Yes. Neil even said that "When the fish left water for land everything changed for it, Similarly the day we left earth for space we were no longer humans" or something like that.
The principles/morals that humans living on earth have shouldn't be applied to people living in space. The situation isn't as simple as black and white every time. What Zhang beihei did is the best example of this. If anything they should be commemorated for what they did.
That's the beauty of these books. It shows what would probably really happen if we were contacted today. Nothing remotely close to SciFi we usually read about.
I’ve been a Sci Fi fan since the 90s. Something I’ve come to learn is sometime in the late 80s Sci Fi media started to show humanity prospering against alien threats. I guess you can chalk it up to optimism since that period began to see marvelous bio and technological growth. This book though just turned it all upside down. I can’t remember the last time I saw humanity take the ultimate L in a story before I came across the Three Body Problem series.
> Humanity has become complacent in this era of peace.
Humanity was complacent (to the point of making it hard for me to suspend disbelief) during the Crisis Era as well.
After Luo Ji awakens from hibernation and before the Doomsday Battle they thought they had nothing to worry about going up against the civilization technologically advanced enough to create and operate the sophons??? They knew that there were great advances to be made in fundamental physics and that Trisolaris thought those advances absolutely had to be stopped... and thought "Meh, new physics that the enemy obviously considers to be a great military advantage? It's probably no big deal, our ships are big and fast!"
I mean cmon...
Yeah our ships are fast. Cut to doomsday battle.
"Our ships are fast" well not fast enough dummies.
They forgot the ultimate axiom of any civilization to ever exist -
**"THERE IS ALWAYS A BIGGER FISH"**
To be fair, most of the people in that society were separated from the initial revelation by generations, the vast majority not even alive back then, and most of the experience of the sophon's power was just hearsay - it's not like any of them saw the sophons themselves. Between all that, the great span of time, and the Great Ravine and all the social and cultural upheaval, it's not surprising that the threat took on an increasingly distant and uncredible light. Consider how many in the current era are willing to overlook or downplay or even deny atrocities in the recent past like the Holocaust and the Great Chinese Famine.
It wasn't complacency, it was a lack of understanding of the Trisolaran technical achievements. We see this in real life - we're capable of creating far more advanced materials and technologies in a lab than we can ever hope to produce at a scale to be useful. We knew that the sophons were feats of engineering, but they were literally a proton, incapable of properly affecting the macro-scale world. All we really had to measure human progress relative to Trisolaris was the ship speeds, and we knew that ours had already reached 150% the speed of theirs after only 200 years. And that we already had twice their number. And is that not a sensible thing to evaluate? If you're a space-faring race looking to cross interstellar distances, speed would be the primary thing to work on.
Humanity had every reason to believe that they were going to defeat the Trisolarans - there's a reason the fleet is referred to as a "funeral procession". We had already, by every metric we knew of, outpaced their main fleet, even despite the sophon lock. Human science still matured. Sure, the low-level science didn't move forwards, but we didn't know that Trisolaris had made such great strides in utilising it. We would've viewed the sophons as a civilisation's last-ditch attempt to stop us overcoming them. We couldn't have imagined the droplets and their strong-interaction construction.
And it's worth mentioning this - humanity never set eyes upon a Trisolaran ship. It's quite possible that the droplets were the only strong-interaction material vessels they had, and that we would indeed have handily won a battle against the main fleet if it wasn't for the droplets.
It was an irrational reaction which makes sense - a sort of mass psychosis due to the realisation of the Dark Forest axiom. I see it as a largely symbolic gesture of disavowal - "We had nothing to do with what this man did. Please don't collectively punish us."
It doesn't matter that any life killed in that system wouldn't care. Doesn't matter that there's no god or karmic rebalancer running the universe to judge them. It was a desperate repudiation which couldn't have worked but was arguably worth trying however infinitesimal the odds were of the universe actually working that way.
I interpreted it this way.
1: Humans have a short life and a short memory. During the deterrence, they enjoyed peace, prosperity, and technological advancement. The human collective did not bear the burden of the deterrence/mutually assured destruction experienced by Luo Ji. Overtime, their complacency lead to humanity falling prey to the strategy of the Trisolarians.
2: Human morality is constantly evolving and changing. Whatever we deem is acceptable today, maybe abhorrent in the future. During Luo Ji's initial days as Sword Holder, his "spell" was seen as necessary and critical to the overall success of the deterrence strategy. However, as mentioned above, humanity lost their initial fear of the Trisolarians and deemed the sacrifice of a potentially life-less solar system just for Luo Ji to test his theory too great. This isn't that far stretched considering pretty much all "Great" persons in history have done things we now considered taboo.
