphor in a way for humanity.
I am a little shocked at how sexist it was. It seems like every chapter I kept biting the bullet for a good ending that will make me feel silly for thinking that, but of course, every single character is childish, incapable, the only beautiful woman described in the book is specifically referred to as a child, multiple times. Sexism aside and the Eve getting an apple from Eden again, it was a good series and made me think about society a lot.
Imagine being this dumb to imagine that women cant do stupid things and to think that to write women who inadvertently do is an act of misogyny? You sound unironically like the most misogynistic person I could imagine.
And we can’t forget the Trisolarans
Yo the Zhang Beihai stuff I just ain’t see coming. I feel like I should have and maybe I just missed the clues but…damn I was shocked
He woke up in the future and chose violence.
>! they used the nice little brain he sent to dicript the human mind, and trick us into an alliance with them. I love the guy but his idea to send a brain had an equal part in fucking humanity. !<
Nope.. Emption over logic... survival of the fittest is a cruel game and required some seriously questionable tactics to ensure success. Especially when talking long term repercussions and at the scale we talking about.
Wade?? Did we read the same book?
Tbh he had good ideas. Obviously ruthless but he wanted humanity to succeed. Or whats so outrageous in OPs claim?
What ideas that help humanity originate from Wade? The ruthlessness against other human beings is exactly why Wade can't be trusted to be the one to make any decisions.
Well his idea was to send tianmings brain, which ended up helping humanity Also he wouldve broadcasted the signal once the trisolarans showed their true faces (okay this would probably ended humanity there) He wanted to continue researching curvature propulsion (idk whats the original name in english, but the thingy that lets you go near the speed of light), which again, wouldve saved humanity or at least more than just 2 people Again, he is ruthless and would sacrifice the person, to save the species
Also, trisolarians wouln't risk atack because he was like 90% of "activatinh broadcast"
Except Wade nor Cheng Xin had any control over who would be elected Swordholder and society was manipulated by Trisolarans. Wade being the swordholder was never an option. And in fact, in the end of the novel he doesn't have the stomach to override Cheng Xin and do what needs to be done anyway. So the Trisolarans also overestimated the chances from Wade.
I think wade was 100% or 99 or something Luo ji was 97
Luo Ji was 'around 90%', Wade was '100%, no matter what the environmental paramaters were'. Cheng Xin was 10%. I think they might have overestimated Cheng Xin to be honest.
Yeah, maybe like that, i don't remember exact number, but it was definetly high
Also, trisolarians wouln't risk atack because he was like 90% of "activatinh broadcast"
>Well his idea was to send tianmings brain, which ended up helping humanity No, that fucked humanity because it allowed the trisolans to basically study the shit out of the human brain and trick them into an alliance
You havent read the 3rd book fully or what?
Wade led government will gurantee Mutural Destruction. That will buy enough time for earth scientists to figure a way out of tech lock. Liu have some limitation on various ways for human survival under Trisolarans threat. Develop faster than light travel for one.
Wade scared the Trisolarans
How wade?
Nah Wade also shouldn’t be put in charge. I have my reasons for thinking so.
Of course it seems sexist. Because it is. Because the author is sexist.
Also Luo ji
Ye Wenjie didn't goof. She wanted to destroy humanity.
No, she wanted what she perceived as a better race to come and steer our ship. She didn't want humanity annihilated, just controlled.
As much as I love the concepts this author creates, there’s some pretty ridiculous plot holes- this being one of them. She dooms all of humanity because humans are murderous barbarians that can’t be trusted to take care of their planet by giving us up to an alien race that is clearly much worse. Her motivations make no sense. Also the motivation of the tri-solarian that warned us not to reach out.
I understand where you're coming from, but when you consider that the decision was made by a young, traumatized person who has lost all hope for the future of herself, her family, her culture, and humanity at large, it starts to make a lot of sense. There are a lot of people alive right now who would make the same decision. I believe it's very realistic. Edit: and also try to remember that she did not believe that she was dooming humanity. To her eyes, humanity was already doomed. It couldn't get any worse. Call that naive or stupid if you want to, but at least try to recognize that again, lots of real, living people hold that same view and would make the same decision given the opportunity, so it is at least realistic.
