12 ms·

Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

61 points by Dowwie 7y ago

misrab 7y ago
"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The answer duplicated government propaganda so exactly that I couldn’t help asking Liu if he ever thought he might have been brainwashed. “I know what you are thinking,” he told me with weary clarity. “What about individual liberty and freedom of governance?” He sighed, as if exhausted by a debate going on in his head. “But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real-estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.”"
- ur-whale 7y ago
  Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other creature comforts everyone wants? I traveled once to Singapore, where a number of people I met made the exact same argument Liu makes. They phrased it this way: sure, we don't have a free press, and we have a benevolent tyrant running the place, but: - I drive a nice car - I can travel anywhere in the world - I live in a spacious appartment - My kids go to great schools - My country is a very safe place - Healthcare in S'pore is great - I have a million bucks in the bank I know how repulsive such a line of reasoning might sound to a western-educated mind, but try to step out of the cocoon of your culture for a second (the actual "brainwashing" that every culture basically make us undergo) and see if you can actually counter the argument with logical arguments.
  - L_226 7y ago
    > try to step out of the cocoon of your culture for a second I like to think that the cocoon of my culture values all human lives equally. Obviously it doesn't really (I'm Australian), but it feels nice to pretend anyway.
    - echaozh 7y ago
      What does living equally even mean? People having the same life standard? Or all people can live a life how they want it? Does anyone have the right to remain poor? I think propably he does. Does anyone have the right to think that he has no chance but to stay poor and thus do nothing and stay poor? Well, is there even such a right? Now, social benefit is a good thing, but it's also a very un-capitalistic thing. Do people have to work to earn their food and clothes and residence,etc, or can people wait for the government to give them food, or money to buy food? Or, if the government is not rich enought to provide said food or money, what should the poor people do? If a person, for any random reason, say, without the resources or willpower to work, should he/she be given a chance, or should he be left alone? If the chance requires education and training, or some other involuntary effort, is it right to demand such effort from the person? Now, some specific group of people in some certain country on this Earth, didn't know how they could get out of the poverty they're born to. They may feel insecure around other people that look different or even speak different languages. And there are other people who may look less different and want to exploit those poor people, to turn them into terrorists. You may even have evidence. Is waiting for them to get turned and then punish them really the right thing to do? Mind you that country may not be China.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
    Exactly. Honestly, having lived for a while in Singapore myself, I don't think there is much logical argument to be made against that. Another thing to be considered is that freedom in the West gets more and more relative latterly. Say the wrong thing in public (or even in private, if it is made public), and you can easily be fired, even denied future jobs. Is the overall degree of freedom in most Western countries that different to that in, e.g., Singapore? I'm not sure it is (it's clearly better than China's, though... at the moment).
- Tinfoilhat666 7y ago
  Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.
  - brobdingnagians 7y ago
    I think the core problem is this: The people who run China believe in "freedom" for themselves. They think of ideas and implement things, they have a great degree of freedom and set up the systems to watch everyone, but they themselves have ways around it, connections, access to information about what's going on in the world, etc. They fundamentally believe they are better than the other Chinese they make decisions on (bureaucrats have a tendency to arrogance and belief in their own "best ideas"). Maybe they have some good ideas, maybe they don't. But the fact that _they_ view themselves and treat themselves differently is the point. In such a system, the violent and ruthless usually rise to the top, which eventually shows in society. Humanity has tried that lots of times, it doesn't work out. In a truly free society, you are free to _truly_ start a competing system or a different system. You can take your strange ideas and start up a commune if you want. You can start an authoritarian commune (as long as people choose to let you and can leave), or an artistic commune, or a free-love commune. That is where you get different systems, and everyone can make a different system. Yeah, it's great to have that, but that gets us back to square one: people being treated like they individually can go do something important of their own choice and different than those around them. Instead of one bureaucrat thinking their ideas are the best ones and then imposing it violently on everyone else. That's not different competing systems, that's hell. It's all great for the homogeneous, apathetic majority, but where are the schools, education, healthcare, spacious apartment, etc. for the Uighur?
    - _lessthan0 7y ago
      The core problem is that you could put any country in there. USA think they have freedom to do what they please because of their economic and military power. Britain thinks they can leave and have a better time out of the EU etc. All countries are ruthless. Some do it a pleasant but deceiving way the others do it out in the open. At least with China you get to see what and how they are implementing it. US you don't. Who's more secretive?
- Udo 7y ago
