The book is about the failure of marxist-lenninism in the face of global capital and the inevitable Thucydides trap that China is stuck in as it girds itself to take on global hegemony, written by a man whose childhood was shaped by the cultural revolution, whose adulthood was shaped by the economic boom Dengism bestowed and whose future climate change and a 3rd World War looms over.
You're entitled to be disappointed and frustrated that the author's political views don't match your own, but maybe there are lessons to be learned here?
The book is about the failure of marxist-lenninism in the face of global capital and the inevitable Thucydides trap that China is stuck in as it girds itself to take on global hegemony, written by a man whose childhood was shaped by the cultural revolution, whose adulthood was shaped by the economic boom Dengism bestowed and whose future climate change and a 3rd World War looms over.
unironic based literaturemaxxer :galaxy-brain: moment* holy fucking shit the "dark forest theory" actually makes sense now as something real and not a fascist wet dream, what would be the interpretation of the series' ending based on this geopolitical reading?
*your interpretation is incredibly intelligent and bitingly insightful
what would be the interpretation of the series’ ending based on this geopolitical reading?
You tell me, I haven't had the time to read it. :data-laughing: It's entirely possible this reading is wrong btw, or that it changes with the later books. But it just felt natural to me, given China's history and the way nationalism factors so heavily in the book.
Thank you, that's very kind of you to say.
The thing is that the geopolitical reading that you have established really serves to explain the general series of events that take place in the later parts of the series The extent to which is uncanny, even with shit like the brain drain of Chinese intellectuals to the west being relevant lmao it makes everything so clear its amazing
Cixin Liu for me is now officially up there in the sigma literature canon, his later books depicting some fucked up romance between a based failboy academic and his imagination until his imagination becomes real, sounds like utter nonsense but id say its really worth a read
You’re entitled to be disappointed and frustrated that the author’s political views don’t match your own, but maybe there are lessons to be learned here?
fuck you and your condescending pretension
Dontcha think this is slightly too aggressive? CriticalOtaku maybe should have worded the final section more preciesely, but I think most posters on this site are entitled to a good faith reading of their comments. Especially because a lot of us here aren't actually native english speakers, so we might come across as more obnoxious than we intended to.
You’re entitled to be disappointed and frustrated that my comment's political views don’t match your own, but maybe there are lessons to be learned here?
now one of the aliens is giving a maudlin speech about how their harsh culture can't even speak of love (weird how he has a word for it then)
this is the kind of shit sci-fi was doing in the 1950s in black-and-white movies like Teenager From Outer Space, just baby-brained trash
I'm in no way defending this book, since I've not read it, and I barely have time to read the non-fiction at this point, so I'm going to let your opinion stand uncontested. I just think you should treat your fellow Hexbearians better.
I would have if they hadn't talked to me like they were writing for The Economist
Telling someone to fuck off is one thing. But do not, under any circumstance, accuse someone of writing like The Economist. You are better than this :hasan-smash:
I did not mean to cause offense- this entire thread has felt like a surface reading of the book just looking for excuses to be performatively morally outraged that the Chinese author isn't The One True Leftist, as if he has to or should be, and that made me frustrated (which probably manifested as condescension, and for that I apologize, the last thing I want to do is talk down to people) - but also truthfully I would rather die than stop being pretentious. It's my last coping mechanism for this decaying world, the thin veneer separating me from annihilation. "I think, therefore I am"- but now that would be pretentious. Behold: The Pale Horse Pretension, and atop it CriticalOtaku!
Then again, maybe I don't think and am a creature of pure id, which would certainly explain why I'm posting this. Who the fuck knows.
Let's talk about the book.
Yes, Liu Cixin is a lib (Well, maybe he's a Dengist because in interviews he expresses nothing but complete support for his current government, but depending on who you ask Dengist is just another word for liberal) . Yes, the book is mid sci-fi, being generous. And other posters have pointed out the problematic bits. But the book is important to leftists because it is a contemporary criticism of Maoism from someone that lived through the Cultural Revolution, expressing in pop culture the mainstream contemporary view of that historical event as seen by its own citizens, and because Dark Forest Theory is something that would only come from the material conditions China has endured over the last century. That's what I meant by there being lessons to learn here- a critical Marxist reading.
