Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 377 Before Returning to Earth

Everything went as smoothly as expected.

Before the actual test, a similar scenario was simulated in a laboratory on Earth, and the test went very smoothly before the demo was sent to the moon.

There are only two types of people who place huge bets from the very beginning: vicious gamblers and reborn individuals with supernatural abilities.

Lin Ran has a cheat code, but it's not a cheat code to the future; it's a cheat code to the past. This cheat code isn't enough to give him 100% confidence that the technological development path he proposes is definitely feasible.

But now, at least it has been proven that this path is theoretically feasible.

Therefore, for Lin Ran, what is theoretically feasible is practically feasible.

Under his personal management, the advancement along this technological route has two key advantages: efficiency, which is brought about by Lin Ran, and the upper limit, which is brought about by the inherent properties of low-temperature superconducting materials.

China's journey into superconducting chips has officially begun at this moment.

They will continue to receive preferential treatment in the future.

From the perspective of Earth's audience, what they saw was Lei Jun applauding and congratulating:

"Something feels off to me. Is Lei Zi celebrating the successful completion of Huawei's chip demo testing?"

"It's alright, what's so strange about that? Hasn't Mr. Lei always said that we should pay tribute to our competitors?"

"In short, this is indeed a moment worth celebrating nationwide!"

"Superconducting chips have proven to be feasible, and I am already looking forward to the release of mobile phones equipped with superconducting chips on Earth."

"Then stop dreaming. Superconductivity is happening on the moon, not on Earth."

The audience was engaged in a lively discussion during the live stream, at such a historic moment.

The first two days were packed with content, but the later parts became a bit boring.

In the grayish-white environment of the moon, 3D-printed components are continuously laid on the surface according to laser markings.

Lin Ran and Lei Jun were doing this work, and they had a similar feel to railway workers, except that they were laying electromagnetic launch tracks instead of train tracks.

Progress has been very slow due to the low gravity and the spacesuits required.

"Professor, I don't understand, why do we need real people to do this? Can't we just leave it to robots like we do with solar panels?" Lei Jun asked.

A short video clip of robots laying solar panels on the moon has gone viral on TikTok and Douyin, and is considered a prime example of a video that looks like it was generated by AI but was actually filmed in the real world.

Lei Jun has certainly seen it.

Lin Ran pointed at Wei Xuhang and said, "That started with real people setting up training materials. After the real people set up the training materials, we had enough videos, and then we had enough training materials on Earth."

Wei Xuhang said, "Yes, we started out just like that. We joked that we were black slaves in the new century, and that we were planting cotton by installing solar panels on the moon."

This statement is highly politically incorrect. What does "new century black slaves" mean, and what is it implying?
In short, the long live broadcast that followed involved facing the desolate lunar environment and repeatedly using the electromagnetic orbit module.

There were dialogues during this process, including one between Lin Ran and Lei Jun, which was quite interesting, but it was much less exciting than the first day.

At the same time, a truly explosive news story broke out on Earth, which quickly attracted global attention.

That is, Big T was assassinated during his campaign speech.

Lin Ran and his group saw the photo news online at the lunar base.

For a moment, Lin Ran thought he was seeing things. No, how come this assassination attempt and rolling around look so much like me?

Lei Jun said, "It's over. After surviving this assassination attempt, I feel that the chances of Big T being elected are over 80%, which is not a good thing for us."

Lin Ran asked curiously, "Why isn't it a good thing?"

Lei Jun said, "It's just my personal feeling, a feeling."

Considering that it was a live broadcast, Lei Jun remained reserved and unwilling to talk about his true thoughts.

Lin Ran said quietly, "I thought the assassination of President America was an ancient tradition that had been lost to the annals of history, but I never expected it to be repeated now."

He planned to download the high-definition video after returning to Earth and enjoy it, noting how similar it was to his own Randolph tumble.

New hot topics emerge, while old ones are quickly overshadowed.

The live stream still had many viewers and a lot of discussion, but the global buzz surrounding the moon landing was rapidly declining.

"Mr. Lei is going to the moon to be a beast of burden. He's probably thinking, when I was selling Xiaomi phones, I said I went to the factory to tighten screws and filmed short videos of myself wearing a cleanroom cap and holding a screwdriver. Those were all staged. Now I'm actually going to space to be your beast of burden and lay bricks for you, and I'm even spending a huge amount of my own money to be your beast of burden."

"The God of Burning seems to be too friendly to Lei Zi. He knows you came to the moon for marketing, so he'll arrange activities for you to do, so you'll always have material and stay in the spotlight."

If people stayed at the base to rest every day and frequently went to the desolate lunar soil to see the scenery, I'm sure the popularity would not be as high as it is now.

Although physically exhausted, the buzz is off the charts! How many more cars did Xiaomi sell this month? How much did its stock price soar? Lei Jun is already rolling in money.