  The problem is that he's not wrong, and I really do see this as a massive problem, he wouldn't even be wrong if the word "Chinese" would be replaced by most Western demonyms. It's a straight-forward, honest, and well-reasoned position. It's also despotic and dystopian. The issue I see for the future of the entire industrialized world is that this particular brand of consumerized dictatorship is based on the lessons of hundreds of years of failed regimes, and in an evolutionary effect it seems "we" have now come up with a system that is both stable and totalitarian. It's an emerging system for the whole world, and the fact that no human on the entire planet can escape it without losing access to everything they care about, only enhances its stability. This system is precisely tuned to offer us just enough so we do not mind what's being taken away. I'm personally no exception to this: I want a high standard of life and security as well. I want the luxuries afforded by consumer electronics and high technology. Through technology and international connectivity, I have more options for meaningful social interactions than ever before. The prospect of losing access to any of that if I ever act up against the system is a powerful mechanism that keeps me in line. Not that I ever brush up against the boundaries, mind you, because the system is well designed to appeal to my need for perceived autonomy: as long as I keep my head down, I'll be left alone. Right now, in the West, the price of reasonable dissent is not very high. Yet. But you can already feel the thousands of little mechanisms working to discourage it. When I became active in protesting against the EU copyright reform, my first attempt at being political in decades, the game was so thoroughly rigged that I'll probably refrain from attempting to change the official narrative in the foreseeable future. Had protesting been actively discouraged by the government, I'm a bit ashamed to admit, I would probably not have shown up at all. I'm struck by our collective inability to come up with a good alternative to this system. It seems to me this system is evolving on its own, and that development is synchronous world-wide. Sure, it's appealing to the powerful, who actively push it. But that's not what's driving it. I suspect it's the collective human spirit.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  There is another option here. The fact that it is pitch perfect to the official line is probably the message. There are two main reasons for someone parroting an official line. Either they are dumb and obedient, or they are being very sarcastic and indicating the opposite. Three Body Problem goes over the problems for Chinese citizens in trying to second guess the current official line when the state is looking and features a protagonist whose main skill is his ability to not give away what he is thinking. I would not be so quick to take his statements at face value for things he can get into serious trouble over.
hurrdurr2 7y ago
What a timely article on HN for me as I am reading through the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy right now... certainly not the best sci-fi works I've ever read but some of the ideas are intriguing.
- mido22 7y ago
  Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.
  - anon46121 7y ago
    Not bad. The series reminded me of 1940's-50's sci-fi from the US, for a couple of reasons: A large confidence in the industrial and scientific capacity of their country. Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys. No consequential female characters.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      No consequential female characters? I don’t know what series you read, but it was not the same one. Almost half the cast is female. Do you mean something different?
      - jrimbault 7y ago
        Cheng Xin, compared to Luo Ji, has next to zero initiative and is a paper thin character which seems to only be there to metaphorically scream "woman are weak and bad for civilization". The whole section of the book/civilization where everyone is feminized and most of the toxic male behaviors have been repressed is depicted as a "bad thing" leading to weak people and a weak civilization. The first book was decent, certainly good, science fiction, with an endearing new scooby mystery at every chapter leading into another mystery. But the other two were bad. Going on in bad tolkien-ism (I've beared reading the Silmarillion three times) with overlong descriptions of unimportant details and derailing into ideology every two paragraphs.
UglycupRawky 7y ago
It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.
- basementcat 7y ago
  Perhaps he chose to be cautious with his remarks in case any authorities happen to read the New Yorker.
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    Sigh. And many chinese still support that authority.
    - basementcat 7y ago
      In much the same way that many people support the political faction/party of their choice.
- wangii 7y ago
  you really don't have to like the author in order to have fun or appreciate his works.
  - haasted 7y ago
    Orson Scott Card being the prime example of this.
    - krapp 7y ago
      Or H.P. Lovecraft.
- gdy 7y ago
  The journalist worked hard to achieve that effect.
fsloth 7y ago
Science. The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. Materially, China could have come up with scientific progress for a thousand years, but they didn't, because they lacked the culture for open debate and expression of ideas. No freedom of press, no cars. That's the historical perspective. Now, let's look into the future. Do we want to stop the progress of science? If then, sure, there is no strong technocratic argument for freedom.
- unmole 7y ago
  > The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. I'm sorry but this statement is extremely Eurocentric. Are you seriously suggesting that ancient India and China didn't have a tradition of science?
  - fsloth 7y ago
    I'm saying that China did not have a culture that promoted science. Not all of europe did either. Science rose mostly in the protestant north that had learned that differing arguments are not a threat to the status quo. I'm not saying Chinese were more stupid, or that North-Europeans are smarter than South-Europeans. I'm saying the culture of open discussion, critical thinking and being challenged for ones claims (i.e. testability) are the cornerstones that are necessary to be in place, and that curtailing freedom of speech curtails the progress of science, as much as focusing on eminence instead of evidence does. Technological progress and scientific progress are two different things! China was technologically the most advanced country hands down for a very long time before natural sciences rose. Yet they did not produce a Newton or a Galileo, or, at least the cultural environment was such that their work was forgotten.
