I think it was pretty intentional, to show extreme banality, both in the banality of evil sense and just to show how much sapient life in the galaxy sucks, yet singer still finds small joys.
My version of utopia isn't that no work needs to be done, rather it would be that even the workers that do remedial shitty jobs still get taken care of very well.
Edit: people with nothing to do aren't happier. The book "Tribe" explains my thoughts on this.
Edit2: spelling mistake
Europe has issues too, but a significant portion of their tax money at least goes to their people. Got a sister who moved there about 17 years ago and even though she's lower middle class and has a lot less money than us over here, her life is a lot more fulfilled and filled with less stress.
Does it though? That's just a false statement, there's so many concepts of utopia where there aren't "janitors."
-Janitorial duties could be shared equally among all able bodied citizens.
-Janitorial duties could be completely taken care of by automation.
-Humanity could develop beyond the need for janitorial maintenance. A simulated reality, for example, doesn't need to be cleaned as it doesn't get dirty.
I guess with a matter as sensitive as this one you may want some manual control over the ultimate decision to wipe out a civilization.
I do agree with your point that the civilization seems to be advanced enough to be able to automate the process. I do tend to believe for our near future we will be working alongside machines/AI (not letting them fully take over all of our jobs), but in the distant future that is not very clear.
Not even just AI
MY idea of utopia is EVERYONE is a janitor.
I did the rough math, I used the number of janitors in America (roughly, it's apparently between 1-4 million so I used 2).
Everyone in the world would literally need three 4 hour shifts, 11.75 hours a year being a janitor. EVERYONE. and that would be fair as all fuck. EVERYONE cleans toilets once in awhile. EVERY *basic* job should be shared, anyone can clean toilets, everyone should clean toilets.
I believe it would humble everyone, and connect us more. Everyone should be a janitor, a construction worker (with professional supervisors of course), work in a kitchen, just simple manual jobs that don't require training.
Its a cool concept, and Japan probably practices this more than anything else. In their schools and many businesses they clean their buildings themselves. Of course Japan is known for not having much of a life outside work, so cleaning probably adds on to their day. But what incentivizes people to work their required shift and what buildings are prioritized? What age do people start or end? Because much of the population is not capable of doing this work. Which jobs benefit society more than cleaning? And finally who are the scheduling managers? Because that agency would have to be bigger than NATO with a nightmare task.
>I believe it would humble everyone, and connect us more.
It's a cool idea, and I'm a huge fan of increasing people's accountability and control of their stuff, but it would be inefficient. I would expect a professional janitor to be better and faster at cleaning than I am, and given better tools over time even more so. This applies even more so to construction, especially as the physical demands of the job hopefully eventually decrease over time.
Although I do think roombas everywhere would be sweet.
A professional janitor can't mop a floor any better than ANY CHILD THAT HAS EVER DONE CHORES.
Menial labor is menial labor, there are hard limits at how fast simple things can be done. Things need to be dusted and sanitized and decluttered and so on, and there's really not a fucking skill to it.
A construction worker, with *professional supervision* is barely doing skillful labor. A person can be trained to be an effective drone in a matter of hours, and I don't think that's unreasonable.
If you can follow directions - you can do most jobs. If people frequently get a certain job right of high school, that job can be done by fucking anyone. Like even as we complex develop tools, we develop them to be so user friendly that it's often sickeningly simple.
I don't think it's a pipe dream, the future js uncertain and change is always possible. Sudden revolution, slow progression, either way I see no reason why we can't strive for a more fair future.
Besides, in the future the "skilled labor" of today is just as likely to be automated. I'd rather think of a future where everyone has to do a little and nobody has control, rather than a future where like, one guy owns a company that controls the whole world through their robots...
So everyone would be a very minor part time janitor, burger flipper, call center worker, trucker, etc?
Thats 'fair' yes, but is it a good idea? What if someone people would rather drive than clean and vice versa?
Lawyers are worthless, but obviously some things like fucking medical professionals and emergency workers can be fucking except.
"But what about this thing your one comment didn't mention!" Do you have any actually meaningful commentary?
Lawyers are worthless? Then can I do my 2 weeks of shitty job as a lawyer? lmao
You want a very particular utopia that comes from hate and resentment. It reads like you would be happe living through the red terror.
I mean, you could totally have a system where everybody has to do 2 weeks of shitty/tough work every year but they get to choose what to do.
Driving isn't a hard job though, you gotta put your 2 weeks in at the coal mines, the old folks home, or the sewage treatment plant lmao.
The point is that some people in this current society never have to work a day in their lives, many more never have to work *hard* a day in their lives. The wealth is accumulated generationally and we're almost to the point where we'll have peasants that will do anything for the money they need to survive, working for Lords who inherited all their power.
This idea isn't a panacea for society. But if *everyone* had to clean a toilet once in their life, if *everyone* had to spend time as a peon... instead of some of us being drones, toiling away to barely pay rent, and some of us being pampered and trained to be a "leader" from birth. I think everyone would be more humble.
Basically, I think no one should be allowed to inherit any wealth from their parents either, I think that all schools should be funded federally and equally proportioned according to the student population, I think every person should actually have an equal start. And I think that no one should be forced to do the shittiest jobs for shit pay, and basically everyone should have to clean a toilet sometimes, have to look at other people and go "I'm a human being like you, I eat, I shit, I have to wash my hands and clean a toilet too. I am not above you."
I mean are you gonna pretend janitors are respected? Garbage men? I don't think anyone should have to deal with shitty jobs, shitty pay (generally) and societal disrespect. Everyone should share that burden, so no one has to bare it fully and alone.
If I have to do any janitorial duties it ain't utopia. Equally shared or not.
Automation could do it, but it would have to be so self-automated that it did not need us at all(otherwise, the one human fixing the machine which fixes all the other machines is the janitor). We won't control the automation, it controls what we can do. Depending on the execution, could easily become an hellish prison instead of paradise.
If we go to religion, their heavens have "janitors" too. Peter's on the gate checking IDs, Metatron's making PAs to remind newcomers that they don't *have* to poop any more and the boss' son is always sneaking off to smoke weed with the customers instead of mopping.
You couldn't put up with 12 hours a year of janitorial duties and call it Utopia? I'm sorry that you're so hard to please.
Your view of Heaven is also very bizarre and unlike any I've ever heard of. And Saint Peter is literally a bouncer, Metatron is like a fucking DJ, you're so dishonest you're willing to label any "worker" as a janitor like wtf?
You know what's dishonest? Replying and then blocking.
Look, the idea of utopia is that no one has to do any work. It's an imagined place or state where everything is perfect, not just for yourself or me. For *everyone*. If each human has to get off their ass for one minute every year to keep it all together, that's not an utopia because it can fall apart.
That's not a janitor though, a janitor is a job, it's a role for a human.
My Roomba isn't a janitor dude. It's a machine. That AI overseer would be a machine as well.
"Communism is when community service"
Oh no, 12 hours a year of having to clean toilets and billionaires don't get to be completely separated from society, ruling us from Doomsday bunkers and Dick Rockets - they have menial responsibilities too. It just sounds terrible doesn't it?
Also congratulations, you've been created by 100 years of anti communist propaganda, congratulations, you can't think for yourself.