Is the author making grand pronouncements about civilizational development, or instead merely Chinese foreign policy? The cartoonishly fascist technologically advanced aliens use videogames as propaganda- a pretty thinly veiled metaphor. I think I dropped my copy of Call of Duty around here somewhere. Maybe the fears of authoritarian invasion in the book are less projection of an authoritarian turn in the CPC and more projection of an invasion by a global hegemon? Or maybe there's a fear of one leading to the other? A conflation between the two- foreign policy to civilizational development.
A huge chunk of the book is dedicated to the notion that The Revolution was Betrayed- that for all the high ideals of Maoism the Party failed to protect it's people and the environment, and there's a pervasive sense in the book that all the suffering endured during the Cultural Revolution amounted to nothing. Even the Revolutionaries that fought for it were betrayed, not even benefitting from any corruption or nepotism that would (at least) provide some sort of justification. There's a MacDonald's on every street corner in Beijing, the protagonist works within the multi-national framework, hell the protagonist is a private sector scientist. Capital won! And not just won, the suffering ended because of it! (But did it really?) And because of that disillusionment with Communism the other PoV character becomes a misanthrope who sells out her planet to the alien imperialists. Not subtle.
Also, the fact that the "worst possible fate" the evil imperialist aliens impose upon humanity is what is essentially a technological blockade is HELLA not subtle.
Dark Forest Theory? Reactionary nonsense. But it should scare you, that so many people take it seriously. It means that the dream of the Internationale and the Comintern is dead- that the best thinkers in China and elsewhere have taken a long hard look and decided that broadcasting your presence is too dangerous, that keeping your head down is the better play lest other, larger colonial empires find you and devour you and subject you to a century of humiliation. That in the long broad sweep of human history this is the only outcome, and extrapolating from that there can only be fascism and colonialism all the way down. That the only way to avoid that fate or become a colonialist yourself is Communism with Chinese Characteristics.
thanks for expanding, I accept your apology and I apologize for misapprehending your previous comment
What you've described is a much better book than what was printed on the page. The subtext and lore that you've read into it make for a much more interesting book. Would you say it's a reverse orientalism (occidentalism?) that the trisolarians (western imperialist stand-ins by your interpretation) cannot tell a lie? Perhaps my simple western mind is incapable of more than a surface level understanding of the novel since subtext requires a measure of duplicity which cannot be perceived by people of our background. Or maybe there really is nothing deeper there, which is exactly why this series received so much publicity, and was translated and published in the west. It doesn't challenge western hegemony so it's perfectly safe for wide distribution.
I'm really not scared by Dark Forest Theory. Inscrutable alien beings have been waging genocidal war on humanity since the dawn of science fiction. Justifying the behavior of War of the Worlds martians, Starship Troopers bugs, and Independence Day greys does nothing to change the landscape of science fiction. "The universe ain't big enough for the both of us" has always been justification enough. And once you wade through all the pretentious psychological bullshit, that's all that Dark Forest Theory boils down to isn't it?
I'm not mad that he wrote Space Battleship Yamato with Chinese characteristics, I'm mad that it's the same god damn story I've already been told in the west a hundred times before.
Perhaps my simple western mind is incapable of more than a surface level understanding of the novel since subtext requires a measure of duplicity which cannot be perceived by people of our background.
I... would never suggest something so racist. I would merely gently remind posters that terminally online leftists tend to forget historical contexts, and then leave it out of their analysis. Maybe that's what's happened here. Maybe not. Besides, subtext is for cowards.
Seriously, this wasn't the right line of attack to take. At least, if you don't want to appear chauvinist.
Or maybe there really is nothing deeper there
Yes. The curtain's are blue.