- hungryhobo 7y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily relate scientific progress with democracy. Philosophers like Pluto and Aristotle were famously against the idea of democracy. Honestly I can't imagine scientific laws get passed by virtue of having most votes. I also you confuse openness in political debate with openness in STEM, yes China prohibits the former, but definitely not the latter
pelario 7y ago
"When a reporter recently challenged Liu to answer the middle-school questions about the “meaning” and the “central themes” of his story, he didn’t get a single one right. “I’m a writer,” he told me, with a shrug. “I don’t begin with some conceit in mind. I’m just trying to tell a good story.”" Does anybody have a link or know more about this ?
- King-Aaron 7y ago
  My mother is a semi-professional artist, and I've overheard a similar thing at one of her exhibitions once. Some journalists (or some such) were standing in front of one of her pieces, discussing the deeper meaning behind the work and what the artist must have been trying to express at the time. My Mum just laughed and said "the only thing behind this piece was three bottles of wine"
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    The author is dead. But what is written may reflect something the original author may not consciously aware or want to. The red chamber is a good chinese example.
- r3bl 7y ago
  Not about Liu, but written by another frustrated writer that couldn't answer middle-school questions about her own poems: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad-i-cant-answer-these_b_586d5517e4b0c3539e80c341 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad...
- ptah 7y ago
  It reminds me of nassim taleb's "lecturing birds how to fly"
celticninja 7y ago
Phew, I didnt have much money when I was reading the three body problem. The first I picked up second hand, the second and third I pirated, with the hope of buying the set one day, looks like I wont be buying it now
gumby 7y ago
> The trilogy’s success has been credited with establishing sci-fi, once marginalized in China, as a mainstream taste. I wish it were mainstream in the US. Back when people here believed in technical progress, science fiction was popular, if not always main stream. Nowadays there is a category “science fiction” in every video app but the movies are always war movies or westerns, just set in space.
- krapp 7y ago
  If you're implying that most science fiction hasn't almost always been "war movies or westerns just set in space," I have bad news for you. Science fiction is about the science in the same way westerns are about the horses, which is to say, it isn't. Also, I don't see signs that people in the US no longer believe in technical progress. There may be forms of technical progress which are not given the priority in American culture that you might prefer, but it seems obvious that progress is advancing in a vast number of fields, and both science fiction and science are more mainstream (albeit, perhaps, in a watered down pop-culture sense) than they ever have been.
gdy 7y ago
To me this journalist is disgusting and plainly unprofessional. Yes, Jiayang Fan, I am looking at you. It's ok to argue with an interviewee, but, gosh, who does it like that? While "brainwashed" Liu Cixin is "deaf to the argument", the journalist ignores opponent's arguments because of her (commendable, of course) "inflexible sense of morality" and "principles to be upheld regardless of outcomes". In case the reader is not susceptible to the journalist's line of thought, let's plug a couple of bits like "as if I were minding a small child" and "he sounds almost like a child" in seemingly innocent contexts. Of course, it has nothing to do with how Liu Cixin's words should be perceived in the other contexts. But what if the reader is still not sure who's won the argument? The journalist tells what she had read in Liu Cixin's mind: "he sighed, as if exhausted by a debate going on in his head." Of course, he sighs because he doubts what he says, what else that could possibly be? "I looked at him, studying his face. He blinked" - oh, Jiayang Fan, you are magnificent.
- EastToWest 7y ago
  Hey, cool down a bit. I don't think posting here on HN has any effect on the piece or journalist's style. Westerners think any opinions Chinese people have, if not conforming to Western values, are due to either "brainwashed" or "fear repercussions". I have resigned from expressing my opinions long ago in real life because I don't think people around me care much about what I think other than claiming superior or vindicating their own position. So my normal response has been "fly there and ask people what they want, see for yourself". It has been fascinating to see so many Chinese people who go oversea but end up supporting the current government even more (mind you, not everything the government does, before someone brings this up).
  - gdy 7y ago
    But I feel so much better now :) Yes, what irked me is not so much her arguments as her smug attitude and the underhanded way of retelling the conversation with a person who trusted her enough to talk with her at length. If you ask me, lifting almost a billion of people out of poverty is amazing. Still, some developments in China make me feel unease. What do people in China think about the social credit system? Also while rounding up a million of Muslims in a reeducation camps is better than fucking up two countries in the wake of 9/11, it still doesn't sit well with me.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
Along with Barack Obama and probably another half billion people, I am a huge fan of sci-fi author Liu Cixin. As a fan of Liu's, it is interesting to get to know him a bit better. A fun read! His old sci-fi story The Wondering Earth is available on Netflix, which is pretty good but I prefer reading his books.