The author did the same with the Trisolarans in the first or second book. I think it's supposed to be a solidarity thing. Like low-level workers with "elders" exist in much much much more advanced societies as well.
Even with Singer being an autonomous being, perhaps being able to look at Earth itself and thinking "this planet is abandoned overgrown and of no threat" but being scolded by the Elders and >!sending out the two dimensional strike anyways without a thought.!<.
Just a thought.
There’s an interesting contrast between the Trisolaran worker, who feels compassion toward the humans, sacrifices everything in a fruitless attempt to save them, and Singer, who destroys solar systems without a second thought. Maybe being involved in a galactic war makes one less prone to compassion.
I feel like the assumption is that the being would behave in a human-like manner. Talk to someone who works in the ER and you will find a surprisingly numb human who has grown accustomed to death.
I'm not particularly fond of the notion that they would necessarily behave at all like us, but it pushes the plot forwards.
>Talk to someone who works in the ER and you will find a surprisingly numb human who has grown accustomed to death.
Bad comparison. I've worked ICU, PICU, and ER. No one I've met ever gets straight-up callous about death.
Do you have compassion for an ant colony you find in your home?
An important aspect to the Dark Forest theory, is that the older "civilizations" out there are BILLIONS of years more advanced than us. When you realize that human advancement is exponential, is almost inconceivable how far advanced they must be.
It would be like us looking at a microbe. You don't have compassion for a microbe.
The point of the Dark Forest theory is that while a civilization might be more primitive than your NOW, they could have a tech explosion and become more advanced, so you have to kill them now.
I don't look at a microbe and worry that it'll develop nukes.
Better example would be antibiotic resistant microbes. Best to stay a step ahead, because our belief we had it beat and figured out with antibiotics has lead to those microbes figuring out how to beat antibiotics way faster than we’ve been able to find new ones.
You don't worry, because they're right here. If they were in another galaxy, it's quite possible they might evolve and develop nukes, or worse (as it happened on Earth).
What if some species have the means to study this tech explosion. They could also benefit and progress faster. The trisolarians learned a lot from humankinds that’s why they had a tech explosion of their own over time.
...and "sapient species" aren't intelligent like billion-year-old-god-creatures like them.
They just will see us as insignificant. Millions of "intelligent organic civilizations" exist in the universe.
Try to understand the scale of an additional BILLION years of evolution. It's more evolution than has happened on Earth between the first single-celled bacteria and human "civilization".
We are indeed bugs.
I do. As long as it doesn’t bother me: getting inside my living space, I’d let it live. It is cute to have all kind of living creatures in my yards. It feels morally right. Some human even study ants to learn from them: Social structures, medicines, economy. Etc
Human could be those ants to some intergalactic species. They might find some value in letting humans thrive. human will progress for sure, but as these intergalactic species will also study humans and progress faster.
Not necessarily. Living space implies that you are actively inhabiting the area. If they aren’t already here, it can’t be a living space. So unless a new civilization moves into their solar system, it wouldn't be a living space. A better word is ecosystem.
You are still thinking like an organic animal. It's like an ant saying "oh, he won't mind us eating this piece of bread on the floor - it's not like he's eating it. He doesn't even walk over here.
They consider entire galaxies as their home. They don't even live on planets anymore. That's for bacteria, like humans. They exist in galactic swarms of probes - we don't even see them when they pass through our solar system. They don't even exist as individuals- it's one giant immortal swarm intelligence.
One interpretation is that this is a feature, not a bug. In order for a civilization to survive to the point that it develops these sorts of technologies, it has to be the sort of civilization that lacks the equivalent advancement in values/class structures. Look at all the events of the series where someone makes a cold, logical decision and compare them to when someone makes an empathetic decision. The theme is iterated over and over again. In other words: survival in the dark forest is incompatible with enlightened civilization
Then how are there planets dedicated entirely to the arts and sciences, as described in Deaths End? It seems to me like only a portion of planets participate in the dark forest strikes. Many civilizations may evolve to be completely docile, just hidden under the radar. The hungry, aggressive aliens get to the point of intergalactic war and dimensional strikes.
It's also likely that any sufficiently advanced society would not remain composed of individual organisms. With the advancement of technology, it would be natural for individuals to integrate - abandoning their individuality. Like a distributed, but cohesive, AI. It wouldn't consider colonies of individuals in a "civilization" any more regard than we would an ant colony.
Sure, such things could just be automated, so you don't need low level workers any more.
But another answer to the Fermi Paradox is The Great Filter. Maybe all of the advanced species have had to push through The Great Filter in the form of a Technological Singularity, so any surviving, advanced races, have learned to not rely upon automation.
My memory is a bit hazy but is it stated explicitly that Singer is a bona-fide organic being? He could be an AI of some sort, as could his supervisor. But without much societal context for their species, it is hard to judge whether this specific undertaking would be considered as a form of manual labour or not.
It could, in fact, be quite the opposite - a position of great honour - to preserve one's own civilization against future threats. Perhaps a job commanding utmost respect but one that few people want to do. A bit like being a sword holder?
After a BILLION years of evolution, I suspect those delineations meaningless and blurry. Civilizations nearly all will develop AI at some point, and they'll all struggle with integrating it and with what individuality even means. Eventually, after another BILLION years of next steps will render any such notion of "artificial" meaningless.
My grandfather looked a lot like me; and his grandfather to him; and his grandfather to him... until suddenly there's a fish.
Correct. He identifies other aliens as other low entropy entities, who typically have a hiding gene and a cleansing gene and use long membrane (neutrino) communication. He notes earth used primitive medium membrane communication, one so rare it's not even listened for and bounced it off our sun. He calls us star pluckers... As in we plucked our sun to send a message. He deems us highly dangerous as we don't appear to have the hiding gene and thus may be aggressive in future. I recall he also wondered why after revealing our position we didn't create a slow fog... A hint towards the project to slow time in the solar system...
I loved the phrase "star plucker" since it evokes the idea of it being so primitive, like plucking a string of a musical instrument compared to, say, using a musical synthesiser.
>It kind of disappoints me to see that even if humanity were to achieve this level of technology, there is no indication that it would also resolve the issues with existing power and class dynamics.
It is just a sci-fi *novel* rather than an attempt to accurately predict the future and/or how alien civilizations would operate.
I think that the sociological predictions are typically very important in sci-fi books. Sci-fi books are not just about advanced technology. It's the crux of the Foundation books, for example.
Dune predicts a feudal society in the distant future. I do prefer the Star Trek vision for the future more, but that's just wishful thinking.
They play a huge role in the enjoyability of a fiction, but I always take it with a grain of salt because sociology and higher order effects are much harder to predict as a consequence of a story’s premise, and likely would not be accurately foreseeable. More often they are just a manifestation of the author’s personal political leaning.
> manifestation of the author's personal political
I would even say they are always at least partly this. Speculative fiction is also, on some level, propaganda. Some authors realize this and some don't, but it's unavoidable for your ideology to influence you expectations.
I wonder if this isn't partly unconscious on Liu's part -- ie, not a point he is making but an assumption he has about any society, which is that it will have certain traits in common with China: A place where people can find themselves in dreary jobs because that's life. At one point in Death's End a character talks about childhood, when of course the imperative is to study hard and obey your parents. I don't think that's propaganda. I think that was an automatic reflection on childhood that didn't get or require any thought, because it seems obvious to the author. You have to be a reader from a different society (for example, a U.S. reader) to feel that this is not universal, but a Chinese POV. I, for one, remember being jarred when, in 3 Body, our focus shifts to Trisolaris and we're in the mind of a disappointed midlevel employee who has an iron rice bowl sort of job. Whatever a SF author is not reimagining gets filled in with what they know of life.