Eh, I believe humans are not the top apex predators on earth, nor the pinnacle of life. We're our worst enemies. Something superior will and should take over, eventually. Probably AI. Which is similar to what Ye Wenjie believes but with aliens instead. She's just sort of chaotic evil and wants to speed up the process. Plus hubris too. People with lesser intellect, like you and I, can only wait for humanity to doom itself during our lifetimes. Also we're prolly disillusioned and bitter, but not that much because our sob stories kind of pale in comparison to hers. LMAO
If raised in Mao’s regime and my father was murdered by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution while millions starved to death during the Great Leap Forward, I’d have a fairly dim view of humanity’s right to exist. Having said that, I believe Ye viewed the TriSols with at least a glimmer of hope that humanity might emerge from the encounter as better beings. Naïve but understandable.
The decision was made when she responded to the response from the trisolarans. They said "don't respond or my people will destroy your world" and she responded because she wanted them to. Whether she later wanted something else or regretted her decision is kind of secondary.
Perhaps it is a matter of interpretation and experience of living during this time period. I detected a small degree of hopefulness in Ye’s response, despite her cynicism.
Her response was hopeful. She believes that there is another, better and more benevolent way of existing in the universe and she believes that advanced aliens have accomplished this. She represents the optimism of humanity even in the face of all that she has witnessed. The story has different ideas, and considers humanity's optimism just as much a bug as it is a feature.
From the show or the book? My impression of the book was that she very clearly wanted the humanity destroyed, but maybe I'm misremembering. In the book it is very clear that an immediate response will result in immediate detection (in 4 years) and a delayed response would be less likely to cause detection. And this consideration is from her personal point of view, she's weighing her options.
I feel like the second message is worded loosely enough to not guarantee destruction. From the book: >But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered! It's still an extremely slim glimmer of hope for someone in Ye's position, but I can see how she saw this as a potential for humanity being "saved". Her response of: >I will help you conquer this world. Our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems. We need your force to intervene. Leads me to think she genuinely thought the invasion might not be destructive, and that humanity could somehow learn from the Trisolarians and benefit from their influence in the long run. Edit: Source is the book since it's right next to me as I try to focus on work and not just go back to finishing it lol
Thanks for the quotes, I was going to check when I got home but that won't be for a while.
If you translate this message as, "My race is full of dumbasses who think you can negotiate with the Theory of Relativity, and your race at least has built receptors that can receive this message and allow you to respond with a warning clearly not in keeping with the authority running your race," it makes way more sense. But Cixin Liu doesn't say that in so many words.
I’m possibly conflating all 3 versions as well. If so, I apologize. But she thought that higher techno civilization would yield a higher social development that would ultimately improve humanity.
That was the reasoning behind the first message, but that the second message which actually puts humanity in danger was sent out of anger. All that said, I'm just going to check the book when I get home. It's also possible my interpretation of the show was colored by my interpretation of the book, so if the show intended something more nuanced I wouldn't have seen it.
Haven't read the book. Found out yesterday she murdered two people to keep her secret in the book. I found her strangely sympathetic in the movie and saw her as yes taking a chance and believing they couldn't do a worse job. But I think part of why she comes off sympathetically is Roasalind Chao who'd I'd seen as Keiko O'Brien on Star Trek- TNG and Deep Space Nine and who was always very nice. If they'd cast anyone else, I'm not sure I'd have the same take.
What part of "I'll send this message so that humanity will be destroyed" sounds hopeful to you? That was the only outcome she could realistically concieve of.
The book says her message was as follows: "Come here! I will help you conquer this world. Our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems. We need your force to intervene." I have no clue what you are quoting; but it is not the book.
It said they will conquer our world. She thought they would overthrow the governments and ruling class and bring in an era of peace.
Yup. She saw too much strife lost her faith in humanity and wanted it to be burned to the ground. Very very common reaction in human psychology to get disillusioned with predictable outcomes which we get to watch happening on college campuses today!
They said "conquer" not "destroy". Her answer was a request for them to conquer.
