[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":142},["ShallowReactive",2],{"content:\u002Fen\u002Fdaily\u002Fpeople-in-three-body":3,"surround:\u002Fen\u002Fdaily\u002Fpeople-in-three-body":131},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorship":6,"body":7,"categories":104,"date":106,"description":107,"draft":108,"extension":109,"image":110,"meta":111,"navigation":113,"path":114,"permalink":115,"published":115,"readingTime":116,"recommend":115,"references":115,"seo":121,"seoDescription":122,"seoTitle":115,"sitemap":123,"stem":124,"tags":125,"type":129,"__hash__":130},"content_en\u002Fposts\u002Fdaily\u002Fpeople-in-three-body.md","The “Majority” in The Three-Body Problem","human-only",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":100},"minimark",[10,24,31,34,39,42,45,48,51,59,62,65,72,75,78,81,84,91,94,97],[11,12,13,17],"blockquote",{},[14,15,16],"p",{},"If China were to become a democracy one day, it would be hell on earth. I'd definitely leave China the next day.",[14,18,19,20],{},"— Liu Cixin, in a 2019 interview with ",[21,22,23],"em",{},"The New Yorker",[14,25,26,27,30],{},"Liu has expressed his distrust of Western democracy on many occasions, along with a pessimism about letting the majority determine its own fate. These political leanings are unmistakable in many of his novels. ",[21,28,29],{},"The Three-Body Problem"," conveys them again and again.",[14,32,33],{},"The trilogy's chronicle of Earth's past stretches from 1453 CE to 18,906,416 CE, or Year 18,904,136 of the Galactic Era, then to the second year in mini-universe 647. Across that immense span of nearly twenty million years, one proposition is repeatedly borne out:",[11,35,36],{},[14,37,38],{},"The masses are the makers of history.",[14,40,41],{},"Not in a particularly optimistic sense, of course.",[14,43,44],{},"Those twenty million years produce plenty of heroes: Zhang Beihai, Luo Ji, Yun Tianming, Thomas Wade... At crucial moments, they turn the tide and make choices that could save all of humanity. In the end, their efforts still come to nothing.",[14,46,47],{},"It's interesting that the story begins with the Cultural Revolution. At the opening of the first novel, Ye Wenjie's father, Ye Zhetai, is beaten to death by Red Guards during a struggle session. I don't know whether Liu intended a metaphor here. Only while writing this response did I notice what seems to be an underlying conflict running through the whole trilogy: the exceptional few against the ordinary masses, or reason against emotion. Ye Zhetai's death seems to foreshadow its outcome: emotion wins. Compared with the Trisolarans, humans have a major advantage in their capacity to love and their richer emotional lives. They are not cold executors of orders. Even other traits, such as deception, can be seen as offshoots of emotion. This is humanity's good fortune, but it also seems to seal its eventual tragedy. Perhaps I'm overreading it, but the parallel is certainly there.",[14,49,50],{},"The trilogy isn't written as a chronological history. Instead, each book chooses one or several central figures: Wang Miao in the first, Zhang Beihai and Luo Ji in the second, and Cheng Xin in the third. Through their eyes, Liu spends much of the narrative depicting their eras. Hibernation cleverly lets characters take part in history across much longer spans than the few decades of an ordinary life. Yet elaborate plans, carefully built up over many pages and bought with countless people's blood and sweat, are casually undone by events during a hibernation period the novel skims over, or by comparatively minor incidents. There is a sharp irony to it.",[14,52,53,54,58],{},"Humanity's initial confrontation with Trisolaris is undoubtedly hopeless. The sophons block fundamental scientific progress and monitor human society, leaving humanity with neither a technological nor a strategic advantage. So humanity uses its ",[55,56,57],"strong",{},"only"," advantage, concealment and deception, and launches the Wallfacer Project. After grasping dark forest theory, Luo Ji broadcasts the coordinates of star 187J3X1 and enters hibernation to wait for confirmation. But he is awakened before the “spell” can be verified: the Solar Fleet Joint Conference has unanimously abolished the Wallfacer Project. Humanity has thrown away its one advantage. A project built at enormous cost through generations of effort vanishes because of that era's arrogance. Only a few people sense that something is wrong. As Ding Yi says, “I'm a man from two centuries ago, and I can still teach physics at a university.”",[14,60,61],{},"The