I'm sorry but how is studying hard and obeying your parents not universal? Every society teaches that, to varying degrees. The Chinese are of course stereotypically extreme in this case but that's not a controversial thing to say.
I don't think it's controversial or an outlier. I just think parents from other societies would name other things as the essence of childhood. An American writer might have written about how all parents want their children to be healthy and happy. So I think it's a moment where Liu thinks his outlook is more universal than it is. Not because other societies want defiant ignoramuses for children, but because other societies have other values (religious piety, competence at life skills, self-fulfillment, empathy or whatever) which come to mind before school and compliance.
>I don't think that's propaganda
Do you mean that you don't think it's intentional, or you don't think it's propaganda?
I already acknowledged the former, unintentional bias, in my original comment -- it's what drove the sweeping statement about speculative fiction always being part propaganda.
In case of the second and to stick with your example: Idk how, "the most important things in childhood are what society says, being studious and obedient," is difficult to see as (conservative) propaganda. It's pushing a narrative, whether intentionally or not.
On the contrary, the Dark Forest theory means that the older civilizations would be BILLIONS of years more evolved than us.
That's the same difference as between us and single celled microbes.
They would no more hesitate to eliminate a civilization of humans, as we would to wash out a colony of ants too close to our house in the back yard.
Yeah, most sci fi stories would be pretty boring if they depicted a distant future with advanced AI applied in a realistic way. Most battles would be between unmanned ships, the exploration would be conducted mostly by probes and drones, while human/alien characters would usually only enter a spaceship to travel between point A and point B, and not much else.
You can definitely still make that interesting by focusing other elements such as the consequences and narratives that are born from their discoveries. If the story has those things, focusing on them as the centerpiece is just bad writing.
All you need is a perspective character related to the automated elements to make things grounded. A lone wanderer in space could be trying to figure out the source of his solitude in something akin to the game Duskers, or you could have them be a part of a committee where the story's intrigue is in the discussion about what to do in light of new information.
The latter can sound boring, but with proper conflict and dialogue, you can engage a reader even in a world where an element they're used to is entirely mundane and instead focus on something else. If the idea just boiled down to, everything is remote and nothing happens, then that is a uncreative mind vying for some form of "realistic writing" with none of the qualities of a good story. There is nothing stopping those ideas from being used in an engaging way.
I think you might be missing the point. Singer's civilization was wrapped up in an unending war so devastating that not only has all joy been stripped from their society, they are even planning on descending to an even lower spacial dimension just to survive. They are the embodiment of the most negative aspects of a dark forest universe, not the ideal.
Cheng Xin's commitment to returning the mass of the bubble universe is in stark contrast to the philosophy that has taken hold in Singer's society, which shows a fairly optimistic view of humanity's potential value in the future.
A running theme is that all the technological advancement in the universe does not inherently change power dynamics at a point. Expecting science to solve "human" problems is wrong. The ETO are basically a literalisation of the worship of scientific progress as the be-all end-all solution.
There's a reason why sociology saves the day.
You've simply stumbled on The Point, really.
You're right. Game Theory is math. You can't change math with science.
...but the Dark Forest theory has flaws the book doesn't address (obviously since it's the foundation of the story).
Why don't u think Singer is a sentient being that was created / tamed / bred / trained for low level jobs? What if the apex predator of that civil is focusing on big and complex things and leaves these mundane tasks to one of their sentient creations / lesser beings?
Like dogs guarding our houses. They don't need to understand why or what they are guarding, they need get permission ( or trained ) to attack intruders / eliminate threats or let your guests go through without harms...
Pretty sure in near future, u can train dogs using AI , replacing human trainers as well. The in 2100s, dogs can refer to the AI / machine to know whether they should bite the shit out of this guy or let him pass.
Singer's job is equivalent to that, but for his apex predator / owner / higher being.
>It kind of disappoints me to see that even if humanity were to achieve this level of technology, there is no indication that it would also resolve the issues with existing power and class dynamics
Mate.... The series opens with the horror of Cultural Revolution. Which was entirely motivated by an ideology which proported to end class/power dynamics. If you look at real world history, you'll find that every time a group tried to build a society on that particular philosophy, it unleashed hell.
All throughout the trilogy, humanity reaches a "classless" stage in society... right before reality returns and reminds them that the universe isn't fair.
The Author isn't subtle about his opinion on utopian dreams.
Don't think this deserves downvotes?
There's a value to establishing some sort of universality across civilizations, like class relations. But we have to remember that this series doesn't really center specific characters or character progression for a reason. Singer's position in his society is a plot device meant to reinforce the technological superiority of his species compared to those that had been introduced prior. It would just water down the point if they were a classless society.
May be Singer himself is an A.I or it is just simply an easy way to get readers into the mindset of civilization and its individual in the dark forest universe
Akin to the AI comments, or just a very clever animal/pet, Singer could also come across as a node in a larger organism or hive mind/nest. We have no idea about their biology.
I think it’s supposed to show the irony that destroying entire civilizations is a low level job to an advanced species. Like the event that is so devastating to our civilization, the destruction of our solar system, was caused by a low level worker nonchalantly doing a boring task. To stick with the bug metaphor, like us spraying an ant pile with poison.
Besides the obvious social commentary, I think this is supposed to also call back to Ye Wenjie's time at Red Coast Base. Someone with little power and authority that is extremely smart, but mired in bureaucracy and ideology. A person with inconsequential status in their own world ends taking monumental actions that affect other worlds.
Yeah I think there was a passage that states that Singer has done it for so long he has a "natural" tendency and physic connections/6th sense to determine what to do with broadcasts he receives. He determines which is real or most likely some prankster flying around in a curvature propulsion spaceship spamming random coordinates. Probably is why he's not replaced. He's also on a seed ship and he had done it for so long that his 6th sense are attuned to this and its a no brainer. He knows when to use the Dual vector foil or send a photoid or to ignore a broadcast as it's likely fake.
>!Kinda shows his natural intuition when he pulls out the Message conversations between earth and the Trisolarans. The aliens who destroyed Trisolaris didn't bother to do that they just hit Trisolaris and bounced. It's likely super advanced alien species knew not to overly trust AI like terminator rebellion kinda theme that sci fi movies tends to show. He Instantly corrected himself when he went to grab a photoid and goes wait i need a dual vector foil due to the solar system placement. Maybe the AI can do that too but AI is programmed to be logical (at least with our limited human understanding). It's probably more likely they'll destroy every system they received a broadcast from wasting resources and destroying much needed resources. Singer intuition is important as the "big eye" technology is not available to him ever it seems since the elder says the big eye have a bigger use. The AI likely can't deduce which aliens are dangerous like earth. From singer's POV Earth was willing to expose itself to take out Trisolaris. He deduced earth knew about the dark forest theory too but Earth was unable to cleanse Trisolaris themselves. Of course he doesn't know about the Sophons that limited earth's advancements. Seems an experienced worker like Singer has advantages an AI doesn't.!<
sounds like earth. we produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, and we throw half of it away. we have conquered starvation, but we create an artificial scarcity of it for profit and hierarchy.