It doesn’t challenge western hegemony so it’s perfectly safe for wide distribution.
I can buy a copy of Lenin's State and Revolution off Amazon, right now. Nothing challenges western hegemony, that's the point of capitalist realism. Also, when did I say that The Three Body Problem had revolutionary potential? I just merely suggested that the book is informed by the author's historical context, and because of that it's of interest to leftists. Because, to spell it out, that context includes the Cultural Revolution. I never said that the book itself was leftist.
Besides, if the book was counter revolutionary surely the CPC would have banned it?
I’m really not scared by Dark Forest Theory.
Congratulations! You missed the point of what I wrote. The theory itself is laughably facile, a horrendous application of Game Theory based upon numerous faulty assumptions. But I said to be scared that people are taking it seriously, not that it is scary in-and-of itself. Since it could be a thinly veiled metaphor for Chinese foreign policy. China's, notably, isolationist foreign policy. The one where they keep their head down and don't draw attention to themselves, because they're surrounded by colonial foreign powers. That foreign policy.
But maybe the idea of their never again being a coordinated international communist effort backed by a state, maybe that doesn't frighten you. You're made of sterner stuff than me, then. Cheers.
I’m not mad that he wrote Space Battleship Yamato with Chinese characteristics, I’m mad that it’s the same god damn story I’ve already been told in the west a hundred times before.
That's your prerogative, but I was taught to read the text as it is, not as it should be. Anyway, Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds is probably more what you're looking for.
Edit:
The subtext and lore that you’ve read into it make for a much more interesting book.
If you want me to go line by line to back up my reading, I will. Don't threaten me with a good time. Just not right now, I have to go to work tomorrow morning and I'll be hella tired if I have to do my homework last minute again. But to be fair, a huge part of the book was taken up by dubious physics.
At the end of the day, Liu Cixin is just one man. One man's opinion isn't indicative of wider opinions so I don't know that there is much utility in doing a deep dive of this man's opinions when we both already agree that he is just a lib. Even if we could accurately parse his opinions from his body of work, all we would know is the idiosyncrasies of one man, and I seriously doubt he is the Chinese whisperer. I might read Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds but I won't assume she has a finger on the pulse of the Chinese either. Or I might not read it either and just dismiss it as the Chinese knock off novelization of Aldnoah.Zero. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and pop culture is just pop culture, regardless of origin.
Literature is the study of "just one person", over and over again, which in aggregate maybe gives us insight into the human condition. To dismiss the need to think critically about art in such a way is... disappointing, no matter how crass or commercial said art is. I never meant to suggest that Liu Cixin spoke for the entire Chinese Proletariat, but rather to ask the questions "Why would the Chinese author incorporate these particular themes and motifs in his work, especially given his background and the historical period he finds himself in?" and "What can the widespread success of this work, and widespread adoption of the ideas held within, tell us about the world we find ourselves in?" The answers I landed upon might be wrong, but to be so uncurious as to not pursue any line of inquiry in the first place is... deeply disappointing.
That his account of the Cultural Revolution is written from a liberal perspective should make it even more valuable to leftists, in some ways. Knowing what a representative of the intelligentsia thinks about that event in the biggest Actually Existing Socialist nation might give us a clue as to how it's going. Or not. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as you say.
Or I might not read it
Which would be a shame, since Vagabonds is rather an explicitly leftist work.
If you really want to break down this book to sus out Liu Cixin's politics then don't let me stop you. I'd be happy to read it, but by this point in this thread, you'll likely only have an audience of one. My concerns would be that it wouldn't be fun, since as you said, this is mid-level sci-fi and I'd say Liu is probably little more than a mid-level thinker. It would be like trying to gain insight into the American condition by examining the depiction of television production in John Scalzi's Redshirts. Very often pop sci-fi is just pop sci-fi.
