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INTERROGATOR: Two protons? They only sent two protons? That’s almost nothing. YE: (laughs) You also said “almost.” That’s the limit of Trisolaran power. They can only accelerate something as small as a proton to near the speed of light. So over a distance of four light-years, they can only send two protons. INTERROGATOR: At the macroscopic level, two protons are nothing. Even a single cilium on a bacterium would include several billion protons. What’s the point? YE: They’re a lock. INTERROGATOR: A lock? What are they locking? YE: They are sealing off the progress of human science. Because of the existence of these two protons, humanity will not be able to make any important scientific developments during the four and a half centuries until the arrival of the Trisolaran Fleet. Evans once said that the day of arrival of the two protons was also the day that human science died. INTERROGATOR: That’s … too fantastic. How can that be? YE: I don’t know. I really don’t know. In the eyes of Trisolaran civilization, we’re probably not even primitive savages. We might be mere bugs.
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
computer programs can learn to play chess, drive cars, diagnose diseases and invest money in the stock market. In all these fields they might increasingly outperform old-fashioned humans, but will have to compete against each other. They will thus confront new forms of evolutionary pressures. As a thousand computer programs invest money in the stock market, each adopting different strategies, many will go bust but some will become billionaires. In the process, they will evolve remarkable skills that humans can neither rival nor understand. Such a program could not explain its investment strategy to a Sapiens, for the same reason that a Sapiens could not explain Wall Street to a chimpanzee. Many of us might eventually work for such programs, which will decide not only where to invest money, but also whom to hire for a particular job, whom to give a mortgage to and whom to send to prison.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
Alas, the first texts of history contain no philosophical insights, no poetry, legends, laws, or even royal triumphs. They are humdrum economic documents, recording the payment of taxes, the accumulation of debts and the ownership of property.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
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