Technology invades the modern world

Why did the professor agree in Chapter 489?

Kissinger is certainly a master of realism.

Not every advisor can become Secretary of State.

White House advisors come and go. Every president brings his own team when he takes office and entrusts important responsibilities to those who made great contributions during his campaign or played an important role in his subsequent administration.

The consultants cover multiple fields such as security, policy, economics, and technology, and there may be several consultants in each field.

Besides Kissinger, other notable figures in history who have served as Secretary of State include Powell and Rice.

However, he is the only person who has served as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to the President.

Clearly, Nixon's trust in Kissinger was unprecedented, and Kissinger's own abilities were beyond question; he was an absolute master.

Considering the historical context, it is no exaggeration to describe the reconciliation with China as fraught with difficulties and obstacles.

Kissinger managed to accomplish something so difficult.

At present, Kissinger has accurately grasped the most vulnerable point in Yanjing and started to restore its influence over Southeast Asian countries by focusing on the economy.

When we go there, we are interfering in the other party's sovereignty. Isn't it the same when you do this? Kissinger knew very well that this was the case.

Once China gains such authority in the Asian Investment Bank, its actual influence in Asia will expand dramatically.

China could not resist such a lure.

After the Kuala Lumpur talks, Kissinger did not rest but immediately flew back to Washington to give President Nixon a high-level briefing.

"I'm sure they're interested, and we'll soon receive good news from Yanjing."

Before that, we need to reduce the intensity of the war on the Annan front and avoid excessively provoking the other side. After explaining the negotiation process, Kissinger went on to state his judgment.

Nixon had a cigar in his hand, and they had something they were planning but didn't tell Lin Ran.

Of course, whether Lin Ran can see it or not is another matter entirely.

"Mr. President, I am confident that the concept of the Asian Development and Investment Bank goes far beyond simply providing a bridge for reconciliation between the two sides."

It's not just about economic benefits.

China believed that it had gained control over the trust and obtained exemptions from financial scrutiny.

But once this development bank is established, the entire Southeast Asian region will not only become an economic model for the world, but also a model for China's internal development.

Its core criterion, disregarding ideology and focusing solely on economic feasibility and rate of return, is itself a deadly corrosive agent to the other side.

Kissinger foresaw that after China took control of the bank, it would face an irreconcilable and persistent internal conflict:

From a purely capital operation perspective, funds should flow to capitalist countries.

Singapore's efficient ports and Malaysia's mature rubber industry flow to economies with well-developed market mechanisms.

Because that's where the return on investment is highest and the risk is lowest.

However, from the perspective of the camp, China has no choice but to seek loans and provide assistance to those Comintern allies.

Projects in these countries often prioritize politics, are inefficient, and have the lowest returns.

In Kissinger's blueprint, China will face unprecedented struggles.

If they invest all their funds in efficient capitalist states, they will betray their Comintern allies and lose their moral authority within the Comintern camp.

If they invest in Commi's allies, they will drag down the bank's return on investment, ultimately scaring away Western capital and causing the entire project to fail.

Ultimately, China will have to make a choice: maintain the purity of its ideology and allow the economy to stagnate, or embrace economic efficiency and carry out profound reforms.

Kissinger had already foreseen America's future strategy of bringing China into the global economic and trade cycle.

Clinton wasn't the only one who understood the principle that "the problem is economics, you idiot."

Will the professor come?

The audience consisted of renowned science fiction writers from all over the world.

This includes Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick.

The former is the original author of "2001: A Space Odyssey", and the latter is the original author of "Blade Runner".

On this timeline, Philip K. Dick also created The Truman Show.

They were at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Arthur Clarke asked.

On the podium, Dr. Drake was pointing with his pointer at a huge slide, which was a matrix diagram of 1679 bits from the Arecibo information.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will soon be sending out a cosmic resume."

It uses mathematical language and physical laws to encode information, avoiding the ambiguity of human language. It is concise, universal, and it reveals our DNA, our location in the solar system, and our intelligent ear: the Arecibo Telescope.

We believe this is the clearest signal we can send.

On stage are scientists from the Arecibo Information Project introducing their project.

Historically, there have been many projects that specifically send signals into space, and the concept of a dark forest does not exist in this era.

Countries around the world are trying to find traces of extraterrestrials.

