Join 📚 Hadar's Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what Hadar's read, .
She rushed to another terminal and checked the computer’s rating of the signal’s recognizability: AAAAA. Before this, no radio signal received by Red Coast ever garnered a recognizability rating above C. An A rating meant the likelihood that the transmission contained intelligent information was greater than 90 percent. A rating of AAAAA was a special, extreme case: It meant the received transmission used the exact same coding language as Red Coast’s own outbound transmission. Ye turned on the Red Coast deciphering system. The software attempted to decipher any signal whose recognizability rating was above B. During the entire time that the Red Coast Project had been running, it had never been invoked even once in real use. Based on test data, deciphering a transmission suspected of being a message might require a few days or even a few months of computing time, and the result would be failure more than half the time. But this time, as soon as the file containing the original transmission was submitted, the display showed that the deciphering was complete. Ye opened the resulting document, and, for the first time, a human read a message from another world. The content was not what anyone had imagined. It was a warning repeated three times. Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!! Still caught up by the dizzying excitement and confusion, Ye deciphered a second message. This world has received your message. I am a pacifist in this world. It is the luck of your civilization that I am the first to receive your message. I am warning you: Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!! There are tens of millions of stars in your direction. As long as you do not answer, this world will not be able to ascertain the source of your transmission. But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered! Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
Pan studied everyone meaningfully, and then added in a soft voice, “How would you feel if Trisolaran civilization were to enter our world?” “I would be happy.” The young reporter was the first to break the silence. “I’ve lost hope in the human race after what I’ve seen in recent years. Human society is incapable of self-improvement, and we need the intervention of an outside force.” “I agree!” the author shouted. She was very excited, as though finally finding an outlet for pent-up feelings. “The human race is hideous. I’ve spent the first half of my life unveiling this ugliness with the scalpel of literature, but now I’m even sick of the work of dissection. I yearn for Trisolaran civilization to bring real beauty to this world.” Pan said nothing. That glint of excitement appeared in his eyes again. The old philosopher waved his pipe, which had gone out. He spoke with a serious mien. “Let’s discuss this question with a bit more depth: What is your impression of the Aztecs?” “Dark and bloody,” the author said. “Blood-drenched pyramids lit by insidious fires seen through dark forests. Those are my impressions.” The philosopher nodded. “Very good. Then try to imagine: If the Spanish Conquistadors did not intervene, what would have been the influence of that civilization on human history?” “You’re calling black white and white black,” the software company vice president said. “The Conquistadors who invaded the Americas were nothing more than murderers and robbers.” “Even so, at least they prevented the Aztecs from developing without bound, turning the Americas into a bloody, dark great empire. Then civilization as we know it wouldn’t have appeared in the Americas, and democracy wouldn’t have thrived until much later. Indeed, maybe they wouldn’t have appeared at all. This is the key to the question: No matter what the Trisolarans are like, their arrival will be good news for the terminally ill human race.”
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
...catch up on these, and many more highlights
Readwise