story of Wallfacer Rey Diaz adds tragedy to this irony. Luo Ji says, “All four Wallfacers were great. At the very beginning of the war, they saw that humanity was certain to lose.” Whether Liu deliberately arranged it this way or not, the Wallfacer Project happens to choose the four smartest minds in the world. Add Zhang Beihai, and these five are the only people in the entire story who understand humanity's future most clearly and correctly. Leaving aside how plausible that setup is, those convinced of defeat know from the beginning that there are only two choices: stake everything on a threat of mutual destruction, or embrace escapism. The public focuses solely on the fact that Rey Diaz's plan could destroy Earth, without considering its strategic value as a deterrent. After the plan is exposed, he returns to his beloved homeland, Bolivia, and is stoned to death by the people he loves. On the plane before his death, he says, “The greatest obstacle to humanity's survival comes from humanity itself.” This explains not only his tragedy but humanity's as a whole. There is something of Nietzsche's Übermensch in his fate: the exceptional individual killed by the very people he protects.",[14,63,64],{},"Perhaps the destruction of the Solar System fleet raises humanity's tolerance for such threats. When Luo Ji takes up Rey Diaz's approach and establishes a similar deterrence system, humanity, now facing annihilation, treats him as a guardian. As deterrence is established, Luo Ji tells the sophon, “Strange. I don't feel like a member of humanity anymore.” When he steps down as Swordholder, humanity even wants to try him for destroying a world. Yet the deterrence he nearly died to establish lasts only sixty years before it is broken by Cheng Xin, the new Swordholder elected by democratic vote, despite the presence of several at least seemingly qualified candidates. After decades of confrontation, humanity is the first to let its guard down. Granted, compared with the cold Luo Ji, who could destroy two civilizations with a movement of his finger, the attractive, educated, approachable Cheng Xin, radiating maternal warmth, seems a better choice than a rough Common Era man in an age so strongly marked by femininity.",[14,66,67,68,71],{},"After deterrence fails, ",[21,69,70],{},"Gravity"," sends the gravitational-wave broadcast that Cheng Xin did not, completing deterrence's final step. Humans and Trisolarans begin seeking their own ways to survive. Thomas Wade's Halo Group starts researching lightspeed spacecraft, a technology the federal government deems illegal escapism. Humanity fears inequality in the face of death. Wade awakens Cheng Xin, the government takes over Halo Group, and Wade is executed. The last attempt to carry on the escapism of Zhang Beihai and Hines fails, and humanity is left unable to escape extinction. The farsighted, decisive few are ultimately defeated by the shortsighted majority.",[14,73,74],{},"Many responses to the trilogy attack Cheng Xin as a sanctimonious do-gooder, blaming her saintly compassion for ruining two plans that could have saved humanity. From our omniscient position as readers, that is easy to say. But Cheng Xin is really a concrete representative of the countless ordinary people Liu describes in that era. In other words, he has set her up as a target. Still, she is a thoroughly consistent embodiment of saintliness: what she does matches what she thinks, and every action comes from good intentions. During the false alarm about a photoid strike, she refuses to sacrifice ordinary people's lives to save herself. Her greatest mistake is believing that goodwill can solve every problem. More precisely, then, she embodies the goodwill of those countless ordinary people. What the novel reveals in her is shortsightedness, not malice.",[14,76,77],{},"The chaos before the droplet attacks Earth, and the false photoid alarm in Year 8 of the Broadcast Era, are two scenes in which the trilogy focuses on human cruelty. People fire laser pistols at space elevators to stop an imagined privileged few from escaping, while some would-be escapees start fusion engines without regard for anyone else's life. Neither human goodness nor human cruelty seems to produce much good in Liu's world.",[14,79,80],{},"And so Thomas Wade says, “Lose your humanity, and you lose much. Lose your animal nature, and you lose everything.” All he wants is to “Advance! Advance at any cost!” The public usually sees things differently. As Cheng Xin says, “I choose humanity.” They cannot see the whole picture, only what they stand to