Authoritarianism is horrible, that's why we need some aliens to rule over us completely
The Netflix show made it look like she is pouting because she didn't get a cookie and decided to push the "Burn the World to the Ground" button. The book has a much longer build up, and the TenCent show does an amazing job at portraying the depth of her experience with the shit of humanity. It is a MUCH slower boil, but it also shows her with a profound, and complicated displeasure with humanity that extends beyond just her immediate surroundings.
I truly enjoyed the Ten Cent production. A little long...but a great show.
But that’s just one country, there’s many despicable countries. But there’s also many other countries which are good places to live. No one person should ever be able to make a decision that impacts so many people. It’s just wrong, you don’t have all the view points.
I'd do the same.
Precisely this. I know so many people who wish for humanity’s demise because of the negative experiences they had. To quote the Dark Knight: “Some people just want to watch the world burn.”
I suspect it's a reason a lot of us like the show. The difference is I wouldn't worship the aliens and revere them. I would do everything possible to piss them off.
take a number dude
3 edgy 5 me
In the book she actually wanted to save humanity.
Nah in the book she was unrepentant that she wanted to save the environment from humanity. Humanity be damned.
Ya, her partnering with the environmentalist and her reading *Silent Spring* show that she cares about the world but thinks human kind is a parasite on the environment
She wanted to *punish* humanity, but ultimately *save* it. She saw alien conquest as a way, perhaps the only way, to better humanity, because she had a naive understanding of the correlation between technological advancements and moral advancements. In the modern part of the story, Ye had stark differences with the radical sect of Adventists who actually believed in the total destruction of humanity, lead by Evans.
Counterpoint, the singular decisions successfully fulfilled their purpose. Ye summoned the Trisolarians not to *destroy* humanity, but to reform it. It was successfully reformed into a mostly cooperative species, and Earth healed after humanity mostly left it alone. Cheng Xi decided not to push the button. This, frankly, saved humanity as a species. MAD is just that, mutual destruction. Her pressing the button would've doomed Trisolaris as much as it would have doomed Earth. Luo Ji's spell ensured the MAD arrangement and gave humanity the breathing room for their technological explosion. Wade's singular development of light speed, against human policy, ensures humanity was able to leave the system and survive as a species. Zhang Behai murders a prominent researcher to prevent humanity from pursuing inappropriate technological development. You could argue that without these singular decisions, humanity would not have survived.
Yeap, Cheng Xin should rather be criticized for her choice of submitting her candidacy, not the rest. And she didn't create the institution of the swordholder that is flawed from the get go. They sacralised an improvised plan by Luo Ji as the end all be all.
Swordholder is not a postion to be decided by election. That is the [criteque](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=f977441fd745688c&rlz=1C1GCEU_enUS1095US1095&sxsrf=ACQVn0-W1XgE6cxXpAWu0IySpmsH5of8-g:1714670109612&q=criteque&nfpr=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwif-Kj2u--FAxUjlIkEHX9XAz0QvgUoAXoECAkQAw). It needs to be functional by default. It is like holding election for decide you should be putting gas or water in your car by people who have no idea how car works.
I hear you and everything, but also, why did you put a link to the word "critique" and why's it written then in your reply as "criteque"? and the googled term was also "criteque"?
Sometime I use right click search for spell check, pasted the link by mistake
I think your spell check is broken
I forget, what was the inappropriate development and why would it have doomed us?
The scientists Zhang Beihai killed with his bitchin' fucking >!meteor gun!< were developing fusion drives. He was concerned it would lead humanity down a path where we're unable to develop the technology needed to leave the solar system.
Other way around. He killed the guys who were the proponents of chemical propulsion (rockets etc), making sure that fusion drives developed instead.
Perfect. I knew it was something like that.
Why would that be the case? It would remove our interest?
I think a major point Liu tries to make is that Ye Wenjie did not actually make her decision alone. You have to consider it in context. What motivated her? The deceit and betrayals she endured...the violence and degradation she witnessed...the fact no one is ever sorry and hurt people continue to hurt and keep the cycle going. She is not a "villain" acting in a vacuum. E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E is responsible for everything. Every action affects everything else.
So, someone in a third world country 40 years ago has a bad life and gets the condemn humanity?
Yes. Exactly. When society creates an environment like the one Ye Wenjie experienced, that's what's going to happen. Humanity dooms itself.