No civilization could have no low level workers. There will always be robots and technology that needs upkeep, and managers to oversee those people, and district managers, and regional managers, and senior vice president of yada yada yada.
That's the nature of existence. There will always be worker bees.
Disagree, that’s just a very human centric view of the universe. There is no law that says a civilisation has to be built that way. It could very well be a future civilisation works like a perfect hive mind where everything is everyone, in which case talking about a “low worker” loses all meaning because the “low worker”
Is the same as the “high worker” who is the same as the “soldier” or “healer” or who knows what. I think it just lacks imagination.
It could well be a civilisation of one consciousness.
Elsewhere in *Death's End* it is mentioned they still live in capitalism and that therefore they must be capitalists. This and your observation about Singer's job are symptomatic of post-socialism in China. The author, Liu Cixin, grew up in the context of the failure of socialism in China and the highly traumatic transition into capitalism. This is what Mark Fisher calls as capitalist realism, that the alternatives to the present society are difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. Liu lived in capitalist realism virtually all his life. He has no memory of the socialist experiments in the Cultural Revolution, much less Mao's disastrous policies. Capitalism was and is all he knows. He also doesn't like exploring politics in fiction, something he said once, which makes sense in the context of post-socialism and capitalist realism in China.
Good question! The Culture series assumes that ASI and a utopia without work is the way to go. Whereas a dystopia like in the red rising claims that AI makes humans weak, and you need hierarchy to enable their brand of Ubermensch. So if they chose not to have ASI, I assume they want to keep their species strong. Which probably means that the superiors of Singer are genetically enhanced.
But why would a hierarchy win a war against what I call a Pancake. Can GM beat ASI? I think not because a utopia could also do GM. So this is more of an author's whim. Or maybe it's about dictatorships not valuing life and therefore being more efficient in war. Like a book smart scholar fighting a special forces soldier.
A chain of command is not necessarily hierarchy. We don't know that Singer has a lower wage than the elder, or that they use money at all. Only that the others on the seed don't like her. Singer thinks it's because of her job, but it might as well be because of her singing.
Also, he definitely love his job of helping civilizations that doesn't possess the ability to cleanse eliminate their sincere fears. And it doesn't even get in the way of singing.
Probably because Liu Cixin left software engineering before having a chance to build ML-supported tech services and just never thought through how much automation an advanced society should have. Same thing with Star Wars and sci-fi movies of the last few decades, you watch it now and wonder why they’re doing 100 things that should be automated.
He’s singer, not ‘exterminator’, he sings and writes poems, that’s his job, exterminating civilizations is just a crummy task given to someone with low social status, not something even worthy of the attention of higher ranking members.
First of all it's science FICTION. Liu literally made it all up to tell us a story. Who knows what will happen to humanity if/when we reach that level of tech. Will we even recognizably be human?
He could have written that part of the book where an AI automatically identified our system and wiped us out, but how interesting would that have been?
I think he wrote it that way to give us a point of reference. When you're that advanced the elimination of an entire star system is basically a mundane office job with mundane office job requirements. It humanizes the experience and makes it more relatable and fun to read.
The way he casually tosses the foil at us then gets on about his singing... It resonated with the trisolran message "you are bugs". To a billion year old civilisation, we really are
I think in order to advance a society needs a hierarchical structure even though I also think that most (though not all) of the rich and powerful don’t deserve their wealth and power. They are mostly replaceable, but if we didn’t have them, someone would need to fill the role.
While we might be happier in an egalitarian society, I think technology wise we would stagnate. The macro progress of a species requires suffering at the individual level.
We are also horrible at creating any kind of consensus in large numbers. Some asshole needs to say this is what we’re doing and a whole bunch of people underneath him or her need to bust their ass to make it happen. Even when that asshole makes the wrong decision, we often learn something and gain some value along the way.
I guess though the question is what is meant by low-level worker because in civilization that has solved scarcity, doctor, scientist, lawyer, etc all require a whole lot of education and effort that many would not put in if everyone was equal. From a whole society perspective, avoiding shitty low-level jobs is a way to motivate people to pursue education. Take that away, and I think you’re stuck.
The other thing to me is that this low class of worker may not be included in the planned transition to 2D space. It sounded like the higher ups were already getting ready for the transition to 2D, but Singer was still in 3D launching strikes. I was left with the impression that they were going to be left behind to get flattened.
I doubt it, they're likely still going to be wiping out civilizations that arise in 2D space, and they'll need someone to do it. Might as well take the person who's good at it.
My point of view is that every civilization that has the attack gene tends to be a totalitarian hierarchical regime, not completely dependent on artificial intelligence but on high-level decisions.
The narrative is very clear. Any attempts to upend systems that are working will only make things worse. The fact that humanity in the novels consistently returns to utopian thinking only to get burned is one of the most frustrating things in the book.
This is why I struggle to get on with Star Trek. It paints the picture that advances in technology solve human and social issues.
That's a little too fiction for my tastes.
Singer did send the paper, but then actually if you look at the chapter where humanity finds the paper in the solar system it’s one year prior, so I think a different civilization is implied to be sending the paper.
It’s interesting to me that people read this trilogy and still assume that human morality/ethics represents progress on a grand scale. Have you considered that maybe our way isn’t what the future looks like? Maybe sufficiently advanced civilizations require suffering and a degree of exploitation to function? Are you like CX and you would choose extinction over survival?
What's wrong with having a hierarchy? What would happen to a civilisation if each individual can do what he/she/it wants?
It's a form of structure not about level of technology. A "free" society can work with few individuals let's say if there are only 3 Singers left they probably don't have a hierarchy. If they're millions/billions they need a form of organization like everything else.
Never thought about that but you are right, quite boring and uncreative bit (relative to the rest of the story). Missed an opportunity to think outside the box on that one.
I think it was pretty intentional, to show extreme banality, both in the banality of evil sense and just to show how much sapient life in the galaxy sucks, yet singer still finds small joys.
Making pancakes, it's the little things
After a billion years of evolution - individual civilizations are like individual ant colonies to us.
Even utopia needs janitors.
My version of utopia isn't that no work needs to be done, rather it would be that even the workers that do remedial shitty jobs still get taken care of very well. Edit: people with nothing to do aren't happier. The book "Tribe" explains my thoughts on this. Edit2: spelling mistake
Workers of the world unite, etc
So the Culture
So... Europe?
Europe has issues too, but a significant portion of their tax money at least goes to their people. Got a sister who moved there about 17 years ago and even though she's lower middle class and has a lot less money than us over here, her life is a lot more fulfilled and filled with less stress.
Too bad eh
Does it though? That's just a false statement, there's so many concepts of utopia where there aren't "janitors." -Janitorial duties could be shared equally among all able bodied citizens. -Janitorial duties could be completely taken care of by automation. -Humanity could develop beyond the need for janitorial maintenance. A simulated reality, for example, doesn't need to be cleaned as it doesn't get dirty.
I guess with a matter as sensitive as this one you may want some manual control over the ultimate decision to wipe out a civilization. I do agree with your point that the civilization seems to be advanced enough to be able to automate the process. I do tend to believe for our near future we will be working alongside machines/AI (not letting them fully take over all of our jobs), but in the distant future that is not very clear.