Many automotive bloggers on Douyin are also analyzing this issue:
How do you evaluate Lei Jun's moon landing, and will other founders in the automotive industry follow suit in the future?
My personal opinion is that everyone is envious of this wave of traffic, as well as the publicity and cross-border effect brought by Lei Jun and the moon landing. When I talked to other executives of car companies, they were all very envious. I can't say exactly how much Xiaomi spent on this marketing campaign, but it was definitely an astronomical figure, not quite 10 billion, but close to it.

But they all agreed that it was definitely worthwhile, extremely worthwhile for car companies. Your brand image and founder's image received unprecedented publicity during this moon landing. From first-tier cities at home and abroad such as Shanghai, Beijing, New York, and Paris, to third- and fourth-tier cities in China and rural areas in the United States, all these places have made an impression on the Xiaomi brand.

Some investment institutions have conducted research reports showing that Xiaomi's search volume on Google has increased significantly this month, and its sales curve in Europe has seen a slight increase.
These are the immediate results, and the long-term effects will gradually emerge in the future. They feel they've made a great deal, and so do I.

At least the money spent had an effect.

Over the past year, we have seen many brands and car companies spend money without any results. They advertise in places like airports, high-end magazines, and traditional TV stations, but they still can't stop the sales decline.

If spending money could produce results, then traditional joint venture car companies wouldn't have fared so poorly over the past year; they have plenty of money.

So I think it's great.

But if someone else were to go, even someone like Mr. Yu from Wenjie who already has a strong sense of the internet, the effect would be highly questionable, let alone other founders who couldn't even make their own media work.

You can go through all the possible founders of these companies in your mind. Doesn't everyone's performance fall short of Lei Jun's?
The only one I can think of who might be even more effective than Lei Jun, do you know who it is?

The comments section was filled with all sorts of names, from Jack Ma, Pony Ma, Robin to Zhou Hongyi, Li Bin, Li Xiang, and so on. The car anchor read them out one by one, then shook his head: "None of them. You didn't say the name that's on my mind."

Musk is an option; it would definitely be effective. However, he's a foreigner and can't come. In China, Zhang Chaoyang would be a better choice. Zhang Chaoyang's presence might have a better impact, given his PhD in physics from MIT and his recent lectures. He could potentially resonate with Ran Shen academically, even though Ran Shen might not understand the technical details. They could certainly communicate on a more aligned level.

He can serve as a bridge, helping everyone better understand the significance of this lunar base test.

Moreover, the claim that his visit yielded better results is merely speculation, my personal conjecture.

On Reddit, Americans have already started a wave of reflection.

"Our Super-Rich's Space Journey VS. China's Super-Rich's Space Journey"

Then, two pictures were added: the first was of him lying on the International Space Station looking out the porthole, and the second was of him bending over to lay lunar bricks on the desolate land of the moon.

Actually, it's not called a moon brick. It just looks like a brick, but it's not a brick. But people like to call it that.

"This is why we have gradually fallen behind China in the past two decades. Their wealthy pursue productivity, manufacturing goods, creating value, and even changing the world, while our wealthy only think about numbers, are addicted to the wealth game, and focus on every increase in the figures on their books."

"We have always been doing things that are easy and highly profitable, while China does whatever it wants as long as it is profitable. This is the difference between us and the reason for the current situation."

This is why I still choose to support General Aerospace even though they purchase aerospace technology from China. They are starting to try some difficult things, which is obviously a good start. We have finally begun.

Just as we did with Germany and England in the past, using other people's technology is not shameful; the key is to revive our manufacturing industry, whatever the means may be.

"China has been making progress. We were able to land on the moon 60 years ago. I watched the American moon landing at home 60 years ago. At that time, I thought that 60 years later, humans would build cities on the moon."

Sixty years later, humanity has indeed built a city on the moon, but not America, it's China. Sixty years ago, China had nothing; now they have everything.

Another Reddit post, instead of comparing America and wealthy Chinese, was written by a European who found a more interesting angle:

"We seem to have become accustomed to Europe falling behind, falling behind in almost every modern technology industry you can think of, such as computers, the Internet, photovoltaics, semiconductors, new energy vehicles, and so on. Moreover, after falling behind, European companies think, 'Why don't we just stop doing this industry? We have no advantage, so we should withdraw.'"

What I see most in European industry news is that we are about to withdraw from some industry again. The battle lines are constantly retreating, just like the French army, which habitually surrenders.

We sell the same products in the world in the past—machinery, electronics, optical instruments, medical devices, agricultural products, and so on—and we still sell the same products in the world today.

All emerging industries are irrelevant to us.

What about China? In the past, they could only sell ceramics, tea, and silk. What do they sell now? Automobiles, electronics, and home appliances. Giants like Volvo, KUKA, and Syngenta have fallen into the hands of Chinese capital one after another.

