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Next time a mosquito buzzes in your ear, accuse her of unnatural behaviour. If she were well behaved and content with what God gave her, she’d use her wings only as solar panels.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
Even if you manage to calculate how many apples equal one pair of shoes, barter is not always possible. After all, a trade requires that each side want what the other has to offer. What happens if the shoemaker doesn’t like apples and, if at the moment in question, what he really wants is a divorce? True, the farmer could look for a lawyer who likes apples and set up a three-way deal. But what if the lawyer is full up on apples but really needs a haircut?
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
“Da Shi, have you ever … considered certain ultimate philosophical questions? For example, where does Man come from? Where does Man go? Where does the universe come from? Where does the universe go? Et cetera.” “Nope.” “Never?” “Never.” “You must see the stars. Aren’t you awed and curious?” “I never look at the sky at night.” “How is that possible? I thought you often worked the night shift?” “Buddy, when I work at night, if I look up at the sky, the suspect is going to escape.” “We really have nothing to say to each other. All right. Drink!” “To be honest, even if I were to look at the stars in the sky, I wouldn’t be thinking about your philosophical questions. I have too much to worry about! I gotta pay the mortgage, save for the kid’s college, and handle the endless stream of cases.… I’m a simple man without a lot of complicated twists and turns. Look down my throat and you can see out my ass. Naturally, I don’t know how to make my bosses like me. Years after being discharged from the army, my career is going nowhere. If I weren’t pretty good at my job, I would have been kicked out a long time ago.… You think that’s not enough for me to worry about? You think I’ve got the energy to gaze at stars and philosophize?” “You’re right. All right, drink up!” “But, I did indeed invent an ultimate rule.” “Tell me.” “Anything sufficiently weird must be fishy.” “What … what kind of crappy rule is that?” “I’m saying that there’s always someone behind things that don’t seem to have an explanation.” “If you had even basic knowledge of science, you’d know it’s impossible for any force to accomplish the things I experienced. Especially that last one. To manipulate things at the scale of the universe—not only can you not explain it with our current science, I couldn’t even imagine how to explain it outside of science. It’s more than supernatural. It’s super-I-don’t-know-what.…” “I’m telling you, that’s bullshit. I’ve seen plenty of weird things.” “Then tell me what I should do next.” “Keep on drinking. And then sleep.” “Fine.”
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
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