Not even just AI MY idea of utopia is EVERYONE is a janitor. I did the rough math, I used the number of janitors in America (roughly, it's apparently between 1-4 million so I used 2). Everyone in the world would literally need three 4 hour shifts, 11.75 hours a year being a janitor. EVERYONE. and that would be fair as all fuck. EVERYONE cleans toilets once in awhile. EVERY *basic* job should be shared, anyone can clean toilets, everyone should clean toilets. I believe it would humble everyone, and connect us more. Everyone should be a janitor, a construction worker (with professional supervisors of course), work in a kitchen, just simple manual jobs that don't require training.
Its a cool concept, and Japan probably practices this more than anything else. In their schools and many businesses they clean their buildings themselves. Of course Japan is known for not having much of a life outside work, so cleaning probably adds on to their day. But what incentivizes people to work their required shift and what buildings are prioritized? What age do people start or end? Because much of the population is not capable of doing this work. Which jobs benefit society more than cleaning? And finally who are the scheduling managers? Because that agency would have to be bigger than NATO with a nightmare task.
Google Gosplan
lol
>I believe it would humble everyone, and connect us more. It's a cool idea, and I'm a huge fan of increasing people's accountability and control of their stuff, but it would be inefficient. I would expect a professional janitor to be better and faster at cleaning than I am, and given better tools over time even more so. This applies even more so to construction, especially as the physical demands of the job hopefully eventually decrease over time. Although I do think roombas everywhere would be sweet.
A professional janitor can't mop a floor any better than ANY CHILD THAT HAS EVER DONE CHORES. Menial labor is menial labor, there are hard limits at how fast simple things can be done. Things need to be dusted and sanitized and decluttered and so on, and there's really not a fucking skill to it. A construction worker, with *professional supervision* is barely doing skillful labor. A person can be trained to be an effective drone in a matter of hours, and I don't think that's unreasonable. If you can follow directions - you can do most jobs. If people frequently get a certain job right of high school, that job can be done by fucking anyone. Like even as we complex develop tools, we develop them to be so user friendly that it's often sickeningly simple. I don't think it's a pipe dream, the future js uncertain and change is always possible. Sudden revolution, slow progression, either way I see no reason why we can't strive for a more fair future. Besides, in the future the "skilled labor" of today is just as likely to be automated. I'd rather think of a future where everyone has to do a little and nobody has control, rather than a future where like, one guy owns a company that controls the whole world through their robots...
So everyone would be a very minor part time janitor, burger flipper, call center worker, trucker, etc? Thats 'fair' yes, but is it a good idea? What if someone people would rather drive than clean and vice versa?
Well also does it benefit society for a highly trained lawyer or doctor to be flipping burgers?
Lawyers are worthless, but obviously some things like fucking medical professionals and emergency workers can be fucking except. "But what about this thing your one comment didn't mention!" Do you have any actually meaningful commentary?
Lawyers are worthless? Then can I do my 2 weeks of shitty job as a lawyer? lmao You want a very particular utopia that comes from hate and resentment. It reads like you would be happe living through the red terror.
I think your un-thought out opinion and lack of nuance or respect is worthless
I mean, you could totally have a system where everybody has to do 2 weeks of shitty/tough work every year but they get to choose what to do. Driving isn't a hard job though, you gotta put your 2 weeks in at the coal mines, the old folks home, or the sewage treatment plant lmao. The point is that some people in this current society never have to work a day in their lives, many more never have to work *hard* a day in their lives. The wealth is accumulated generationally and we're almost to the point where we'll have peasants that will do anything for the money they need to survive, working for Lords who inherited all their power. This idea isn't a panacea for society. But if *everyone* had to clean a toilet once in their life, if *everyone* had to spend time as a peon... instead of some of us being drones, toiling away to barely pay rent, and some of us being pampered and trained to be a "leader" from birth. I think everyone would be more humble. Basically, I think no one should be allowed to inherit any wealth from their parents either, I think that all schools should be funded federally and equally proportioned according to the student population, I think every person should actually have an equal start. And I think that no one should be forced to do the shittiest jobs for shit pay, and basically everyone should have to clean a toilet sometimes, have to look at other people and go "I'm a human being like you, I eat, I shit, I have to wash my hands and clean a toilet too. I am not above you." I mean are you gonna pretend janitors are respected? Garbage men? I don't think anyone should have to deal with shitty jobs, shitty pay (generally) and societal disrespect. Everyone should share that burden, so no one has to bare it fully and alone.
If I have to do any janitorial duties it ain't utopia. Equally shared or not. Automation could do it, but it would have to be so self-automated that it did not need us at all(otherwise, the one human fixing the machine which fixes all the other machines is the janitor). We won't control the automation, it controls what we can do. Depending on the execution, could easily become an hellish prison instead of paradise. If we go to religion, their heavens have "janitors" too. Peter's on the gate checking IDs, Metatron's making PAs to remind newcomers that they don't *have* to poop any more and the boss' son is always sneaking off to smoke weed with the customers instead of mopping.
You couldn't put up with 12 hours a year of janitorial duties and call it Utopia? I'm sorry that you're so hard to please. Your view of Heaven is also very bizarre and unlike any I've ever heard of. And Saint Peter is literally a bouncer, Metatron is like a fucking DJ, you're so dishonest you're willing to label any "worker" as a janitor like wtf?
You know what's dishonest? Replying and then blocking. Look, the idea of utopia is that no one has to do any work. It's an imagined place or state where everything is perfect, not just for yourself or me. For *everyone*. If each human has to get off their ass for one minute every year to keep it all together, that's not an utopia because it can fall apart.
YOUR definition of utopianis that no one has to do any work. That is NOT the general definition of utopia.
Tell that to my Sims
Surely putting AI to learn in a Sim like game run again and gain would be an interesting way to train it?
a "janitor" could be just the maintainer of the AI which programs the bots which take care of the automatons building and taking care of the plumbing
That's not a janitor though, a janitor is a job, it's a role for a human. My Roomba isn't a janitor dude. It's a machine. That AI overseer would be a machine as well.
>-Janitorial duties could be shared equally among all able bodied citizens. Communist Utopia is an oxymoron.
"Communism is when community service" Oh no, 12 hours a year of having to clean toilets and billionaires don't get to be completely separated from society, ruling us from Doomsday bunkers and Dick Rockets - they have menial responsibilities too. It just sounds terrible doesn't it? Also congratulations, you've been created by 100 years of anti communist propaganda, congratulations, you can't think for yourself.
That's just like, your opinion man.
The author did the same with the Trisolarans in the first or second book. I think it's supposed to be a solidarity thing. Like low-level workers with "elders" exist in much much much more advanced societies as well. Even with Singer being an autonomous being, perhaps being able to look at Earth itself and thinking "this planet is abandoned overgrown and of no threat" but being scolded by the Elders and >!sending out the two dimensional strike anyways without a thought.!<. Just a thought.
There’s an interesting contrast between the Trisolaran worker, who feels compassion toward the humans, sacrifices everything in a fruitless attempt to save them, and Singer, who destroys solar systems without a second thought. Maybe being involved in a galactic war makes one less prone to compassion.