Every day when I wake up and read industry news, what I fear most is seeing European automakers announce their withdrawal from the new energy vehicle market. This is because they are most used to surrendering and clinging to their comfortable past until Chinese companies come to the rescue, at which point they will either be defeated or acquired by Chinese companies.

Faced with the same competition, the suppression that was much more difficult for European companies in the same field, and the blockade network woven by America in conjunction with all developed country allies, how did China respond?

The government centralizes the industry, identifies which companies are involved in each key technology node, and sets out what needs to be accomplished at each time point. Apart from providing ample capital, the government has led everything. They have never said they would give up and have been pushing forward all along, even as Reuters, The Times, and other media outlets have extensively reported that all the managers of the policy-driven funds have been arrested one after another. But China has continued to push forward.

Therefore, we can see that Huawei's flagship models are using their own chips again, with the Kirin chip making a comeback after five years.

If Europe were to face such targeting, and European companies were to encounter such difficulties, we would certainly see news reports of Huawei selling its entire mobile phone business to Google, with Huawei claiming it was a great collaboration, just like Nokia's mobile phone business being sold to Microsoft.

The gap between us and China lies in this: China is far ahead of us in terms of execution, perseverance, and mobilization. In the past, I would have thought that China could only play the role of a follower. But today, after seeing their superconducting chip, which is not a PPT project or just for publicity, and after seeing that they have actually built a laboratory and completed the first step of testing the superconducting chip, I realized that China is no less creative than Europe and the United States.

I initially thought America's attempt to use computing power to limit the upper limit of China's artificial intelligence development had a 70% chance of success, but now it's probably only 7%.

China's innovation through the integration of existing technologies is the result of decades of dedicated efforts in cultivating science and engineering talent.

I expect change in Europe, but I don't know how it should change.

This post is the most popular post on Reddit's AI channel; it seems to have nothing to do with AI, yet it also seems to have something to do with AI.

It resonated with countless Europeans.

“I am in Paris, and I am French. Although I don’t like your statement about the French army, I have to admit that in daily life, European brands around us are dying out. Many of the remaining European brands are manufactured in China and then sold to Europe across the ocean. The most typical examples are Siemens and Bosch.”

I often see "made in China" labels on their products. Because there are so many products that claim to be European brands but are actually from China, even though I want to support European domestic industries, I don't know how to avoid this situation.

From an individual consumer's perspective, instead of paying exorbitant premiums to European companies for Chinese products, why wouldn't I just buy affordable, high-quality Chinese brands directly? At least they're definitely from China.

"There are still some technology companies in Europe, but compared to the past, there are fewer and fewer of them, and they have all been acquired by foreign capital. The most typical example is ARM, which supports 99% of smartphone chip architecture, but it was acquired by SoftBank of Japan."

"I've never understood why America's General Aerospace can buy technology from China, but our companies don't try to negotiate with them."

China's lunar base has proven that the space age has arrived. If Europe misses this opportunity, I think Europe will have no future.

"I have always felt that low-temperature superconducting chips are a very creative idea, and the country that proposed this idea is China, which has the greatest ability to execute. We should be able to see the official use of superconducting chips in the near future."

"Won't this have an impact on the lunar environment? Shouldn't we condemn China's overexploitation of the moon?"

The replies also included some liberals who were unclear about the situation.

Various NGOs in Europe and the United States have criticized China's lunar landing, accusing it of using nuclear fission power plants and arguing that such actions could cause environmental damage to the moon and lead to nuclear radiation.
Little did they know that the moon is constantly exposed to various particles and is itself a high-radiation environment, with radiation concentrations not much worse than those around the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the leak.

Its main selling point is pure natural pollution.

In the last four hours before leaving the moon, they laid a 20-meter-long electromagnetic track foundation, which will continue to expand in the future, all the way to the Degellach crater.

"Mr. Lei, we only have four hours left before we head back. How does that sound?" This time it was Lin Ran's turn to wear the Xiaomi glasses.

At the lunar base, he looked very capable in his intravehicular activity suit.

"This must be an unforgettable experience. I have never missed Earth's food so much."

Although you've tried your best to make a wide variety of food, including all kinds of canned fruit, I still crave piping hot food—roast duck, fried chicken, roast meat. Just thinking about it makes me excited.” Lei Jun looked dreamy, as if he could already be eating.

Lin Ran smiled and said, "It is indeed worth remembering."

Thanks to our transportation capabilities, our astronauts actually eat much better than the Apollo astronauts who landed on the moon.

Lei Jun nodded and said, "Of course, it just can't compare to Earth. This makes me realize even more that we should cherish Earth, as it will be our only home for a long time to come."

Lin Ran then asked, "So, Mr. Lei, what are your thoughts on having you lay the moon bricks? Do you feel like we're mistreating you?"

　Only one chapter today, I'm a bit lazy over the weekend~

　　
　
(End of this chapter)