The Arecibo Information Project is one of the more well-known examples.

Originally, in 1974, America's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico sent messages into space, including information on the basic chemical composition of life, DNA structure, the location of the solar system, and the image of humankind.

"The information we transmitted consisted of a total of 1679 binary digits."

The choice of the number 1679 was not arbitrary; it is the product of two prime numbers.

Any civilization that receives this information might attempt to decompose the number into prime numbers and arrange them into a matrix of 73 rows and 23 columns.

If arranged correctly, these binary digits will form a symbolic graphic.

The slides on the stage have moved on to the next page.

"It includes the numbers 1 to 10, represented in binary, to tell the recipient how humans count."

It includes the atomic numbers of the five essential chemical elements necessary for life.

It includes the structure of DNA: the number of nucleotides that make up DNA, and a schematic diagram of the DNA double helix structure.

And a stick figure, along with the average height of humans on Earth and the Earth's population.

In this timeline, NASA has gained far more power and resources than ever before.

Since taking over as NASA Administrator in 1964, Lin Ran has been dedicated to popularizing NASA's work to the public.

For Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, two key members of the Arecibo Information Project, they were fortunate to stand out from a host of projects and receive sponsorship from NASA.

They never imagined that what was fortunate for them, and equally fortunate for the professor, was having such a project.

“I don’t know, you know, the professor is always very busy, and I haven’t seen him in a long time,” Philip Dick said to Arthur Clark, turning to him. “This is just one of many projects at NASA, and it’s not even that important.”

Arthur C. Clarke knew that in the first year of the 70s, a series of the most important news stories were related to the professor.

From the first human space station to the de-escalation of the Vietnam War, to bilateral negotiations, and even the biggest gossip news—the princess's divorce—all are related to the professor.

It's just a simple Arecibo Information Project, how could the professor possibly attend in person?

"But I think it's important; it's a milestone moment."

If aliens truly exist, this would be humanity's first diplomatic note as it emerges from its cradle and moves towards cosmic neighborly relations.

Although the signal is weak, the information it contains is infinite.

It may prove that humanity is not alone in the universe.

I can even imagine the knowing smile on the face of a civilization millions of years older than ours upon receiving this letter from humankind.

The Arecibo Project was right up Arthur C. Clarke's alley, both for the grandeur and elegance of the operation itself, and for how the methods employed matched his aesthetic sensibilities.

Arthur C. Clark wrote a book in 1953 called "The Nine Billion Names of God".

In Arthur C. Clarke's view, what they all expressed was humanity's unwillingness to be mediocre, and its use of the most advanced tools of today to touch the boundaries that originally belonged to God.

Nine billion names were once considered the limit of God. Similarly, the M13 Hercules globular cluster that the Arecibo project aims to send signals to will take 25000 years, even at the speed of light. This, too, is the limit of God.

This is precisely what Clark advocated: when technology develops to its extreme, it is no longer a tool, but an essential path to metaphysical truth.

Clearly, Philip K. Dick's understanding of the universe was quite different from Arthur C. Clarke's: "Sir Clarke, I don't think I'm that optimistic about this."

I even feel that there is a huge danger involved.

How can we ensure that when aliens come to Earth, they will feel like they have gained companions, rather than being objects to be enslaved?

Sir, think about those tribes discovered in history, did they have a good ending under the guns and cannons of Europe?

What they received was enslavement, disease, and even extermination.

Sir, you imagine advanced civilizations as transcendent mentors, while I see them as colonial fleets equipped with cannons a million times more powerful.

We are now proactively sending our addresses, like an unarmed tribe excitedly waving to a giant sailboat on the horizon.

The information we send out could very well become the noose that hangs humanity itself.

Philip K. Dick thought this way partly because, as one of the founders of cyberpunk, he naturally had a wariness of high-tech civilization.

More advanced technology does not necessarily mean a better life for people.

On the other hand, as a science fiction writer who had deep contact with Lin Ran, Lin Ran never mentioned the concept of the Dark Forest, but Philip could more or less sense Lin Ran's attitude towards the inherent evil of cosmic civilization.

These factors combined to Philip K. Dick's pessimism and distrust of the project.

Arthur Clarke retorted, "Philip, you're too pessimistic."

Philip, the colonial history you're talking about is a chapter in human history that has long since passed.