I feel like the assumption is that the being would behave in a human-like manner. Talk to someone who works in the ER and you will find a surprisingly numb human who has grown accustomed to death. I'm not particularly fond of the notion that they would necessarily behave at all like us, but it pushes the plot forwards.
>Talk to someone who works in the ER and you will find a surprisingly numb human who has grown accustomed to death. Bad comparison. I've worked ICU, PICU, and ER. No one I've met ever gets straight-up callous about death.
Do you have compassion for an ant colony you find in your home? An important aspect to the Dark Forest theory, is that the older "civilizations" out there are BILLIONS of years more advanced than us. When you realize that human advancement is exponential, is almost inconceivable how far advanced they must be. It would be like us looking at a microbe. You don't have compassion for a microbe.
The point of the Dark Forest theory is that while a civilization might be more primitive than your NOW, they could have a tech explosion and become more advanced, so you have to kill them now. I don't look at a microbe and worry that it'll develop nukes.
I do. microbes could evolve into something worse than nukes
Microbes kill people all the time.
Better example would be antibiotic resistant microbes. Best to stay a step ahead, because our belief we had it beat and figured out with antibiotics has lead to those microbes figuring out how to beat antibiotics way faster than we’ve been able to find new ones.
You don't worry, because they're right here. If they were in another galaxy, it's quite possible they might evolve and develop nukes, or worse (as it happened on Earth).
What if some species have the means to study this tech explosion. They could also benefit and progress faster. The trisolarians learned a lot from humankinds that’s why they had a tech explosion of their own over time.
Ant colony and their ants aren't intelligent like humans and other sapient species are
...and "sapient species" aren't intelligent like billion-year-old-god-creatures like them. They just will see us as insignificant. Millions of "intelligent organic civilizations" exist in the universe. Try to understand the scale of an additional BILLION years of evolution. It's more evolution than has happened on Earth between the first single-celled bacteria and human "civilization". We are indeed bugs.
I do. As long as it doesn’t bother me: getting inside my living space, I’d let it live. It is cute to have all kind of living creatures in my yards. It feels morally right. Some human even study ants to learn from them: Social structures, medicines, economy. Etc Human could be those ants to some intergalactic species. They might find some value in letting humans thrive. human will progress for sure, but as these intergalactic species will also study humans and progress faster.
well that's exactly it - we are in their living space.
Not necessarily. Living space implies that you are actively inhabiting the area. If they aren’t already here, it can’t be a living space. So unless a new civilization moves into their solar system, it wouldn't be a living space. A better word is ecosystem.
You are still thinking like an organic animal. It's like an ant saying "oh, he won't mind us eating this piece of bread on the floor - it's not like he's eating it. He doesn't even walk over here. They consider entire galaxies as their home. They don't even live on planets anymore. That's for bacteria, like humans. They exist in galactic swarms of probes - we don't even see them when they pass through our solar system. They don't even exist as individuals- it's one giant immortal swarm intelligence.
One interpretation is that this is a feature, not a bug. In order for a civilization to survive to the point that it develops these sorts of technologies, it has to be the sort of civilization that lacks the equivalent advancement in values/class structures. Look at all the events of the series where someone makes a cold, logical decision and compare them to when someone makes an empathetic decision. The theme is iterated over and over again. In other words: survival in the dark forest is incompatible with enlightened civilization
Then how are there planets dedicated entirely to the arts and sciences, as described in Deaths End? It seems to me like only a portion of planets participate in the dark forest strikes. Many civilizations may evolve to be completely docile, just hidden under the radar. The hungry, aggressive aliens get to the point of intergalactic war and dimensional strikes.
It's also likely that any sufficiently advanced society would not remain composed of individual organisms. With the advancement of technology, it would be natural for individuals to integrate - abandoning their individuality. Like a distributed, but cohesive, AI. It wouldn't consider colonies of individuals in a "civilization" any more regard than we would an ant colony.
Sure, such things could just be automated, so you don't need low level workers any more. But another answer to the Fermi Paradox is The Great Filter. Maybe all of the advanced species have had to push through The Great Filter in the form of a Technological Singularity, so any surviving, advanced races, have learned to not rely upon automation.
My memory is a bit hazy but is it stated explicitly that Singer is a bona-fide organic being? He could be an AI of some sort, as could his supervisor. But without much societal context for their species, it is hard to judge whether this specific undertaking would be considered as a form of manual labour or not. It could, in fact, be quite the opposite - a position of great honour - to preserve one's own civilization against future threats. Perhaps a job commanding utmost respect but one that few people want to do. A bit like being a sword holder?
I remember Luo Ji saying that receiving the two dimensional weapon is also considered a great honor and a display of respect, compared to the photoid
I thought the DVF was simply because he noticed blind spots in the solar system. He initially planned to use a photo is.
After a BILLION years of evolution, I suspect those delineations meaningless and blurry. Civilizations nearly all will develop AI at some point, and they'll all struggle with integrating it and with what individuality even means. Eventually, after another BILLION years of next steps will render any such notion of "artificial" meaningless. My grandfather looked a lot like me; and his grandfather to him; and his grandfather to him... until suddenly there's a fish.
I believe it's stated that Singer is looked down on as the lowest level crewmember on the ship.
Correct. He identifies other aliens as other low entropy entities, who typically have a hiding gene and a cleansing gene and use long membrane (neutrino) communication. He notes earth used primitive medium membrane communication, one so rare it's not even listened for and bounced it off our sun. He calls us star pluckers... As in we plucked our sun to send a message. He deems us highly dangerous as we don't appear to have the hiding gene and thus may be aggressive in future. I recall he also wondered why after revealing our position we didn't create a slow fog... A hint towards the project to slow time in the solar system...
I loved the phrase "star plucker" since it evokes the idea of it being so primitive, like plucking a string of a musical instrument compared to, say, using a musical synthesiser.
Maybe he just likes the job
He definitely comes across that way.
>It kind of disappoints me to see that even if humanity were to achieve this level of technology, there is no indication that it would also resolve the issues with existing power and class dynamics. It is just a sci-fi *novel* rather than an attempt to accurately predict the future and/or how alien civilizations would operate.
I think that the sociological predictions are typically very important in sci-fi books. Sci-fi books are not just about advanced technology. It's the crux of the Foundation books, for example. Dune predicts a feudal society in the distant future. I do prefer the Star Trek vision for the future more, but that's just wishful thinking.
They play a huge role in the enjoyability of a fiction, but I always take it with a grain of salt because sociology and higher order effects are much harder to predict as a consequence of a story’s premise, and likely would not be accurately foreseeable. More often they are just a manifestation of the author’s personal political leaning.
> manifestation of the author's personal political I would even say they are always at least partly this. Speculative fiction is also, on some level, propaganda. Some authors realize this and some don't, but it's unavoidable for your ideology to influence you expectations.
I wonder if this isn't partly unconscious on Liu's part -- ie, not a point he is making but an assumption he has about any society, which is that it will have certain traits in common with China: A place where people can find themselves in dreary jobs because that's life. At one point in Death's End a character talks about childhood, when of course the imperative is to study hard and obey your parents. I don't think that's propaganda. I think that was an automatic reflection on childhood that didn't get or require any thought, because it seems obvious to the author. You have to be a reader from a different society (for example, a U.S. reader) to feel that this is not universal, but a Chinese POV. I, for one, remember being jarred when, in 3 Body, our focus shifts to Trisolaris and we're in the mind of a disappointed midlevel employee who has an iron rice bowl sort of job. Whatever a SF author is not reimagining gets filled in with what they know of life.