61 points by Dowwie 7y ago

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The answer duplicated government propaganda so exactly that I couldn’t help asking Liu if he ever thought he might have been brainwashed. “I know what you are thinking,” he told me with weary clarity. “What about individual liberty and freedom of governance?” He sighed, as if exhausted by a debate going on in his head. “But that’s not what Chinese people care about. For ordinary folks, it’s the cost of health care, real-estate prices, their children’s education. Not democracy.”"

ur-whale 7y ago
Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other creature comforts everyone wants? I traveled once to Singapore, where a number of people I met made the exact same argument Liu makes. They phrased it this way: sure, we don't have a free press, and we have a benevolent tyrant running the place, but: - I drive a nice car - I can travel anywhere in the world - I live in a spacious appartment - My kids go to great schools - My country is a very safe place - Healthcare in S'pore is great - I have a million bucks in the bank I know how repulsive such a line of reasoning might sound to a western-educated mind, but try to step out of the cocoon of your culture for a second (the actual "brainwashing" that every culture basically make us undergo) and see if you can actually counter the argument with logical arguments.
- L_226 7y ago
  > try to step out of the cocoon of your culture for a second I like to think that the cocoon of my culture values all human lives equally. Obviously it doesn't really (I'm Australian), but it feels nice to pretend anyway.
  - echaozh 7y ago
    What does living equally even mean? People having the same life standard? Or all people can live a life how they want it? Does anyone have the right to remain poor? I think propably he does. Does anyone have the right to think that he has no chance but to stay poor and thus do nothing and stay poor? Well, is there even such a right? Now, social benefit is a good thing, but it's also a very un-capitalistic thing. Do people have to work to earn their food and clothes and residence,etc, or can people wait for the government to give them food, or money to buy food? Or, if the government is not rich enought to provide said food or money, what should the poor people do? If a person, for any random reason, say, without the resources or willpower to work, should he/she be given a chance, or should he be left alone? If the chance requires education and training, or some other involuntary effort, is it right to demand such effort from the person? Now, some specific group of people in some certain country on this Earth, didn't know how they could get out of the poverty they're born to. They may feel insecure around other people that look different or even speak different languages. And there are other people who may look less different and want to exploit those poor people, to turn them into terrorists. You may even have evidence. Is waiting for them to get turned and then punish them really the right thing to do? Mind you that country may not be China.
- Al-Khwarizmi 7y ago
  Exactly. Honestly, having lived for a while in Singapore myself, I don't think there is much logical argument to be made against that. Another thing to be considered is that freedom in the West gets more and more relative latterly. Say the wrong thing in public (or even in private, if it is made public), and you can easily be fired, even denied future jobs. Is the overall degree of freedom in most Western countries that different to that in, e.g., Singapore? I'm not sure it is (it's clearly better than China's, though... at the moment).
Tinfoilhat666 7y ago
Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.
- brobdingnagians 7y ago
  I think the core problem is this: The people who run China believe in "freedom" for themselves. They think of ideas and implement things, they have a great degree of freedom and set up the systems to watch everyone, but they themselves have ways around it, connections, access to information about what's going on in the world, etc. They fundamentally believe they are better than the other Chinese they make decisions on (bureaucrats have a tendency to arrogance and belief in their own "best ideas"). Maybe they have some good ideas, maybe they don't. But the fact that _they_ view themselves and treat themselves differently is the point. In such a system, the violent and ruthless usually rise to the top, which eventually shows in society. Humanity has tried that lots of times, it doesn't work out. In a truly free society, you are free to _truly_ start a competing system or a different system. You can take your strange ideas and start up a commune if you want. You can start an authoritarian commune (as long as people choose to let you and can leave), or an artistic commune, or a free-love commune. That is where you get different systems, and everyone can make a different system. Yeah, it's great to have that, but that gets us back to square one: people being treated like they individually can go do something important of their own choice and different than those around them. Instead of one bureaucrat thinking their ideas are the best ones and then imposing it violently on everyone else. That's not different competing systems, that's hell. It's all great for the homogeneous, apathetic majority, but where are the schools, education, healthcare, spacious apartment, etc. for the Uighur?