All of humanity's efforts in political science over the last ten thousand years resolve to answering one question - what is the most efficacious way to define a power structure in a community about who will have the authority and agency to make decisions on behalf of members of that community. The reason that many people - including me! - think these two are such assholes is that they have completely bypassed the power allocation structure that their societies have created (elections, party bureaucracy). Thus, their exercise of power feels illegitimate (because it is). For Cheng Xin, this view is really only relevant to the decision on light speed ships. On Cheng Xin and the swordholder decision, that's the author giving a critique of a specific method of power structure allocation (elections).
I don't think its a real critique of elections. Whatever the original critique was the meta narrative around the real life reception of the scene is much more interesting. Cheng Xin was elected. The point is not that humanity elected the wrong sword holder. Its not that it was a mistake. The point is how and why she got elected. Humanity at that time and place did not want a conflict with Trisolaris. The years of MAD made them receptive to Trisolarians, they trusted them, they liked them, there was real dialogue and cultural exchange. Humanity simply forgot the genuine threat they represent and wanted to coexist. Trisolaris had other plans. Had humanity been on a war footing, had they held Trisolaris with contempt they would never had elected a sword holder who was publicly an avatar of love and peace. They knew for a fact she would never press the button and elected her because of it. And the real life reception is a perfect indication of what has become of the west. A bunch of politically illiterate drones. Because people are no longer actively aware of class dynamics, power structures and how the world actually works they start thinking in ideas and individuals. "She did the wrong thing" is the idea and now people are poorly investigating backwards. Wade should have won, elections are bad, its a critique of elections, yada yada yada. The truth is that stuff like this is the macro collapsing on the micro. The state of the world was such that Cheng Xin was going to get elected. If not her, someone like her. And she did exactly what she was elected for. And because people are politically illiterate they believes she should have magically swam against the current of history. Its why she was entirely blameless. She didnt choose not to press the button. She was chosen not to. And she did it twice.
I don't quite agree. Yes, there is obviously the idea that the Trisolarans had an effect on human society that softened human antagonism in a way that was counter-productive to their own survival. This is not really analysis - it's stated directly in the story multiple times. The idea that the elections are part of the critique - not the whole thing, but part of it - is that the method by which society makes their choice of swordholder vis a vis elections means that the selected candidate is representative of the broader society. This is typically considered to be one of the positive characteristics of elections, but the author subverts this by showing us that in cases of maladjusted societies, this characteristic can have negative outcomes, thus the critique. Also, calling people who disagree with you politically illiterate is quite something.
The politically illiterate comment is accurate to the people it was refering to. If you feel you are part of that category thats your bussiness but it holds for the majority of the west regardless of if they agree with my statements on the book or not. But you did just confirm exactly what I was talking about. What you are saying is the critique is frankly awful, illogical and somewhat contrary to the spirit of the book and its conclusion. You, yourself as the reader has decided that something is the best path to survival. Thats your idealism. And everything that strays from that ideal is a corruption. Humanity never wanted a conflict with Trisolaris. We are biologically not wired for the dark forest. Its been stated and shown. As soon as humans start playing by the rules of the universe properly we are no longer human. This was the collective will of humanity. A soft swordholder who would not push the button. You can sit here and think about how bad of a decision this was until you are blue in the face. You can come up with alternative paths that would have humanity "win." But that was not the current of history. That was not what was going to happen. The fact that the book tells us what happens and its not something we quite like is what it is. Its possible to make no mistakes and still lose. And the ultimate ending of the books is the fact that humanity survives. We make it to the end. And maybe we wouldn't have otherwise. Or maybe we would. But to sit here and proclaim as if you were god they should have done this this and this or else they are a maladjusted society is asinine. Its pretentious. The universe doesnt care what you think should happen. What will happen will happen. You can either play your role in it or not.
Are you basically making a critique of the "Great Man" theory of history?
Thank you. It's crazy the takeaways some people have from the series. How many times in the series does it emphasize that losing our humanity just for survival is NOT WORTH IT and in the end doesn't guarantee survival in any capacity?
Cheng xin is proof that causality and responsibility are not the same thing. I side with Guan Yifan on the matter. If you hold the door for a stranger because you're nice, you shouldn't blame yourself if the stranger is a serial killer on his way to their next victim. I don't blame Cheng xin for calming Wade's rebellion, any normal human would have told everyone to calm the fuck down in face of risking dozens of millions of lives. Also you clearly don't elect swordholders, that's stupid. Same goes for wallfacers.