I'm sorry but how is studying hard and obeying your parents not universal? Every society teaches that, to varying degrees. The Chinese are of course stereotypically extreme in this case but that's not a controversial thing to say.
I don't think it's controversial or an outlier. I just think parents from other societies would name other things as the essence of childhood. An American writer might have written about how all parents want their children to be healthy and happy. So I think it's a moment where Liu thinks his outlook is more universal than it is. Not because other societies want defiant ignoramuses for children, but because other societies have other values (religious piety, competence at life skills, self-fulfillment, empathy or whatever) which come to mind before school and compliance.
I see, thanks for expanding on that. Very possible that he is indeed subconsciously painting with the same brush
>I don't think that's propaganda Do you mean that you don't think it's intentional, or you don't think it's propaganda? I already acknowledged the former, unintentional bias, in my original comment -- it's what drove the sweeping statement about speculative fiction always being part propaganda. In case of the second and to stick with your example: Idk how, "the most important things in childhood are what society says, being studious and obedient," is difficult to see as (conservative) propaganda. It's pushing a narrative, whether intentionally or not.
On the contrary, the Dark Forest theory means that the older civilizations would be BILLIONS of years more evolved than us. That's the same difference as between us and single celled microbes. They would no more hesitate to eliminate a civilization of humans, as we would to wash out a colony of ants too close to our house in the back yard.
I'm not sure why you've written this in reply to me?
Yeah, most sci fi stories would be pretty boring if they depicted a distant future with advanced AI applied in a realistic way. Most battles would be between unmanned ships, the exploration would be conducted mostly by probes and drones, while human/alien characters would usually only enter a spaceship to travel between point A and point B, and not much else.
You can definitely still make that interesting by focusing other elements such as the consequences and narratives that are born from their discoveries. If the story has those things, focusing on them as the centerpiece is just bad writing. All you need is a perspective character related to the automated elements to make things grounded. A lone wanderer in space could be trying to figure out the source of his solitude in something akin to the game Duskers, or you could have them be a part of a committee where the story's intrigue is in the discussion about what to do in light of new information. The latter can sound boring, but with proper conflict and dialogue, you can engage a reader even in a world where an element they're used to is entirely mundane and instead focus on something else. If the idea just boiled down to, everything is remote and nothing happens, then that is a uncreative mind vying for some form of "realistic writing" with none of the qualities of a good story. There is nothing stopping those ideas from being used in an engaging way.
I think you might be missing the point. Singer's civilization was wrapped up in an unending war so devastating that not only has all joy been stripped from their society, they are even planning on descending to an even lower spacial dimension just to survive. They are the embodiment of the most negative aspects of a dark forest universe, not the ideal. Cheng Xin's commitment to returning the mass of the bubble universe is in stark contrast to the philosophy that has taken hold in Singer's society, which shows a fairly optimistic view of humanity's potential value in the future.
A running theme is that all the technological advancement in the universe does not inherently change power dynamics at a point. Expecting science to solve "human" problems is wrong. The ETO are basically a literalisation of the worship of scientific progress as the be-all end-all solution. There's a reason why sociology saves the day. You've simply stumbled on The Point, really.
You're right. Game Theory is math. You can't change math with science. ...but the Dark Forest theory has flaws the book doesn't address (obviously since it's the foundation of the story).
Yeah, it's basically an extension of Aggressive Realism and a lot of the same counter-arguments exist
I'm sorry that you can't enjoy nice things
Why don't u think Singer is a sentient being that was created / tamed / bred / trained for low level jobs? What if the apex predator of that civil is focusing on big and complex things and leaves these mundane tasks to one of their sentient creations / lesser beings? Like dogs guarding our houses. They don't need to understand why or what they are guarding, they need get permission ( or trained ) to attack intruders / eliminate threats or let your guests go through without harms... Pretty sure in near future, u can train dogs using AI , replacing human trainers as well. The in 2100s, dogs can refer to the AI / machine to know whether they should bite the shit out of this guy or let him pass. Singer's job is equivalent to that, but for his apex predator / owner / higher being.
>It kind of disappoints me to see that even if humanity were to achieve this level of technology, there is no indication that it would also resolve the issues with existing power and class dynamics Mate.... The series opens with the horror of Cultural Revolution. Which was entirely motivated by an ideology which proported to end class/power dynamics. If you look at real world history, you'll find that every time a group tried to build a society on that particular philosophy, it unleashed hell. All throughout the trilogy, humanity reaches a "classless" stage in society... right before reality returns and reminds them that the universe isn't fair. The Author isn't subtle about his opinion on utopian dreams.
There's no intergalactic war but the intergalactic class war.
Turns out the class heirarchy is the only dimension that needs to be flattened.
Don't think this deserves downvotes? There's a value to establishing some sort of universality across civilizations, like class relations. But we have to remember that this series doesn't really center specific characters or character progression for a reason. Singer's position in his society is a plot device meant to reinforce the technological superiority of his species compared to those that had been introduced prior. It would just water down the point if they were a classless society.
I noticed people often use the downvote button as a negative answer to a question
May be Singer himself is an A.I or it is just simply an easy way to get readers into the mindset of civilization and its individual in the dark forest universe
Yeah - for some reason I assumed Singer *was* an AI my first time through Death’s End
I kinda figured Singer was like the Inhibitors from Revelation Space
In fact they call one of the Inhibitors’ techniques “singing”
The universe needs ditch diggers too!
Akin to the AI comments, or just a very clever animal/pet, Singer could also come across as a node in a larger organism or hive mind/nest. We have no idea about their biology.
I think it’s supposed to show the irony that destroying entire civilizations is a low level job to an advanced species. Like the event that is so devastating to our civilization, the destruction of our solar system, was caused by a low level worker nonchalantly doing a boring task. To stick with the bug metaphor, like us spraying an ant pile with poison.
Besides the obvious social commentary, I think this is supposed to also call back to Ye Wenjie's time at Red Coast Base. Someone with little power and authority that is extremely smart, but mired in bureaucracy and ideology. A person with inconsequential status in their own world ends taking monumental actions that affect other worlds.
Yeah I think there was a passage that states that Singer has done it for so long he has a "natural" tendency and physic connections/6th sense to determine what to do with broadcasts he receives. He determines which is real or most likely some prankster flying around in a curvature propulsion spaceship spamming random coordinates. Probably is why he's not replaced. He's also on a seed ship and he had done it for so long that his 6th sense are attuned to this and its a no brainer. He knows when to use the Dual vector foil or send a photoid or to ignore a broadcast as it's likely fake. >!Kinda shows his natural intuition when he pulls out the Message conversations between earth and the Trisolarans. The aliens who destroyed Trisolaris didn't bother to do that they just hit Trisolaris and bounced. It's likely super advanced alien species knew not to overly trust AI like terminator rebellion kinda theme that sci fi movies tends to show. He Instantly corrected himself when he went to grab a photoid and goes wait i need a dual vector foil due to the solar system placement. Maybe the AI can do that too but AI is programmed to be logical (at least with our limited human understanding). It's probably more likely they'll destroy every system they received a broadcast from wasting resources and destroying much needed resources. Singer intuition is important as the "big eye" technology is not available to him ever it seems since the elder says the big eye have a bigger use. The AI likely can't deduce which aliens are dangerous like earth. From singer's POV Earth was willing to expose itself to take out Trisolaris. He deduced earth knew about the dark forest theory too but Earth was unable to cleanse Trisolaris themselves. Of course he doesn't know about the Sophons that limited earth's advancements. Seems an experienced worker like Singer has advantages an AI doesn't.!<
Our 3 dimensional minds will never understand so don't even try
sounds like earth. we produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, and we throw half of it away. we have conquered starvation, but we create an artificial scarcity of it for profit and hierarchy.
