As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 347 Q&A
As one of the top science fiction writers in China and also a first-class science fiction writer in the world, Liu Cixin has participated in many official meetings of all sizes in China.

This is the second time I have seen a meeting with such a high level of confidentiality.

He had gone to a government meeting regarding magic before, and the level of secrecy this time was just as high as that time.

Sitting in the pitch-black car, without any communication equipment on my body except the clothes, the sound insulation of the car was quite good.

Liu felt a little nervous. He guessed that they wanted to talk to him about the impact of virtual reality on society, and at most imagine the future.

"Mr. Liu, you don't have to be nervous. This time, just like last time, we hope to use your rich experience in the field of science fiction to provide some guidance for our work."

Big Liu smiled and said, "I'm not panicking. I'm just afraid that I won't be able to meet your expectations of me."

"It's okay, I just hope you can serve as an inspiration for us.

It's best if it can help, but it's okay if it doesn't.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

Liu: “The questions I answered last time on this bus were not so casual.

I feel like each of those questions requires me to think for a long time before I can give a very superficial answer.

It’s even harder than writing my graduation thesis when I graduated from college.”

“This time it will not be the same format as last time, this time we will do it through dialogue.

Once you arrive at the location, someone will come to have a conversation with you.

Please understand that the conversation will be recorded.”

The person in charge of reception work fell silent after saying this.

Da Liu also stopped talking.

He was not a talkative person.

Generally, authors have expressed all their desires in their works. They may be constrained by their desire to express themselves and talk more in front of the camera, but there are very few writers who talk a lot in private.

Rather than speaking with his mouth, Liu prefers to speak with his hands on the forum.

As Liu sat in the car, his thoughts were scattered and he hadn't formed a complete logic.

After arriving at the place and entering a very simply decorated room, a middle-aged man with a bitter face sat opposite Liu.

When you see his face, you will feel that this man must have suffered a lot in the first half of his life. He is a typical middle-aged man from the lower class of China.

Liu Cixin naturally would not judge people by their appearance. Anyone who could sit here and talk to him could not be an ordinary person.

"Mr. Liu, I have long admired your works. I have always liked them. I have read the Three-Body series more than once. You can call me Mr. Chen."

Liu guessed that this surname was not the other party’s real surname, but it didn’t matter.

Because he knew that the only chance to meet the other party would be here. Once he left this door, he would probably never see this man named Chen again in his life.

"Thank you for your appreciation. I am where I am today because of you."

"I won't say any more polite words. Mr. Liu, the various awards you have won and the publication of your works around the world are enough to prove your ability.

I would like to ask a question, what do you think of the Dark Forest Law you mentioned in The Three-Body Problem? "

Liu was a little surprised, but not that surprised: "This is just a setting to serve the novel.

Although it seems to make sense, it is just my personal guess.

It cannot escape the limitations of my own understanding of what the universe is really like.”

Liu Cixin is very humble and he indeed thinks so.

“I have repeatedly said in some external interviews that I personally do not believe that the universe under the Dark Forest Law is the real universe.

The reason why it is constructed like this in The Three-Body Problem is because of the plot requirements.

The plot needs to be set up like this so that the actions of the Trisolarans have a logical basis.

Regarding the true situation of the universe, I think the possibilities can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the best possibility, one is neither good nor bad, and the third is the worst.

In the first category, the life of the universe is fully respected, and the universe has a unified and high moral law. My "Hearing the Truth in the Morning" and "The Rural Teacher" are about this kind of universe.

The second category is similar to the Earth. There is hatred and friendship between people and between civilizations, there is mutual help and also mutual oppression.

The worst universe is a universe of zero morality and zero-sum game, where competition for survival dominates everything.

There is also another simple reason why the Dark Forest Principle was created, which is that dark futures are more likely to tell exciting stories. "

The middle-aged man sitting opposite continued to ask: "Now there is such a logic.

