The Three Body Problem: Insights into A Culture & the Future

I love reading science fiction. It’s like a cheat code to thinking about the future and building a vision of what it will look like. Western science fiction is canon but I love reading Russian, Korean, and Japanese science fiction. But top of the top is Chinese scifi. Especially Liu Cixin. Wow. Mindblowing. 

For those who have not read his trilogy. DO IT NOW. But to summarize his first book which sets up the rest of series well, I pulled this from Gemini: 

“The Three-Body Problem is the first book in Liu Cixin's Hugo Award-winning Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, a hard science fiction novel that begins during China's Cultural Revolution when a secret military project sends signals into space, leading to contact with an alien civilization facing extinction. The aliens plan to invade Earth, causing humanity to split into factions that either welcome or oppose the invasion, while the story explores complex themes of physics, politics, and human nature through a virtual reality game based on the chaotic three-body problem in orbital mechanics.”

What I loved about The Three-Body Problem as well as the rest of the trilogy is like all good science fiction stories, it really makes you think. But it also provides insight into the culture it comes from. In this case, the modern day CCP-run China. 

Dan Wang wrote in his book Breakneck: 

“The trilogy is a celebration of humanity’s ingenuity in an existential struggle. To defeat the alien threat, Liu depicts humanity’s total subordination to technocratic authorities. Scientists and engineers are the ultimate decisionmakers, leaving no room for humanists, the faint of heart, or sentimentalists. Governments are made to submit to the will of select geniuses who do not hesitate to sacrifice millions. 

The prevailing idea in Liu’s trilogy is that the only hard truth is survival, where opposing civilizations resemble “blood drenched pyramids lit by insidious fires seen through dark forests.” Again and again, Liu resolves the plot in favor of the party that is willing to be the most brutal in its will to survive.”

Yikes, when you read this. And realize that this is a good description of the modern day Chinese Communist Party and their Russian, North Korean and Iranian allies. The CRINK. This is who we are fighting against. 

The sooner the West wakes up, the sooner we might be able to compete again. 

We are on the speedrun to the future which is up for grabs now.