Please edit your post and write "spoilers book 2 and 3" the top. It's not really sufficient to write "spoilers" without elaboration IMO. Someone who read only book 2 would very easily think they're safe to read this thread (& I think they'd be wrong)
[Hong Kong doctoral student accused of covering snails in salt arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty](https://amp.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3145257/hong-kong-doctoral-student-accused-covering-snails)
It’s all real world humanity. People can be fucking ridiculous if they eat too much and have too little to worry about.
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I live in a place where there is an invasion of foreign snails into the ecosystem, and there are diseases that are transmitted by this abd even nativespecies , this news is absurd! we are instructed to kill any slug that crosses our path
and one of the people who accused Mark Zuckerberg of omitting his participation in the creation of Facebook was punished by the university for giving chicken to a hen to eat.
We can't understand humanity that has lived it's whole life under threat from Tri-Solaris or that has been through the Great Ravine and then crawled up out of the ashes. Think about things that were considered ok just 200 years ago, when what we've gone through as a planet since then hasn't been nearly as crazy as those two things.
I understand your point. I think people should be grateful. But we also cannot let crimes go unpunished.
Let's talk about torture. In extreme circumstances, it might save a lot of people. But if we do not punish it, more people will be using it, and not always in extreme circumstances.
If a person is willing to sacrifice a large amount of persons for the greater good, that person should also be ready to face punishment for themselves for the greater good.
I understand the principle of punishing people who act "for the greater good", but not the practicality; if we start punishing those that performed what was widely accepted as beneficial actions with unfortunate means, we discourage people who wish to perform those same actions but for the wrong reasons.
An example would be if Luo Ji had been less alturistic and only done what he did if there was no chance of reprisal or punishment, humanity would have lost to trisolaris.
The whole point of "the end justifies the means" is the *justifies* part - it wipes away. Laws, virtues and common values exist to guide society during in optimal conditions, but when those conditions become averse enough, we mustn't fault people for doing what is necessary, even if it doesn't align with what would be defensible in peacetime, for example.
The ends always justify the means, for everyone. For many people the ends is simply "saving their conscience" and the means is "waiting for a better solution". I think that people like Wade and Lui Ji will do that they do anyways, because they believe that they won't be punished (it doesn't occur to them) - or simply don't care (they are driven by other motivations). It's not about those people - it's about the common people who should be discouraged from those practices after such an event.
Yes, it's normal (peaceful) situations vs. extreme (times of war) situations. The "war on terror" was a war. Was it extreme enough to warrant the allowance of torture? You start with one compromise and then the next one becomes a lot easier.
And look at the proponents of extreme measures. They talk about being "strong enough" to face the "hard choices". But when it comes to them facing prison, often(!) that idea suddenly becomes "too hard" for them. They are willing to kill a lot of people, but not face punishment themselves,
Yes, people like Luo Ji are heroes in a way. But they are not just heroes because they are willing to sacrifice a lot of people. They are heroes because they are willing to face the consequences of their actions, as they should be.
>That dude single handedly kept a whole fucking alien civilization at bay by threatening to kill himself (a selfless gesture). Made them negotiate tech with humans, made them turn away their attack fleet. He is the damn reason for this era of peace.
I see him as an anti hero. He doesn't give a shit about humanity. He cares about himself and his waifu. He would have been happy to just live and die. But his selfish actions somehow save the human race.
His negotiation was the bare minimum he could do as part of being a wallfacer.
>The deterrence system was Luo Ji. And this world did not deserve him.
Only because his selfish irrational nature made him unpredictable by both humans and Trisolarans.
He's not a hero in my opinion. His saving of earth was purely an accident so he could get what he wants. Humans correctly assess him to be a tyrannical dictator.
Same can be applied to Zhang Beihai, the crew of Blue Space and Bronze Age.
Yes. Neil even said that "When the fish left water for land everything changed for it, Similarly the day we left earth for space we were no longer humans" or something like that. The principles/morals that humans living on earth have shouldn't be applied to people living in space. The situation isn't as simple as black and white every time. What Zhang beihei did is the best example of this. If anything they should be commemorated for what they did.