For alien civilizations whose technological level has reached a certain level, the only valuable thing for them on a planet with intelligent life is knowledge.

Knowledge that their native civilization does not have, or does not know. "

Scientists within the Chinese government have also held countless discussions surrounding Zheng Li's remarks.

People don't just blindly believe Zheng Li's remarks.

Many people think that Zheng Li is an alien with ulterior motives.

The reason I sought out Liu Cixin was that I hoped to get some inspiration from another perspective.

Liu Da thought about it and said:

“My personal opinion is that we need to see how advanced the technology level of this civilization is.

From an overall perspective, I think it's correct.

However, it is necessary to analyze the specific situation before speaking so absolutely.

For example, countries like Africa do not have any industrial foundation of their own, but they can integrate into the global economic system cycle of the entire blue planet.

For them, resources that can be converted into cash immediately are more valuable than knowledge.

It takes time for knowledge to be implemented.

For our country, knowledge is more valuable than resources. The knowledge here must be practical technical knowledge, not some theories.

The more technologically advanced a country is, the stronger its demand for knowledge will be.

Even if it's just the direction in which the technology should develop.

But the only thing of value here is knowledge.

There may also be bias.

Because I personally think that, taking the Blue Planet as an example, there are millions of species resources on the Blue Planet, and the genes and samples of these species should also be valuable, right?
For example, cats and dogs bred on Blue Planet, these pets, should be valuable in the universe.

In addition, if it is a more brutal civilization, for them, intelligent life itself may be treated as pets.

So the idea that only knowledge is valuable is a bit extreme, I think.”

The middle-aged man continued to ask: "If the other party came from hundreds of thousands of light years away, he can't take these resources away?"

Liu directly replied: "That depends on the communication technology and space transportation tools he has mastered.

For example, if the other party can contact the headquarters hundreds of thousands of light years away, then they can build a wormhole to come to the Blue Planet.

It may be hundreds of thousands of light years away, which means it will only take about ten blue star days to get there."

Liu's idea has also been proposed by scientists in China.

But it was quickly rejected.

The cost of building a wormhole to the Blue Star alone is enough to transform dozens of planets like Mars into Blue Stars.

It's not worth it here, unless the soul has a special function.

Artificially constructed planets cannot give birth to souls.

In fact, the experiment that China wants to do most is to see whether humans can get pregnant and give birth successfully in outer space, and whether the baby can grow up smoothly after birth.

There is speculation within China that planets with intelligent life are special.

Otherwise, the magic coin system would not be associated only with the cosmic coordinates of planets where intelligent life exists.

And intelligent life will only be born on these planets.

Even if you transform a planet into a habitable planet and then migrate intelligent life there, the intelligent life there will not be able to give birth to normal offspring.

If this hypothesis is confirmed, the importance of Blue Planet will be greatly enhanced.

However, China has not found a suitable opportunity to carry out this experiment.

The middle-aged man did not refute Liu, he only asked questions:
“Do you think civilization must be in a state of continuous expansion and growth?
There is a saying that after the developed countries on Blue Planet developed to a certain level, their populations began to stop growing or even decreased, and there was no trend of continuous growth. "

Liu Cixin said without hesitation: "In fact, regarding this phenomenon, when I was writing The Three-Body Problem, there was not much discussion in society about the issue of negative population growth.

Later I thought about this issue again, and this is what I thought.

If we regard the Blue Planet as a whole, a holistic civilization, then the Blue Planet is undoubtedly in a state of continuous expansion and growth.

Humanity's radiation boundaries have expanded to almost every corner of the blue planet.

In recent years, our exploration boundaries have also expanded to the moon and Mars.

But this is not the case for some specific countries.

And what I am talking about is just the phenomenon, not the theory.

Because the Blue Planet’s truly rapid development has only occurred in the last two hundred years.

The development in the past two hundred years has been faster than in the past twenty thousand years.

To be honest, I don’t know whether the trend of continuous expansion and growth will continue in the future.