That was a product of an era when resources were scarce, technology was primitive, and morality had not yet awakened.

Last decade, the entire 1960s, look at the society we live in: we are undergoing a tremendous transformation, an era of abundant productivity.

Our technology, though not perfect, can already provide most people with more than just basic survival needs.

We are fighting against global poverty and inequality, which in itself is an evolution of civilization on a moral level.

America is experiencing the civil rights movement.

Human society is struggling to learn that technological progress must go hand in hand with moral progress.

From North America to Europe, we are learning to eliminate slavery based on skin color and bloodline.

Do you really think a civilization capable of traversing galaxies to reach Earth could be morally inferior to us today?

Philip, the alien you imagine is a greedy man, like the medieval Spanish conquerors, craving gold and land.

Would a civilization capable of overcoming the speed of light barrier and harnessing the energy of stars still need cheap labor on Earth?
We have no material value to them.

They are able to synthesize all the necessary elements and utilize the energy of stars or black holes.

For an interstellar civilization, Earth's resources are nothing more than a fraction of those of an ordinary asteroid in their home galaxy.

Enslaving humans would be an extremely inefficient and costly investment for them.

This is simply not worth it.

If our scientists today discover a remote tribe, we would choose to provide them with medical care, education, and modern technology to help them overcome poverty and disease, rather than setting up cannons to plunder their meager resources.

Philip, times are changing.

Science fiction writers born in 1917 were actually more progressive than those born in 1928.

Of course, it's also possible that Philip K. Dick's idea was more progressive.

"Sir, your point of view is based on a beautiful assumption: that a prosperous civilization will necessarily abandon all interest in power."

You're right, they don't need our gold, they don't need our oil, and they certainly don't need our weak labor force.

enslaving humans to mine is indeed inefficient for them.

But that doesn't mean they'll relinquish control over us.

Control doesn't necessarily have to be achieved through chains and whips.

For a civilization with limitless technology, the scarcest resource is not material things, but experience, information, and a pure, unpolluted, and pristine reality.

In The Truman Show, Truman is not exploited materially at all; he lives on a wealthy, comfortable, and almost perfect island.

So, was he enslaved?

“Of course he was enslaved.” Philip K. Dick asked and answered himself: “What enslaved him was his reality.”

His life was transformed into a meticulously planned mega-reality show, a circus designed to entertain a global audience.

Sir, if extraterrestrial civilizations have reached the level of technology you imagine, they would have two most non-material needs for our planet: research and entertainment.

Treat the Earth as a living historical archive.

They will observe our political struggles, social evolution, and even our folly.

They won't interfere, but they also won't let us develop truly freely, because that would taint the purity of the experiments.

To them, we are nothing more than an ant colony placed in a glass bottle.

The other is entertainment, our chaos, our art, our wars, our loves and hates.

All of this is the most realistic drama for extraterrestrial observers.

All they need to do is conceal their technology, ensuring we never know there are unseen cameras overhead, and that our sky is actually a giant man-made dome.

Dick concluded, "In this situation, they don't need to take action."

We will perform on the stage they have designed, according to the script they want us to see.

When we send a message to Arecibo, it's very likely not to greet our colleagues, but to report to the director.

We are eliminating slavery on Earth today.

But if a higher-dimensional civilization arrives, they might simply elevate our form of enslavement to the next level, transforming it from physical labor into actual manipulation.

"So why did the professor agree to this project?" Arthur Clarke asked the probing question.

"I think it's probably because," Lin Ran said softly, appearing quietly beside the two.

　"The Nine Billion Names of God" is roughly about "In a Tibetan temple, the lamas believe that the universe was created by God."

　　God's purpose will be accomplished and the universe will end only when people have written down all nine billion possible names for God.

　　They have been writing these names by hand for generations, but they realized that it would take tens of thousands of years.

　　To expedite the process, the lamas hired two American engineers who brought a computer to the monastery.

　　The engineers input the temple's alphabet system into the computer and started the program. The computer generated and printed the god's name at an astonishing speed.

　　On the night the program was about to be completed, the two engineers, filled with trepidation and doubts about the lamas' faith, secretly left the monastery before the program was finished.

　　As they rode down the mountain under the stars, the computer signaled that the mission was complete.

　　The engineers looked back and saw that the stars overhead were going out one by one.

　　This part will not be included in the main text.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)