  - _lessthan0 7y ago
    The core problem is that you could put any country in there. USA think they have freedom to do what they please because of their economic and military power. Britain thinks they can leave and have a better time out of the EU etc. All countries are ruthless. Some do it a pleasant but deceiving way the others do it out in the open. At least with China you get to see what and how they are implementing it. US you don't. Who's more secretive?
Udo 7y ago
The problem is that he's not wrong, and I really do see this as a massive problem, he wouldn't even be wrong if the word "Chinese" would be replaced by most Western demonyms. It's a straight-forward, honest, and well-reasoned position. It's also despotic and dystopian. The issue I see for the future of the entire industrialized world is that this particular brand of consumerized dictatorship is based on the lessons of hundreds of years of failed regimes, and in an evolutionary effect it seems "we" have now come up with a system that is both stable and totalitarian. It's an emerging system for the whole world, and the fact that no human on the entire planet can escape it without losing access to everything they care about, only enhances its stability. This system is precisely tuned to offer us just enough so we do not mind what's being taken away. I'm personally no exception to this: I want a high standard of life and security as well. I want the luxuries afforded by consumer electronics and high technology. Through technology and international connectivity, I have more options for meaningful social interactions than ever before. The prospect of losing access to any of that if I ever act up against the system is a powerful mechanism that keeps me in line. Not that I ever brush up against the boundaries, mind you, because the system is well designed to appeal to my need for perceived autonomy: as long as I keep my head down, I'll be left alone. Right now, in the West, the price of reasonable dissent is not very high. Yet. But you can already feel the thousands of little mechanisms working to discourage it. When I became active in protesting against the EU copyright reform, my first attempt at being political in decades, the game was so thoroughly rigged that I'll probably refrain from attempting to change the official narrative in the foreseeable future. Had protesting been actively discouraged by the government, I'm a bit ashamed to admit, I would probably not have shown up at all. I'm struck by our collective inability to come up with a good alternative to this system. It seems to me this system is evolving on its own, and that development is synchronous world-wide. Sure, it's appealing to the powerful, who actively push it. But that's not what's driving it. I suspect it's the collective human spirit.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
There is another option here. The fact that it is pitch perfect to the official line is probably the message. There are two main reasons for someone parroting an official line. Either they are dumb and obedient, or they are being very sarcastic and indicating the opposite. Three Body Problem goes over the problems for Chinese citizens in trying to second guess the current official line when the state is looking and features a protagonist whose main skill is his ability to not give away what he is thinking. I would not be so quick to take his statements at face value for things he can get into serious trouble over.

hurrdurr2 7y ago

What a timely article on HN for me as I am reading through the Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy right now... certainly not the best sci-fi works I've ever read but some of the ideas are intriguing.

mido22 7y ago
Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.
- anon46121 7y ago
  Not bad. The series reminded me of 1940's-50's sci-fi from the US, for a couple of reasons: A large confidence in the industrial and scientific capacity of their country. Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys. No consequential female characters.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    No consequential female characters? I don’t know what series you read, but it was not the same one. Almost half the cast is female. Do you mean something different?
    - jrimbault 7y ago
      Cheng Xin, compared to Luo Ji, has next to zero initiative and is a paper thin character which seems to only be there to metaphorically scream "woman are weak and bad for civilization". The whole section of the book/civilization where everyone is feminized and most of the toxic male behaviors have been repressed is depicted as a "bad thing" leading to weak people and a weak civilization. The first book was decent, certainly good, science fiction, with an endearing new scooby mystery at every chapter leading into another mystery. But the other two were bad. Going on in bad tolkien-ism (I've beared reading the Silmarillion three times) with overlong descriptions of unimportant details and derailing into ideology every two paragraphs.

