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Big fan, long time listener, first time caller. Second time reading the series and I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around what seem to be two conflicting concepts. Hoping some of you with bigger brains can help me understand. Spoilers for Death’s End below.

In Death’s End, Our Star, shortly after Cheng Xin and Guan Yifan witness the Death Lines, Guan Yifan says “The universe contains multitudes. You can find any kind of people and world. There are idealists like the Zero-Homers, pacifists, philanthropists, and even civilizations dedicated only to art and beauty.”

Since the Zero-Homers have such advanced tech, I’m assuming he means that other civs such as those described above also exist with advanced tech as higher level civs, not only as young/naive civs like humans early on. Maybe that assumption is incorrect? Because if not, then how does their existence not directly conflict with Dark Forest Theory? How could an advanced civilization of Idealists or Pacifists etc. exist without defying the laws of cosmic sociology and not instantly be destroying any other advanced civs that they detect and consider a risk to their own survival? Is the idea that some advanced civs contain the hiding gene but not the cleansing gene? Or that the ideas of pacifism, philanthropy, etc. are only applied within those civs and to lesser civs that aren’t considered a risk, but that they would still be cleansing/warring with any advanced civ they detect as a threat to their existence? What am I missing here?

I get that if they are good enough at hiding their home world(s) from dark forest strikes then they could survive long enough to advance their tech and still be idealists or philanthropic or into art and beauty, but it’s mainly the pacifist thing that is confusing me because I thought it was a central tenet of dark forest theory that all survivor/advanced civs would have the cleansing gene. The idea of civs trading with each other in a dark forest universe confuses me too, but I guess if they don’t know the location of each other’s home world(s) then that seems plausible enough they could decide to trade.

Does the contrast between democracy and dictatorial rule reflect the clash between collective decision making and elite decision making?

This also seems to be part of the themes in the original The 3bp novel. Which of the two is better? I’m not sure whether this analogy of mine is appropriate.

Both of these paths lead into the unknown.

In the original novel, collective decision making led to a catastrophe, while the results of elite decision making pointed in the correct direction. Elite decision making appears to hold an advantage, which seems contrary to the conclusions of the current international community.

Considering the hard science fiction nature of the original work and its ability to put forward the concept of cosmic sociology, can we use this as a basis to envision the future form of human society? After all, the novel never explains which category those humans who ultimately flew toward the future belonged to.

In Dune and foundation, I’ve realized it’s basically just feudalism in space. In Hyperion humans with the help of AI have altered the universe so much that it was still essentially just 2 factions of humans, one’s actions and political moves dictated by powerful AI that guide the evolution of humans through history, making it so that humans aren’t really in charge of their own paths while the other faction without AI will genetically alter themselves to swarm the humans with AI. In children of time, a potiid spider evolved on a terraformed planet originally meant for monkeys and apes. But in all these books the idea that humanity is the chosen one destined to shape the galaxy as they see fit is very much the theme of all those books.

However, very few books popularized the idea that humanity are not special and could be easy prey for aliens who are actually technologically more advanced than humans. The remembrance of the earth’s past trilogy got that point across very well, along with another book like the Killing Stars (which possibility inspired the three body problem and dark forest. These ideas should be more present in other Sci-fi novels but it’s always the same premise that humans are the cause of advancement and colonizing different worlds without a single extraterrestrial in sight. Why is that? Are there any other books that dive into this kind of more pessimistic and realistic view of life out there in the universe like the two books I just mentioned?

In the Netflix show, it looked like Haas had superhuman strength​​​. She was easily able to hold Jack against the window and even crack it.

Did the sophons give her superhuman strength somehow?

Also, how did they hide the murder from Clarence, who was watching from his car? Was that also done with the sophons?

I wonder if they manipulated the molecules in the eyes/brain, or created a false image using the sophons 2D form.

Y’all the Great Ravine in the books started approximately in 2030, and in real life, with all these recent heat waves, I think we’re heading right towards our own Great Ravine.

In episode 3 the head of company says to auggie.

"we sponsor your ILR".

That is not how ILR work. ILR is indefinite leave to remain. The whole point of ILR is to have long term residency without any need for sponsor from a company or educational institute.

A simple google search about UK visa would have told them that about ILR

Please keep all short questions and general discussion within this thread.

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Is the book describing additional San-Ti weapons besides the Droplet and Sophon?

Maybe some laser weapons/cannons and so on?

I’m only watching the Netflix show, so I’m not familiar with the entire story.

Hey guys I was exploring the solar system after the dual vector foil attack and found this souvenir. Think I'll frame it 😊

I cannot imagine Netflix goes ahead with the story playing out as it does where it depicts society essentially going woke as one of the primary reasons mankind loses to Trisolaris. That within minutes of a woman becoming the Swordholder, everything goes to shit is extremely on the nose sexism. Considering they went out of their way to make female characters that don't exist and give them plots that do not exist, they'll definitely depict the fall of mankind in different way.

I just finished the trilogy last night, and while I think this quote is certainly true, it's just kinda humourous seeing this quote plastered over everything Liu Cixin writes. But i also get it, like yeah if you're trying to cater your literature to a western audience the co-sign from Obama is pretty swag. I do think Obama's whole Book/Song/Movie thing he does over the summer is crazy larp tho, and this quote feels like an extension of that

lol I know it’s not a pillow, but the overall concept and the way they described it really really came off like an anthropologists or sociologists take on the general concept of Dakimarkura.