But moreover, I'm not sure I know enough about Chinese politics to ascertain whether your understanding of it is correct. You said China (or it's populace) is isolationist, but I don't know how to square that interpretation with the Belt and Road Initiative. Likewise you talk about how they feel technologically constrained by the west, but they manufacture all of our consumer products, they're a nuclear power, and they're kicking off another space race. And perhaps Call of Duty is propaganda, but it's very obviously aimed at American audiences and is of little interest to the Chinese. If you had a Korean gatcha game smuggling ideology into communist China I'd be all ears to such an argument, but then again, Genshin is out capitalizing the west better than the capitalists could do to themselves.
I'd just make a new thread, but the problem would be me finding the time to do a deep dive.
It would be like trying to gain insight into the American condition by examining the depiction of television production in John Scalzi’s Redshirts.
And what is wrong with that? What if we examined Redshirts alongside Star Trek, then examined which tropes were being lampooned- and used that to see how far we've moved away from the ideas expressed in the original show, of a specific vision of the future- to one that's maybe more cynical? And maybe look and see which tropes were conserved, which values were kept between iterations. And then see what that tells us.
But moreover, I’m not sure I know enough about Chinese politics to ascertain whether your understanding of it is correct.
So my understanding of it could be correct? Although, I will not claim to be an expert on Chinese foreign policy.
Let's go through these point by point.
the Belt and Road Initiative
Relevant quote:
However, China will not pull up the drawbridge and retreat to isolation completely. China will turn its back on the West but still keep its door open to non-Western countries by promoting the Belt and Road Initiative and investing in Russia, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and other developing economies. These are like-minded countries with a similar history of being colonized and humiliated by the West, plus strongman traditions and interests in seeking financial assistance from China. Developing countries will be happier than the West to see a partially open China.
I will encourage you to read the full article, as it gives a fuller understanding of current Chinese foreign policy by laying out the different near-future scenarios China can find itself in. Again, I will remind you that we are discussing the book and how it reflects the fears of, if not the Chinese people, then at least the author- rather than the actual geopolitical situation. But the initial point I was making was that China has abandoned International Communism, as envisioned by the Internationale and Comintern, in favour of "win-win cooperation"- so if say, a Maoist revolution succeeded in Myanmar, it would be extremely unlikely that China would commit its armed forces in defense of international communism should Myanmar be invaded by a hostile power bent on toppling the new communist regime, no matter how crucial that country is to the Belt and Road Initiative- and that Dark Forest Theory is really just a literary metaphor for Chinese foreign policy, more specifically the defensive strategy of not broadcasting your position.
Then again, a huge part of the book is also about how humanity's response to a global crisis requires that China be integrated into a neoliberal international framework. Maybe isolationist was too strong a word.
Likewise you talk about how they feel technologically constrained by the west
China still can't self-sufficiently manufacture semiconductors yet. A trade blockade targeting semiconductors would have grave implications for China's self-defense.
And perhaps Call of Duty is propaganda
Maybe the videogame in Three Body Problem is a metaphor for hegemonic media in general, rather than a one-to-one comparison to a title that I came up with off-the-cuff? A big plot point of the book is that the evil alien's are recruiting the affluent and well-educated with their videogame, which constantly bombards the player with how great the aliens are. Creating a brain drain, in other words. And while heavily propagandized in the West, these fears of a brain drain were quite real in China.
Also, just gonna point out that the Three Body Problem was first printed in 2006, waaaaaay before Genshin Impact became a thing. Back then, there were major doubts about China's ability to project soft-power, and it's only with the recent successes of things like The Wolf Warrior series were that view has begun to shift.