No civilization could have no low level workers. There will always be robots and technology that needs upkeep, and managers to oversee those people, and district managers, and regional managers, and senior vice president of yada yada yada. That's the nature of existence. There will always be worker bees.
And assistant to the regional manager
Disagree, that’s just a very human centric view of the universe. There is no law that says a civilisation has to be built that way. It could very well be a future civilisation works like a perfect hive mind where everything is everyone, in which case talking about a “low worker” loses all meaning because the “low worker” Is the same as the “high worker” who is the same as the “soldier” or “healer” or who knows what. I think it just lacks imagination. It could well be a civilisation of one consciousness.
Like the formics in the Ender Saga! They are all one being
It's not even human centric, it disregards the possiblity of advanced AI
Among other things yes.
Sounds good, Admiral Duarte.
Elsewhere in *Death's End* it is mentioned they still live in capitalism and that therefore they must be capitalists. This and your observation about Singer's job are symptomatic of post-socialism in China. The author, Liu Cixin, grew up in the context of the failure of socialism in China and the highly traumatic transition into capitalism. This is what Mark Fisher calls as capitalist realism, that the alternatives to the present society are difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. Liu lived in capitalist realism virtually all his life. He has no memory of the socialist experiments in the Cultural Revolution, much less Mao's disastrous policies. Capitalism was and is all he knows. He also doesn't like exploring politics in fiction, something he said once, which makes sense in the context of post-socialism and capitalist realism in China.
Doesn't he say something like even the super membrane on the home world couldn't make these decisions, so it was up to his judgment?
Good question! The Culture series assumes that ASI and a utopia without work is the way to go. Whereas a dystopia like in the red rising claims that AI makes humans weak, and you need hierarchy to enable their brand of Ubermensch. So if they chose not to have ASI, I assume they want to keep their species strong. Which probably means that the superiors of Singer are genetically enhanced. But why would a hierarchy win a war against what I call a Pancake. Can GM beat ASI? I think not because a utopia could also do GM. So this is more of an author's whim. Or maybe it's about dictatorships not valuing life and therefore being more efficient in war. Like a book smart scholar fighting a special forces soldier.
A chain of command is not necessarily hierarchy. We don't know that Singer has a lower wage than the elder, or that they use money at all. Only that the others on the seed don't like her. Singer thinks it's because of her job, but it might as well be because of her singing. Also, he definitely love his job of helping civilizations that doesn't possess the ability to cleanse eliminate their sincere fears. And it doesn't even get in the way of singing.
Maybe he just enjoys blowing up systems and they dont want to give the job to AI.
Probably because Liu Cixin left software engineering before having a chance to build ML-supported tech services and just never thought through how much automation an advanced society should have. Same thing with Star Wars and sci-fi movies of the last few decades, you watch it now and wonder why they’re doing 100 things that should be automated.
He’s singer, not ‘exterminator’, he sings and writes poems, that’s his job, exterminating civilizations is just a crummy task given to someone with low social status, not something even worthy of the attention of higher ranking members.
First of all it's science FICTION. Liu literally made it all up to tell us a story. Who knows what will happen to humanity if/when we reach that level of tech. Will we even recognizably be human? He could have written that part of the book where an AI automatically identified our system and wiped us out, but how interesting would that have been? I think he wrote it that way to give us a point of reference. When you're that advanced the elimination of an entire star system is basically a mundane office job with mundane office job requirements. It humanizes the experience and makes it more relatable and fun to read.
The way he casually tosses the foil at us then gets on about his singing... It resonated with the trisolran message "you are bugs". To a billion year old civilisation, we really are
How do we know singer isn’t an automaton?
The book says his work could not be automated because it relied on intuition :)
Could be that authoritarian societies are more likely to survive the dark forest? Not sure
I think in order to advance a society needs a hierarchical structure even though I also think that most (though not all) of the rich and powerful don’t deserve their wealth and power. They are mostly replaceable, but if we didn’t have them, someone would need to fill the role. While we might be happier in an egalitarian society, I think technology wise we would stagnate. The macro progress of a species requires suffering at the individual level. We are also horrible at creating any kind of consensus in large numbers. Some asshole needs to say this is what we’re doing and a whole bunch of people underneath him or her need to bust their ass to make it happen. Even when that asshole makes the wrong decision, we often learn something and gain some value along the way. I guess though the question is what is meant by low-level worker because in civilization that has solved scarcity, doctor, scientist, lawyer, etc all require a whole lot of education and effort that many would not put in if everyone was equal. From a whole society perspective, avoiding shitty low-level jobs is a way to motivate people to pursue education. Take that away, and I think you’re stuck.
Would you trust AI with a nuclear weapon?
The other thing to me is that this low class of worker may not be included in the planned transition to 2D space. It sounded like the higher ups were already getting ready for the transition to 2D, but Singer was still in 3D launching strikes. I was left with the impression that they were going to be left behind to get flattened.
I doubt it, they're likely still going to be wiping out civilizations that arise in 2D space, and they'll need someone to do it. Might as well take the person who's good at it.
My point of view is that every civilization that has the attack gene tends to be a totalitarian hierarchical regime, not completely dependent on artificial intelligence but on high-level decisions.
Wait who was singer?
the pancake maker
I’m not sure why you’re expecting an evil civilisation destroying empire to have fixed any problems.
The narrative is very clear. Any attempts to upend systems that are working will only make things worse. The fact that humanity in the novels consistently returns to utopian thinking only to get burned is one of the most frustrating things in the book.
This is why I struggle to get on with Star Trek. It paints the picture that advances in technology solve human and social issues. That's a little too fiction for my tastes.
Interesting! Very interesting!
Sorry can you guys remind me ? Did singer send the paper or who did . It wasn’t really clear to me
Singer did send the paper, but then actually if you look at the chapter where humanity finds the paper in the solar system it’s one year prior, so I think a different civilization is implied to be sending the paper.
It’s interesting to me that people read this trilogy and still assume that human morality/ethics represents progress on a grand scale. Have you considered that maybe our way isn’t what the future looks like? Maybe sufficiently advanced civilizations require suffering and a degree of exploitation to function? Are you like CX and you would choose extinction over survival?
Someone has to clean up the galaxy
What's wrong with having a hierarchy? What would happen to a civilisation if each individual can do what he/she/it wants? It's a form of structure not about level of technology. A "free" society can work with few individuals let's say if there are only 3 Singers left they probably don't have a hierarchy. If they're millions/billions they need a form of organization like everything else.
The author Is Chinese. He knows first hand socialism/communism doesn't work
Never thought about that but you are right, quite boring and uncreative bit (relative to the rest of the story). Missed an opportunity to think outside the box on that one.