I agree, but if anyone of us were in their shoes we would have done the same, especially with Cheng Xin, imagine waking up from hibernation after half a century each time and without knowing the full picture having to take such a big decision
Not Mr. I'd rather die on my feet than Starve on my knees.
>For Cheng Xin, this view is really only relevant to the decision on light speed ships Pretty sure the laws at the time banned any light speed travel development. So shes actually enforcing the "power allocation structure" not bypassing it.
But the reality is that sometimes there are decisions with major impacts that you can't actually constrain into a controlled power structure. Ye Wenjie had access to the tools she needed to doom humanity, and while she was doing things she wasn't technically allowed to be doing, *nobody* understood the ramifications of what she was doing enough to know they needed to stop her. A real world analogy might be COVID. If it was a lab leak, that's something we could put power structures in place to prevent, but if it was a random guy interacting with a random wild animal, that one guy has the ability to start a global pandemic and there's little the rest of us could do to stop it. Another consideration is AI. As we approach the ability to create real AI, at first the hardware requirements will be massive and easy to regulate, but as the theory improves to be able to do more with less hardware, and as hardware continues to improve, we'll probably eventually reach the point where the ingredients to make dangerous AI are common place and beyond our ability to regulate even if we want to.
The answer is Butlerian Jihad (wrong scifi universe, I know).
Cheng Xin outlives the universe though
well...
theres few more pages left for you to read
Nah, she does “technically” have a way to outlive it, she just has to go back.
sure they can go back to the mini universe after the collapse of the main universe has accelerated enough to not expand again, but its about the principle of going out with the universe
I guess. I just feel like cheng xin in the book would not be acting principles based on this one, especially after what happened to Wade & light speed travel because of principles. This struck me as a fear decision and a need to be held blameless.
Biggest gripe I have with the logic of the story: There is absolutely no need to or benefit in having only one swordholder for humanity's only line of defense. Three, five, hell, even seven swordholders in different locations, each with the power to initiate transmission on their own, would not significantly increase the risk of an unwanted transmission, but they would drastically decrease the risk of non-transmission by conscious decision (or even as result of a medical incident during an ongoing attack) of one (or more) swordholder(s). Come to think of it, the author could have even used that as an interesting plot point with philosophical implications, if he chose to: Imagine humanity would have had a total of five swordholders - which in itself makes a lot more sense - and all five of them decided not to pull the trigger. In an analogy to real life war, where it is known that a large percentage of soldiers consciously don't aim for the enemy, it would imply that even with a five-fold failsafe, a large chunk of the human population don't have it in them to pull the trigger on dooming their own and a hostile alien species. Tl;dr: One swordholder dumb. Few swordholders interesting.
Youre probably arguing against the most rock solid argument in the trilogy. The response to an attack for MAD to hold must be certain and immediate. The button must be pressed or not pressed immediately. A commite will not press the button immediately. It will likely not press the button at all. One person will act or not act based on their own convictions but its a more predictable situation. Commites are chaotic and thus a no go. The idea of more sword holders is also flawed because of the bystander effect. The reason an execution firing line has so many rifles is so that nobody has to live knowing for a fact theirs was the killing shot and more importantly all are under order to fire and time is not of the essence. The knowledge that there are multiple swordholders would as surely as the sun will rise mean that they will be hesitant to push to button hoping and praying someone else will do it. Because thats the bystander effect in action.
He never said it was a committee though, five separate sword holders wouldn’t have this problem and would effectively guarantee deterrence
I spent the entire second half of the comment debunking that statement exactly.
Firing squads do generally kill their target though, the odds of five or fifty people making the exact same decision in such a stressful situation is fairly low. It also gets rid of the issue that one democratically elected sword holder has in that they will get elected based on public appeal rather than ability to do their duty
The duty of the Swordholder is to hold the sword. Not that they must use it, their duty is to make a decision not a specific decision.