Having said all this- the point isn't about whether my understanding of Chinese politics is right or not, or even whether my understanding of the book is right or not. The point is to find out whether or not the book has ideas, and if we can read those ideas from the book and maybe use them to learn something. Even (especially!) if those ideas could come from a perspective outside our own- I replied to OP initially because I felt like they missed a perspective that could help them look at the book in a new light.
we worked it out, I mistook where they were coming from at first. kinda feeling like a dumbass but hey what's new
If it makes you feel any better, feeling like a dumbass is my default state. Hence the pretense. :zizek-preference:
re-read charitably and not in a haze of beery grumpiness it's not really that pretentious, I mistook your implication of subtext for a different more anticom point and transferred my disappointment at the book into anger at you. once you explained the foreign policy interpretation you're working with, your initial comment made a lot more sense to me
Hey, no harm, no foul. I probably should have just lead with my premise rather than bury the lede like that.
well, I'm finally done. something deeply frustrating about an idealist liberal groping around in the darkness trying to make grand pronouncements about civilizational development, like a medieval alchemist explaining that you need to get your humours in balance
You do need to keep those humors on balnce. Also dont forget the diferent types of bile.
I get your frustration, but considering what gets published the guy is not that bad in that aspect. Sure he is bland and not very rigurous in his thinking. From what i remember his politics are 1. didnt like the cultural revolution 2. Proud of being chinise and the development of china in the last 40 years 3. Wants more basic sciene research.
The phisics part is also poorly done tho.
But yhea even the campbellians were materialists of a sort.
Medieval Alchemist: "Well, I know that you've got a bunch of different fluids inside you and that occasionally you expel those fluids in order to recover from illness. Therefore, artificially purging or renewing the body of these fluids will relieve you of your malady more quickly. And hey, look. A bunch of these things - inducing vomiting, keeping a fever victim hydrated, lancing infected wounds, etc - appears to do just that. Also, a bunch of other shit is a bit more dubious, but... eh. You go with what you know."
Modern Guy Who Doesn't Know Dick Shit About Anatomy: "You fucking idiots. Just hook King Charles to an MRI machine if you want to know what's really wrong with him. Or use penicillin and ibuprofen for, you know, everything. :very-intelligent: "
now the author is comparing bugs::humans and humans::aliens, and does this big speech about how despite all the environmental hazards and pesticides there are still as many bugs as ever. literally says "their numbers have not diminished from the time before the appearance of humans"
oh yeah Cixin? you think so?
In 2019, Biological Conservation reported that 40% of all insects species are declining globally and that a third of them are endangered.
btw this analogy is supposed to be the inspiring ending of the book that gives you hope for human survival, and it's couched in climate change denialism
Doom and gloom scientists have been promising me a silent spring since the 1960s but here it is 2020 and those damn, chirping crickets are still keeping me up nights.
Yeah, it reads like "smart sci-fi" for people who really like isekai harem anime.
It starts out interesting enough and then literally devolves into a video game novel. Didn't finish it, but thought it was decidedly meh.
I just finished the series yesterday. I really liked some of the concepts of the sci fi world he creates but
minor spoiler re: liberalism
Yeah no if you are frustrated now by the liberalism/idealism, well in that regard the series does not get better lol. I don't think that part's all that bad but if you were hoping for a marxist story, RIP.
Also:
other vague criticism of the series
The author's got some weird socially conservative views about gender, women, femininity, etc. It's an overall minor part of the series but that just makes it stranger when it just kind of comes out of left field like that
I read it a few years ago and remember liking it well enough. Don't remember anything explicitly political from it other than cultural revolution = really bad, which is an opinion shared by most chinese communists, and it's been too long for me to remember any of the more implied stuff, so maybe that was really dumb and I just didn't pay attention.
Western journalists were raging at him back then since he supported the CPC though, so that made me like him more :shrug-outta-hecks:
just twist the strong nuclear force to make transistors on your two-dimensional proton membrane
That is the least of it. You can handwave that as magic alien tech.
At one point the proton becomes a convex mirror and reflects a lot of ligth. Seting aside wether a proton streched to a macroscopic scale wolud have a forcfield strong enough to interact with ligth in that way... it remains stationary. What hapened to conservation of mpmentum? The author should have used this as the propulsion method insted of just handwaving it.