But one or two countries cannot represent an entire civilization.”

“So what do you think of virtual reality technology, real virtual reality technology.

It's like a second world.

There is almost no difference from the real world at a macro level.

Whether it is smell, touch, hearing or vision, they are all close to reality, only the taste may have slight deviations.

If an alien lifeform brings such technology to the Blue Planet, will the civilization behind it have a technological level that would require colonization of the Blue Planet?"

“First of all, a few points need to be made clear.

The first is whether the alien life made it on its own, or whether it used production equipment brought from the Blue Planet.

There is an essential difference between the two.

For example, the difficulty of bringing a CNC machine tool to ancient times and of going back to ancient times and making a CNC machine tool by hand is very different.

Secondly, what is the other party’s status in the alien civilization? Is he an ordinary person or a scientist? Or is he the top scientist, comparable to the Nobel Prize winners on the Blue Planet?
Finally, what is the social structure of the other civilization?

You need to roughly understand these three points in order to know whether the other party has a need to colonize the Blue Planet.

And it is possible that the other civilization will not colonize the Blue Planet, but individuals will want to colonize the Blue Planet?
No matter how advanced an alien civilization is, an entire prosperous and habitable planet would still be of great value to an individual, right?

In addition, virtual reality technology is just one aspect of technology.

Of course, if this can be achieved, the overall technical strength will definitely not be weak.

There is no doubt that it is many years ahead of Blue Star.

It’s just the other party’s technology, it doesn’t mean anything.

It is entirely possible that the other party is short of resources, so virtual reality is needed to allow its people to survive in the virtual world."

The middle-aged man nodded and said, “What you said makes sense.

If it is really as you said, how can we deal with such an enemy? "

"In short, the information I know is too limited to give a reliable answer.

Moreover, my answers just now were based on partial information, and the answers I gave were partial and not so objective. "

The middle-aged man asked a few more questions and ended by asking:
"Mr. Liu, your answer is very valuable to us.

I will apply to disclose more information to you later, and look forward to your more specific answers then.

But at that time you may lose your personal freedom for a short time.

Please give me your reply when you are ready.

In addition, you are aware of the confidentiality regulations. The content of this chat cannot be leaked from you to any third party. "

For the Chinese government, Liu is a talent, but he is not indispensable.

If he is willing, that will give him the opportunity to join Zheng Li's research group.

If he refuses, just pretend it never happened.

"Star technology stocks fell across the board, with Netflix (NFLX.O) falling more than 13%. Netflix's market value is less than billion US dollars."

"Chinese concept stocks rose collectively, with bilibili seeing the highest increase of more than 20%."

In the Internet industry, many domestic companies are doing better than foreign companies.

Taking streaming media as an example, Bilibili’s user experience is undoubtedly much better than YouTube.

Ever since we learned about interstitial ads, YouTube has been flooded with them. If you are not a member, you have to watch them.

And I give you a paragraph at the beginning and another paragraph in the middle.

This advertising model seems to have returned to China in the early 21st century.

Chinese film and television apps no longer use this method, but YouTube has picked it up again.

Instead, Bilibili learned the model from YouTube.

Even though Bilibili offers a better user experience and has no advertisements, the problem is that it doesn’t make money.

The company has been making losses every year, and there is no hope of turning a profit until 2030.

The emergence of real idols has given investors hope for Bilibili.

An important reason why the number of paying users at Bilibili cannot increase is that the paid content is not rich enough.

The conversion of free content into paid content faces too much pressure from users and public opinion, and there are all kinds of competitors eyeing it.

I really don't dare to play like this.

Now that we have real idols, the last thing we lack is content.

In fact, both Tik Tok and Bilibili are creating their own content platforms.

Not just video content, but text content as well.

ByteDance has been promoting its novel apps, and Bilibili has also built its own novel platform.

Although they are not as good as Yuewen, as a film and television library, they are definitely not short of content.

(End of this chapter)