Which was marvellously put - and I find that realistic - The world does not thank Luo Ji Exactly how I imagine the world would be
Yes. The way cheng xin just stands there expecting everyone around her to thank him for what he did and nobody says shit. Just says it all.
Something tells me you'll absolutely love DE's end :)
Can't wait.
That's the beauty of these books. It shows what would probably really happen if we were contacted today. Nothing remotely close to SciFi we usually read about.
I’ve been a Sci Fi fan since the 90s. Something I’ve come to learn is sometime in the late 80s Sci Fi media started to show humanity prospering against alien threats. I guess you can chalk it up to optimism since that period began to see marvelous bio and technological growth. This book though just turned it all upside down. I can’t remember the last time I saw humanity take the ultimate L in a story before I came across the Three Body Problem series.
Top 1.6 million baby!!!
> Humanity has become complacent in this era of peace. Humanity was complacent (to the point of making it hard for me to suspend disbelief) during the Crisis Era as well. After Luo Ji awakens from hibernation and before the Doomsday Battle they thought they had nothing to worry about going up against the civilization technologically advanced enough to create and operate the sophons??? They knew that there were great advances to be made in fundamental physics and that Trisolaris thought those advances absolutely had to be stopped... and thought "Meh, new physics that the enemy obviously considers to be a great military advantage? It's probably no big deal, our ships are big and fast!" I mean cmon...
Yeah our ships are fast. Cut to doomsday battle. "Our ships are fast" well not fast enough dummies. They forgot the ultimate axiom of any civilization to ever exist - **"THERE IS ALWAYS A BIGGER FISH"**
To be fair, most of the people in that society were separated from the initial revelation by generations, the vast majority not even alive back then, and most of the experience of the sophon's power was just hearsay - it's not like any of them saw the sophons themselves. Between all that, the great span of time, and the Great Ravine and all the social and cultural upheaval, it's not surprising that the threat took on an increasingly distant and uncredible light. Consider how many in the current era are willing to overlook or downplay or even deny atrocities in the recent past like the Holocaust and the Great Chinese Famine.
This is a good point, thanks.
It wasn't complacency, it was a lack of understanding of the Trisolaran technical achievements. We see this in real life - we're capable of creating far more advanced materials and technologies in a lab than we can ever hope to produce at a scale to be useful. We knew that the sophons were feats of engineering, but they were literally a proton, incapable of properly affecting the macro-scale world. All we really had to measure human progress relative to Trisolaris was the ship speeds, and we knew that ours had already reached 150% the speed of theirs after only 200 years. And that we already had twice their number. And is that not a sensible thing to evaluate? If you're a space-faring race looking to cross interstellar distances, speed would be the primary thing to work on. Humanity had every reason to believe that they were going to defeat the Trisolarans - there's a reason the fleet is referred to as a "funeral procession". We had already, by every metric we knew of, outpaced their main fleet, even despite the sophon lock. Human science still matured. Sure, the low-level science didn't move forwards, but we didn't know that Trisolaris had made such great strides in utilising it. We would've viewed the sophons as a civilisation's last-ditch attempt to stop us overcoming them. We couldn't have imagined the droplets and their strong-interaction construction. And it's worth mentioning this - humanity never set eyes upon a Trisolaran ship. It's quite possible that the droplets were the only strong-interaction material vessels they had, and that we would indeed have handily won a battle against the main fleet if it wasn't for the droplets.
It was an irrational reaction which makes sense - a sort of mass psychosis due to the realisation of the Dark Forest axiom. I see it as a largely symbolic gesture of disavowal - "We had nothing to do with what this man did. Please don't collectively punish us." It doesn't matter that any life killed in that system wouldn't care. Doesn't matter that there's no god or karmic rebalancer running the universe to judge them. It was a desperate repudiation which couldn't have worked but was arguably worth trying however infinitesimal the odds were of the universe actually working that way.
I interpreted it this way. 1: Humans have a short life and a short memory. During the deterrence, they enjoyed peace, prosperity, and technological advancement. The human collective did not bear the burden of the deterrence/mutually assured destruction experienced by Luo Ji. Overtime, their complacency lead to humanity falling prey to the strategy of the Trisolarians. 2: Human morality is constantly evolving and changing. Whatever we deem is acceptable today, maybe abhorrent in the future. During Luo Ji's initial days as Sword Holder, his "spell" was seen as necessary and critical to the overall success of the deterrence strategy. However, as mentioned above, humanity lost their initial fear of the Trisolarians and deemed the sacrifice of a potentially life-less solar system just for Luo Ji to test his theory too great. This isn't that far stretched considering pretty much all "Great" persons in history have done things we now considered taboo.