Counterpoint, from a New Yorker interview in 2019 (pardon the massive western lib bias on the part of the author):
The answer duplicated government propaganda so exactly that I couldn’t help asking Liu if he ever thought he might have been brainwashed [star_wraith's note: right before this Liu defends the CPC's actions in Xinjiang]. “I know what you are thinking,” he told me with weary clarity. “What about individual liberty and freedom of governance?” He sighed, as if exhausted by a debate going on in his head. “But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real-estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.”
I looked at him, studying his face. He blinked, and continued, “If you were to loosen up the country a bit, the consequences would be terrifying.” [...skipping a spoilery part about the book, referencing aliens...]
Liu closed his eyes for a long moment and then said quietly, “This is why I don’t like to talk about subjects like this. The truth is you don’t really—I mean, can’t truly—understand.” He gestured around him. “You’ve lived here, in the U.S., for, what, going on three decades?” The implication was clear: years in the West had brainwashed me. In that moment, in Liu’s mind, I, with my inflexible sense of morality, was the alien.
And so, Liu explained to me, the existing regime made the most sense for today’s China, because to change it would be to invite chaos. “If China were to transform into a democracy, it would be hell on earth,” he said. “I would evacuate tomorrow, to the United States or Europe or—I don’t know.” The irony that the countries he was proposing were democracies seemed to escape his notice. He went on, “Here’s the truth: if you were to become the President of China tomorrow, you would find that you had no other choice than to do exactly as he has done.”
Obviously there are some problems with Liu's thoughts (emigrate to the US?!), but I really like his point about the interviewer being the one who's "brainwashed" in western propaganda (and funny how the author just completely dismisses it out of hand, like it's simply beyond the pale that a westerner would be "brainwashed"). Sounds like Liu, while probably not a Marxist, still broadly supports everything the CPC has done and is doing.
The irony that the countries he was proposing were democracies seemed to escape his notice.
That these are the two wealthiest, most cosmopolitan areas of the world seemed to escape the journalist's notice.
Liu is still working with a fundamentally liberal definition of democracy here, but that was pretty good. imagine if he had hit him with the Lenin quote about democracy for the slaveowners though
“But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real-estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.”
“If China were to transform into a democracy, it would be hell on earth,” he said. “I would evacuate tomorrow, to the United States or Europe or—I don’t know.” The irony that the countries he was proposing were democracies seemed to escape his notice.
It seems pretty clear (abet somewhat naive) to me. Liu is valuing quality of life over some abstract democratic ideal. He recognizes that a liberalization of the state and the economy would kick off the deprecation we've seen in India, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Why would he want to live on the periphery, rather than in the Imperial Core where quality of life would be better?
He might not understand all the nuts and bolts of neoliberalism, and how it grinds up a liberalized country into fodder for the imperial core to consume. But he sees how these things start and how they end. So he knows which side of the Wall he'd rather live on once it comes down.
Sounds like Liu, while probably not a Marxist, still broadly supports everything the CPC has done and is doing.
He supports the consequences of CPC policy, even if he's not thrilled with its methods. He likes living comfortably. And modern China is a very comfortable place to live.
yeah its more of a cool sci fi novel that induces soyface and coom in "people" who have given up soul and thus understand the STEM references, his primary mistake (other than making a fashiod theory that cuckskezagt milked for content) was saying (in later books) that a society run by femboys would be haram weak and bad or whatever which makes him eligible for execution by firing squad, the entire series is ideologically cope and worship of middle class intelligentsia
its still good tho bcuz at least the story was interesting and his writing wasnt/isnt dogshit for my fried attention span to process coherently
spoiler
Tbf that's the girl that dooms humanity. On purpose. Like she gets a response from the stars that's like "do not respond or my planet will kill yours," and she's like "lol good I hate everyone here :xi-plz: (but with aliens that aren't cool at all)
Yeah that early part of the second book with Luo Ji and his "perfect woman"? That part is rough. It gets better though.