lose immediately. Rey Diaz and Wade are executed by humanity, Tyler is driven to suicide, Luo Ji is demonized, Cheng Xin becomes Swordholder, and the Solar System is flattened by a dual-vector foil. Liu seems to be quietly saying, “You wanted to be so humane. This is what you get.”",[14,82,83],{},"Overall, the trilogy's version of “democracy” gives us one bitter joke after another, along with the frustration of watching people squander their chances. The painstaking efforts of a wise minority, people who cannot or will not flatter the public, come to nothing. It is an emotionally persuasive satire of this so-called democratic society.",[14,85,86,87,90],{},"It brings to mind the recent situation in Ukraine. Under democracy's promise, Ukraine has arrived at its present position step by step. In the presidential election Zelensky won, voters faced a choice between the politically experienced Poroshenko and an inexperienced comedian. They voted for Zelensky, most on the grounds that he had played a good president in his comedy. This is a typical example of what I see as Western democracy's unavoidable celebrity politics and public shortsightedness. In another novel, ",[21,88,89],{},"China 2185",", Liu creates a female chairperson who also reflects the celebrity-making of politicians under “democracy.”",[14,92,93],{},"At the end of the trilogy, the Returners ask the mini-universes to give back their mass so the great universe can restart. Cheng Xin has barely finished saying, “If everyone in the mini-universes thought that way, the great universe would certainly die,” before asking, “Could we leave another five kilograms? The great universe won't fail to collapse because of those five kilograms.” The ending is open: we are not told whether the missing mass ultimately kills the universe. The novel itself says that among the countless mini-universes created by countless civilizations, a substantial number surely will not heed the call to return. So the universe probably falls silent rather than restarting. Liu has extended human frailty to beings across the universe's many civilizations.",[14,95,96],{},"Some people see dark forest theory as Liu's reflection on relationships during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution. I have no firm opinion on that. But his characters do reveal the divine, human, and animal aspects within people. Divinity appears in self-realization, as with Zhang Beihai and Luo Ji. Humanity appears in the compromises between people in society, in morality and law, as with Cheng Xin. And the trilogy confronts the animal aspect directly: survival is always a civilization's first priority. In the dark forest, humanity survives because of its humanity, then ultimately meets destruction because it cannot bear to give it up.",[14,98,99],{},"Humanity is not wrong. Liu simply puts the bloody reality in front of us. He isn't satirizing anyone in particular. Or perhaps he is satirizing everyone.",{"title":101,"searchDepth":102,"depth":102,"links":103},"",4,[],[105],"daily","2022-04-11 00:13:13","In The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin uses an immense historical canvas to explore the relationship between individuals and the collective. His doubts about Western democracy and the majority’s ability to determine its own fate run through the trilogy. Heroes struggle and sacrifice, only to see their work swept aside by history. Beginning with the Cultural Revolution, the story sets up a conflict between exceptional individuals and the ordinary masses, raising uncomfortable questions about humanity and society.",false,"md","https:\u002F\u002Fblog-img.774352199.xyz\u002FLTzbFP.webp",{"slots":112},{},true,"\u002Fdaily\u002Fpeople-in-three-body",null,{"text":117,"minutes":118,"time":119,"words":120},"9 min read",8.635,518100,1727,{"title":5,"description":107},"A personal reading of The Three-Body Problem trilogy, examining Luo Ji, Cheng Xin, and the tensions between majority rule, human compassion, and survival.",{"loc":114},"posts\u002Fdaily\u002Fpeople-in-three-body",[29,126,127,128],"Liu Cixin","Science fiction","Reading notes","tech","FWOGPprBogO-3ZHcBcoZPWQ390UwUxKTzJjSL-VegBY",[132,137],{"title":133,"path":134,"stem":135,"date":136,"type":129,"children":-1},"6.5840 Lab 2A: Leader Election","\u002Fnotes\u002F65840\u002Fraftlab2a","posts\u002Fnotes\u002F65840\u002Fraftlab2a","2022-12-16 02:06:10",{"title":138,"path":139,"stem":140,"date":141,"type":129,"children":-1},"My Learning Plan for 2024","\u002Fdaily\u002Fplan2024","posts\u002Fdaily\u002Fplan2024","2024-01-04 02:06:51",1789914049161]