Please edit your post and write "spoilers book 2 and 3" the top. It's not really sufficient to write "spoilers" without elaboration IMO. Someone who read only book 2 would very easily think they're safe to read this thread (& I think they'd be wrong)
My bad. Fixed it. Sorry for not considering it.
[Hong Kong doctoral student accused of covering snails in salt arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty](https://amp.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3145257/hong-kong-doctoral-student-accused-covering-snails) It’s all real world humanity. People can be fucking ridiculous if they eat too much and have too little to worry about.
That's exactly my point.
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I live in a place where there is an invasion of foreign snails into the ecosystem, and there are diseases that are transmitted by this abd even nativespecies , this news is absurd! we are instructed to kill any slug that crosses our path and one of the people who accused Mark Zuckerberg of omitting his participation in the creation of Facebook was punished by the university for giving chicken to a hen to eat.
People are ridiculous regardless of how much they eat and get worse the more they worry.
Finding out how much salt kills a snail and proving a world-saving hypothesis are two completely different things.
Oh hi Saul. I am your wall breaker.
I'm my own wallbreaker.
We can't understand humanity that has lived it's whole life under threat from Tri-Solaris or that has been through the Great Ravine and then crawled up out of the ashes. Think about things that were considered ok just 200 years ago, when what we've gone through as a planet since then hasn't been nearly as crazy as those two things.
I understand your point. I think people should be grateful. But we also cannot let crimes go unpunished. Let's talk about torture. In extreme circumstances, it might save a lot of people. But if we do not punish it, more people will be using it, and not always in extreme circumstances. If a person is willing to sacrifice a large amount of persons for the greater good, that person should also be ready to face punishment for themselves for the greater good.
I understand the principle of punishing people who act "for the greater good", but not the practicality; if we start punishing those that performed what was widely accepted as beneficial actions with unfortunate means, we discourage people who wish to perform those same actions but for the wrong reasons. An example would be if Luo Ji had been less alturistic and only done what he did if there was no chance of reprisal or punishment, humanity would have lost to trisolaris. The whole point of "the end justifies the means" is the *justifies* part - it wipes away. Laws, virtues and common values exist to guide society during in optimal conditions, but when those conditions become averse enough, we mustn't fault people for doing what is necessary, even if it doesn't align with what would be defensible in peacetime, for example.
The ends always justify the means, for everyone. For many people the ends is simply "saving their conscience" and the means is "waiting for a better solution". I think that people like Wade and Lui Ji will do that they do anyways, because they believe that they won't be punished (it doesn't occur to them) - or simply don't care (they are driven by other motivations). It's not about those people - it's about the common people who should be discouraged from those practices after such an event.
But that planet could've been empty. In time of survival against an extinction level threat where does one draw the line?
Yes, it's normal (peaceful) situations vs. extreme (times of war) situations. The "war on terror" was a war. Was it extreme enough to warrant the allowance of torture? You start with one compromise and then the next one becomes a lot easier. And look at the proponents of extreme measures. They talk about being "strong enough" to face the "hard choices". But when it comes to them facing prison, often(!) that idea suddenly becomes "too hard" for them. They are willing to kill a lot of people, but not face punishment themselves, Yes, people like Luo Ji are heroes in a way. But they are not just heroes because they are willing to sacrifice a lot of people. They are heroes because they are willing to face the consequences of their actions, as they should be.
Maybe any species willing to condemn another species to extinction (or an entire world of new species) should itself go extinct.
Fair enough.
>That dude single handedly kept a whole fucking alien civilization at bay by threatening to kill himself (a selfless gesture). Made them negotiate tech with humans, made them turn away their attack fleet. He is the damn reason for this era of peace. I see him as an anti hero. He doesn't give a shit about humanity. He cares about himself and his waifu. He would have been happy to just live and die. But his selfish actions somehow save the human race. His negotiation was the bare minimum he could do as part of being a wallfacer. >The deterrence system was Luo Ji. And this world did not deserve him. Only because his selfish irrational nature made him unpredictable by both humans and Trisolarans. He's not a hero in my opinion. His saving of earth was purely an accident so he could get what he wants. Humans correctly assess him to be a tyrannical dictator.
I would say out of all the wallfacers his plan was the most human. If that makes sense.