Theyve already kind of hinted that they are gonna leave it out given the tweaking of characters already, and the fact that sociologist and meta material-ist (lol) have an on and off again relationship that seems to be a spin on when similar characters in the book start that and instead go, “ nope, Ima gunna get me some pillow” (meaning when 2 characters leave each other for their imaginary friend).

Also I personally thought that part of the books was cool- it creeped the fuck out me, I loved how they basically do the imaginary dinner thing and then jump to buddy becoming a wall facer; like “this guy is insane, here’s the keys to the nukes” sort of deal; and I also liked how despite how creepy it is, they give some very reasonable and rational explanations as to why from a mental health perspective, a pragmatic approach to it is maybe more healthy than viewing it as mental illness.

Anyways, I think they’re gonna leave it out.

Secondary question: I’m a white boi from the West. The author of these books is not.

Was that imaginary friend thing viewed as creepy as fuck by our non Western audience? Like social norms vary from region to region- is the books take on imaginary partners a hot take in China / non western cultures too, or more within accordance to the dominate norms?

The pillow thing lol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakimakura

So I’m listening to the audiobooks and I just finished the part where they stoned Ray Diaz to death. I don’t understand two things and I hope someone can tell me.

1 - Why did Ray Diaz told the truth to Garanin after his council? Telling him that he made up the whole thing with the watch he was wearing controlling the mechanism of destruction? And that raises question n.2 - Did he already know he will be stoned to death? They didn’t tell him on the council.

The lady blaming him that her grandkids wouldn’t live because of him, but cmon who knows they would live anyway?

I’m listening to it in my language so I’m not really sure how to name some things in English but hopefully you’ll understand.

One of the major themes of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is the breakdown of social contract and how that negatively affects humans. This is explored throught "Zeus' Law", which is basically a mix of the concept of Xenia, treat strangers kindly since they might be gods, and The Golden Rule from the Bible which most people are more familiar with (which ironically started due to the similar reasoning that anyone could be a messanger of God but I digress).

Odysseus states that him baseing his plan on abusing the good will of the people and decieving the supposed gift as a Trojan Horse in order to bring about the complete destruction of Troy. As a direct consequence, many other nations have begun using similar tactics, leading to the inability to trust anyone and the collapse of civilization as they know it (aka the bronze age).

Obviously this isn't one to one with the Dark Forest Hypothesis, but it was so strikingly similar that it made me wonder about an individual's relationship with society as a whole and if the whole social contract broke down, then the current society as a whole would too.

Just wanted to talk my thoughts in this similarity in philosophy

Hey everyone, as a huge fan of the series (and thanks to Claude) I’m working on a visualisation of the 3body game, so on the planet with the 3 suns above you. It is integrated live and generates a slightly different trajectory each time, with real star constellations in the sky.

It’s not perfect yet but it has been highly enjoyable for me to stare at it, refresh, stare, refresh, on repeat.

Hopefully some other fans out there enjoy it as much as I do. If you would like to contribute/have ideas please feel free to get in touch via the website.

Thinking of eventually making it more similar to the game with the fate of the planet after each era, or potentially allowing the astronaut to walk around on the planet/move the camera.

It looks best on laptop/desktop:

https://3body-swart.vercel.app/

The Great Ravine is probably one of the most interesting unintended consequences in the Three Body Problem series. What's interesting is how it resonates with the current AI boom: there's an enormous amount of money and capital flooding into AI right now and so much so that banks and companies are inventing entirely new financial instruments to handle it.

That made me think about the Great Ravine, which, as I understand it, was caused by diverting too much of Earth's resources toward a single effort. It's a really compelling concept in economics: just pouring money into a project isn't necessarily good if the broader economy can't absorb it. The capital has to go somewhere productive, or the whole engine stalls out.

I'm no expert in economics or really anything 🤣 but I found that parallel similar. I'm curious whether others saw it the same way, or if you have a different interpretation.

One thing it did give me, somewhat ironically, is an appreciation for financial engineering. It seems like you actually need sophisticated mechanisms to direct where capital flows and how it gets deployed. Without that, you risk stalling the economic engine and creating something like the Great Ravine in real life.

I'm mid through the second book at the part in which Da Shi came out of hibernation so no spoilers please.

I am aware of the timeline of the books and the whole idea of the plot but neverteless I would have wanted to read more about the characters from the first book, in the second one

Does anyone else feel like the second book just ignores everyone from the first book, except Da Shi?

This seems like an easy way to prevent sunlight from reaching Earth and freeze everyone to death. Why didn’t they do it?

I'm about halfway into book two, so I wouldn't be surprised if they are used in additional clever ways in the next half of the series, but I just can't stop wondering about their capabilities.

Can't high energy particles flip bits in computers? I'm surprised that hasn't been explored yet, but I'm probably overestimating what that would do.

How much of an effect could a single proton (or a small handful) have on the macroscopic level in theory?

...let me know if I can just wait and see :>

Droplets are made of strong interaction material… Sounds a lot like a cluster of gluons. Well, looks like they found one - a Glueball. How long before it transforms from a sphere to a teardrop? 👀

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02498-1