Yeah. Most of the writing in that series is shite. But the last book has some of the most harrowing shit in it I have ever read.
spoiler
Collapsing the solar system into 2 dimensions. Realising this process of weaponsing the laws of physics is happening all over the universe, and that the universe we currently inhabit is a hobbled shadow of what it once was. One of the only surviving humans gets trapped in a solar system where the speed of light has been lowered to below the escape velocity of its parent star. Stephen Baxter levels of despair. I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the terrible writing. It made me feel awful. Those poor, poor people.
spoiler
The solar system gets collapsed into 2 dimensions, killing 99.99% of humanity
There's a decent amount of materialism in it.
spoiler
Technogical changes drive the relationship between humans and aliens, and aliens and other aliens. The dark forest theme is expressly tied to resource availability. The deprivations of one era influence the politics of the next. The surpise generation ships that attack each other for resources are about as anti-idealist as you can get, to the point where there's a ton of discussion among characters about how they might no longer be considered part of humanity. At the beginning of the Crisis Era, when world politics are closest to what they are now, characters discuss how peripheral states are concerned that core states will use the crisis to perpetuate their advantages.
Certainly not the most ideologically sound book possible (especially on a few social/relationship plot points), but better than a lot of sci-fi out there.
The outlooks on
spoiler
long-term scientific progression (highly variable advancement creates a strong incentive for interplanetary first-strikes to deter competition), the innate hostility of extraterrestrials laid out with a rational basis and leading to Dark Forest Theory, and the views on space-time as a finite resource whose consumption defines modern physics and drives intergalactic competition
are all relatively novel, well laid-out, and presented as a kind-of sociological challenge to the reader.
He's not painting a Utopian view of the universe. But neither is he writing everything off as a forgone conclusion. The end of the final book alludes to the possibility of better worlds to come.
There's a sense that it doesn't have to be this way. And there are definitely ideologues who argue to the contrary and who struggle to pursue a better world even in the face of a grim logical truism. I don't know if I'd call it an issue of ideological soundness so much as a pessimistic outlook on current human behaviors extrapolated outward onto an intergalactic stage.
I'll be honest, I couldn't get into it. The whole thing about that game was just weird and didn't seem to be adding anything, and nothing was really happening at all plot-wise, so I put it down and never picked it back up.
Everything The Three Body Problem tried to do Warhammer 40K did it first and better
3BP builds up a hypothetical rational basis for proposed answers to a bunch of unsolved ontological and sociological questions.
W40k tells you that space fungus can make bicycles go faster by painting them red.
These are not the same.
3BP builds up a hypothetical rational around the idea that every species in the universe is psychotic because they arbitrarily assume everyone else is psychotic, so as a result they become psychotic, and then the universe breaks because psychotic civilizations apparently develop to the point of creating reality warping tech.....boring Nietzsche shit
W40K on the otherhand tells you there's this wacky scary dimension of psycho-reactive energy that makes you more horny, angry, ambitious, gives you covid and that's why there's a big old war...fun creative in-universe explanation for why everyone's psychotic and it didn't require some illogical Chinese version of evo-psych
The dark forest hypothesis is a few decades old I think, and I'd say it's more pessimistic than arbitrary. It's basically the Bush Doctrine, but played out over astronomical timescales where a tiny chance really does become mathematical certainty. Who knows if the universe actually works like that, but it's at least a plausible setting.
It's arbitrary because it assumes most hyper-violent species with that mindset wouldn't immediately wipe themselves out the minute they split the atom, or that's there is no such thing as factionalism, internal strife, or civil war when these world destroying weapons would be available
Or the idea that species competing for resources are willing to destroy entire habitable planets on a whim, the book is annoying because it pretends to think deeply about these hypotheticals, but it really doesn't and instead the text is soaked with a kind of anti-logic that makes the characters act like robots processing binary code programmed by someone who plays too many paradox games
40K for all its goofiness at least attempts to give plausible explanations for why the galaxy would be a warzone, doesn't always work but when it does it's compelling and creepy
Really though, why didn't the trisolarians settle down on the nearest unitary star system and live under space dome habitats at the first opportunity? Any place would be heaven compared to the ecology of their homeworld that oscillates between scorched earth and frozen wasteland (and is projected to eventually plunge into the nearest sun once the stars align).
the nearest unitary star system
Earth just can't catch a break :data-laughing:
Fair question, but there are some plausible answers:
- IIRC, the trisolaran fleet is launched sometime around 2022 (a little before the book is set, and the book starts maybe a decade in the future). It's depicted as a dangerous voyage where they lose a significant number of ships. Maybe they didn't have the capacity to launch until about when they did.