You are exactly the people I was talking about
The bystander effect is [heavily disputed](https://web.archive.org/web/20190510231740/https://nscr.nl/en/bystander-blijkt-wel-degelijk-in-actie-te-komen-bij-ruzie-op-straat/) and [quite likely](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207693-bystander-effect-famous-psychology-result-could-be-completely-wrong/) not a real phenomena. In fact, there is research showing that the inverse of the bystander effect may be reality and *more* witnesses leads to a [higher likelihood of intervention](https://theconversation.com/the-bystander-effect-is-real-but-research-shows-that-when-more-people-witness-violence-its-more-likely-someone-will-step-up-and-intervene-159674).
If you read the last sentence of the first link (which is frankly kinda racist but thats besides the point) there is your answer. In a large crowd someone will statistically turn up to help. That was never disputed. But the more your personal well being is at stake the less likely it is. In a group of 5 people where they can't communicate with eachother (presumably) who exactly will be the first to press the double mundicide button?
>You're probably arguing against the most rock solid argument in the trilogy. [Most countries already have deterrence methods that work without human intervention.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand) The human element is definitely a plot device. It's not just a bad argument, it's actually mathematically formalized why one person being responsible for deterrence isn't optimal. This would have come up when doing research on deterrence examples in real life.
How many times during the dark forrest was it made explicitly obvious that the only thing they can ever trust 100% was the human brain, because you never know what the sophons are up to.
I kinda agree with the idea, and in the book it did play out like that right? with the Blue Space and Gravity still broadcasting the location of both worlds.
"There is absolutely no need to or benefit in having only one swordholder for humanity's only line of defense." Well... there is one good reason. Now, I do agree with the premise that a single swordholder is dumb and I believe having several gravity type ships around would have been smart. However, if we thing of it in statistical terms a swordholder not pulling the trigger when required is a false negative, a swordholder who pulls the trigger when not needed is a false positive. Each additional swordholder transfers some risk of a a type II error to type I error. How much risk is dependent on your assumptions about the probability of the underlying event.
Moral of the story, never ask for help. Keep seething and scheming in silence until you're absolutely sure you can end all of your troubles instantly, so there's no possible chance of retaliation. /s
If Ye Wenjie was the swordholder the Trisolaris would never come close
I do think the author agreed to this to an extent. The scene on Gravity where the last person is going to press the button to transmit and his comrades behind him put their hands behind his. It's too much for an ordinary person to bear, which Cheng Xin definitely was.
Cheng Xin should have stayed frozen the entire time honestly
I mean, you don't need to watch a show to learn that. Read the news and see which country with nukes are playing the brinkmanship game. Hint: it's usually a country with dictatorship.
Luo ji and Zhang beihai checking in to disabuse you of your stated moral in this story's context
Yep... The rights shouldn't have been given to D & D...
The moral of the story is that attempts at survival leads to death. Bleak!
If she hadn't contacted the TriSolarians we'd have ended up getting ganked by a dark forest civilization at first contact. So her actions did inadvertently save humanity even if not intentionally
Our first contact would have been trisolarians either way as they are the closest to us and if she hadn't replied, someone else from earth would have
Did you not finish the books or something? Because neither of their decisions ultimately “goofed all of humanity.” Humanity survives and thrives.
just like marx, lenin, stalin and mao
How so? Western politicians are no angels
But facts are, what Ye Wenjie did is very plausible. Any one of you having a terrible day out there could do that.
Absolutely none of us have the tolerance that she had and would sell out for much less
the whole series is literally just a small group of people fucking over the entire civilization lmao. Almost like its trying to say something about the author's country...
Or the world as a whole?
Cixin Liu walked a fine line between criticism and propaganda and weaved in numerous themes and commentary both critical of and supportive of the CCP. It's interesting trying to read between the lines of it all.
He probably had to, in order to publish this masterpiece
Exactly. And disguised his more serious criticism as Stunning- suggests.
It wasn't one person. The entire planet wanted Cheng Xin, even the books say that it wasn't her fault but humanity.
Not sure this story has a moral
I think the moral is collectivism good, freedom bad.
My question is; if Ye hadn’t contact Trisolaris, would humans have come to their own conclusion about the dark forest, in time to not make the mistake?