- There are unexpected hazards of interstellar travel, and of other planetary systems. Maybe they wanted to be reasonably sure they weren't jumping from one dangerous situation to an equally dangerous situation.
- The trisolarans knew about the dark forest nature of the universe before we did. It's far better to go to a place you know you can conquer than to go somewhere that might be inhabited by a more advanced civilization.
- A recurring theme is investing in multiple avenues of technological progress and balancing proven concepts with the possibility to make a big breakthrough. Maybe they thought they were on the verge of a big breakthrough and were keeping their existing fleet on standby.
Or maybe they had some reason that's completely alien to us.
The trisolarans knew about the dark forest nature of the universe before we did.
I thought that the main character's MAD gambit only worked because both civilizations were ignorant of the dark forest nature of the universe, something MC only gained insight into by becoming the saddest "horny for my wife guy" in the universe.
I think they only reason they had him on their kill list -- and the only reason he was chosen as a wall facer -- was because they had listened in on a conversation where he had been given the basics of the idea. I interpreted that as they knew, then he figured it out and demonstrated a way to weaponize it.
The opposite. It works because they both know it’s true. The nuclear option is sending out a signal to the universe which would give away the location of both planets.
Right. But he sent out a message with a set of coordinates and said "watch this space." If the trisolarians already knew then this is sloppy exposition, action taken just for the readers at home.
It seems possible that a species could master its internal strife well enough not to destroy itself, but still turn its weapons against outsiders. The U.S. hasn't nuked its own population, but it has nuked Japan.
40K for all its goofiness at least attempts to give plausible explanations for why the galaxy would be a warzone
I don't know, I don't think space magic is more plausible than theories serious astronomers have kicked around since the 80s.
but it has nuked Japan
Yeah but it stopped at two cities, and turning weapons against outsiders requires a reason, and the reasons given in the book are just dumb, the shit being described in 3BP would make the Imperium of Man blush, it tries so hard to be grim dark to goes full grim dumb
I don’t think space magic is more plausible
It's not "space magic" it's interdimensional energggggy and Advanced genetic enigeeeering...it's goofy and fun and there's space elves, commie goblins and a sex god/goddess with a cool ass color scheme shut up :soviet-huff:
3BP builds up a hypothetical rational around the idea that every species in the universe is psychotic because they arbitrarily assume everyone else is psychotic
They presume that in a world of finite resources, nation-states that see themselves as distinct from one another will fight to monopolize those resources. And as weapons systems become more advanced, the collateral damage in these conflicts will become proportionally catastrophic. This is an intentional parallel with the modern day threat of nuclear war, the specter of which continues to haunt the world to this day.
the universe breaks because psychotic civilizations apparently develop to the point of creating reality warping tech…boring Nietzsche shit
The universe breaks because a finite resource - the Time-Space necessary to fuel superluminal travel - is exhausted through FTL travel. And everyone ultimately wants/needs to use this technology in order to survive and thrive.
W40K on the otherhand tells you there’s this wacky scary dimension of psycho-reactive energy that makes you more horny, angry, ambitious, gives you covid and that’s why there’s a big old war…
They both have super luminal travel. And in both cases, use of super luminal travel is a major driver of conflict.
In the same way, Forest Gump and LotR are two movies about a person who takes a long walk and changes history.
just read slightly farther and he literally invokes "human nature" fucking kill me I thought this book would be better
now we're hearing about how the aliens' focus on the survival of their civilization means they're "extremely authoritarian" and don't value the individual
this shit is garbage