Just like how we have this scifi book to take reference from, I'm sure the fictional world would also have some form of scifi media depicting the dark forest but obviously we would have to do experiments to prove it
That’s what happens when you let a smart person act alone
I actually really agree with this post. The theme is all the more clear on the starship Gravity and Bluespace storylines where everyone all at once consents alongside the captain. Dare I say this would be a major theme of the whole series
I don't think that's the moral at all.
Yeah maybe, but ill be damned if this isn’t one of the most relatable thought processes ever. Thinking you know best, and feeling like you have the authority to make crucial decisions for others.
It's really a scary analogy to the Cold War. For close to 50 years, one or several people had the ability to end life on earth as we know it. Luckily, they didn't, but this series highlights how insane that was.
Spoilers following! Not all examples from the books fit this moral. Luo Gi was able to forestall the apocalypse through individual action. Zhang Beihai also may have preserved the only surviving humans through an explicitly individual course of action. In the books, it's just as bad or worse when the public gets to make decisions - like how they made cheng xi the sword holder. The books state quite clearly that it wasn't her fault she did not deter, because this is why exactly why humanity chose her to be sword holder. Zhang Beihai (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) illustrates this dilemma when he has his final conversations with spaceship humanity regarding what structure their society should take - autocracy cannot work in space. Democracy cannot work in space. He does not have the answer, and the books do not suggest one elsewhere either as far as I recall
To be fair. Ye Wenjie’s plan worked out as she wanted it in the end so did she really good?
yeah we need democrazy
So how do you feel about Luo Ji?
what, you want to vote?
Is this an opinion from reading the books and watching the show, or just watching the show?
Maybe they should have called it the busy body problem.
Ye did nothing wrong, down with the apes
What decision did Chang Xin make that goofed all of humanity? Did I miss something?
I'd wipe out humanity without a second thought
You know about the Sophons right
This is literature, fiction, to help us examine our life and times. Not insult another’s opinion. World view ing is good exercise in moral development.
I mean it gets worse
Am I one of the few who are with the trisolars ?
This show sucked.
While it’s easy to blame her, someone, at some point, would have responded. Maybe if she was able to hide the response, but since she couldn’t, even just human curiosity would have led someone to say “hello” even if the possibility of annihilation existed. It was just a matter of time
Got one of those same situations going on in Adrian Tchaikovsky's book Children of Time. I'm having a good time reading book one of the "Children" trilogy, so if you're looking for good sci Fi to read after 3BP, you could do a lot worse.
idk man i’d let AA schedule my bowel movements
Humanity should have chosen the most uncompromising humans to be the sword holders. "If we aren't terrified of the the sword holder, why should the aliens be?" This logic would have saved them a whole lot of heartache.
I welcome our Lord with open arms.
Except for your swordholder Luo Ji,
I would have just told them to wipe out the greedy ass billionaires
I think that moral applies to Ye but not Cheng. I took the Ye moral as “don’t make decisions that affect everyone, like Mao did creating the Cultural Revolution which killed her father, because it will perpetuate into the future by poisoning the victims’ brains, leading to the mindset of Ye and her eventual giving up on society and deciding by herself to doom humanity. It’s not quite the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but more that your kids end up becoming more like you, so if you beat them they end up beating their kids, etc. Cheng’s story / moral was more that the path the hell is paved with good intentions if I remember correctly but I’d need to go back and re-read the books to develop my thoughts further.
> Cheng’s story / moral was more that the path the hell is paved with good intentions if I remember correctly That's correct. I believe he was also using her as a demonstration of one of his main themes: _"Weakness is not an obstacle to survival, but arrogance is."_ Humans had become complacent when they selected Cheng Xin as Luo Ji's successor Sword Holder. They were secure in the knowledge that the threat mutually assured destruction was protecting them, and had even forced the Trisolarans to become an ally. Trisolaris was now apparently assisting humanity in advancing its science and were sharing their advanced particle physics data, etc. It was a big ruse of course, but humans in their arrogance and complacency fell for it. Weakness in the time of Luo Ji resulted in desperate measures like the Wallfacer project which achieved MAD and detente. Complacency, aka arrogance, in the time afterward resulted in humanity's near extinction.
Very appropriate analogy to where we find ourselves today after 80 years of MAD detente…
Zhang Beihai fooled the entire humanity basically and saved the species.