UglycupRawky 7y ago

It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.

basementcat 7y ago
Perhaps he chose to be cautious with his remarks in case any authorities happen to read the New Yorker.
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  Sigh. And many chinese still support that authority.
  - basementcat 7y ago
    In much the same way that many people support the political faction/party of their choice.
wangii 7y ago
you really don't have to like the author in order to have fun or appreciate his works.
- haasted 7y ago
  Orson Scott Card being the prime example of this.
  - krapp 7y ago
    Or H.P. Lovecraft.
gdy 7y ago
The journalist worked hard to achieve that effect.

fsloth 7y ago

Science. The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. Materially, China could have come up with scientific progress for a thousand years, but they didn't, because they lacked the culture for open debate and expression of ideas. No freedom of press, no cars. That's the historical perspective. Now, let's look into the future. Do we want to stop the progress of science? If then, sure, there is no strong technocratic argument for freedom.

unmole 7y ago
> The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. I'm sorry but this statement is extremely Eurocentric. Are you seriously suggesting that ancient India and China didn't have a tradition of science?
- fsloth 7y ago
  I'm saying that China did not have a culture that promoted science. Not all of europe did either. Science rose mostly in the protestant north that had learned that differing arguments are not a threat to the status quo. I'm not saying Chinese were more stupid, or that North-Europeans are smarter than South-Europeans. I'm saying the culture of open discussion, critical thinking and being challenged for ones claims (i.e. testability) are the cornerstones that are necessary to be in place, and that curtailing freedom of speech curtails the progress of science, as much as focusing on eminence instead of evidence does. Technological progress and scientific progress are two different things! China was technologically the most advanced country hands down for a very long time before natural sciences rose. Yet they did not produce a Newton or a Galileo, or, at least the cultural environment was such that their work was forgotten.
hungryhobo 7y ago
I wouldn't necessarily relate scientific progress with democracy. Philosophers like Pluto and Aristotle were famously against the idea of democracy. Honestly I can't imagine scientific laws get passed by virtue of having most votes. I also you confuse openness in political debate with openness in STEM, yes China prohibits the former, but definitely not the latter

pelario 7y ago

"When a reporter recently challenged Liu to answer the middle-school questions about the “meaning” and the “central themes” of his story, he didn’t get a single one right. “I’m a writer,” he told me, with a shrug. “I don’t begin with some conceit in mind. I’m just trying to tell a good story.”" Does anybody have a link or know more about this ?

King-Aaron 7y ago
My mother is a semi-professional artist, and I've overheard a similar thing at one of her exhibitions once. Some journalists (or some such) were standing in front of one of her pieces, discussing the deeper meaning behind the work and what the artist must have been trying to express at the time. My Mum just laughed and said "the only thing behind this piece was three bottles of wine"
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  The author is dead. But what is written may reflect something the original author may not consciously aware or want to. The red chamber is a good chinese example.
r3bl 7y ago
Not about Liu, but written by another frustrated writer that couldn't answer middle-school questions about her own poems: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad-i-cant-answer-these_b_586d5517e4b0c3539e80c341 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad...
ptah 7y ago
It reminds me of nassim taleb's "lecturing birds how to fly"

celticninja 7y ago

Phew, I didnt have much money when I was reading the three body problem. The first I picked up second hand, the second and third I pirated, with the hope of buying the set one day, looks like I wont be buying it now

gumby 7y ago

> The trilogy’s success has been credited with establishing sci-fi, once marginalized in China, as a mainstream taste. I wish it were mainstream in the US. Back when people here believed in technical progress, science fiction was popular, if not always main stream. Nowadays there is a category “science fiction” in every video app but the movies are always war movies or westerns, just set in space.

krapp 7y ago
If you're implying that most science fiction hasn't almost always been "war movies or westerns just set in space," I have bad news for you. Science fiction is about the science in the same way westerns are about the horses, which is to say, it isn't. Also, I don't see signs that people in the US no longer believe in technical progress. There may be forms of technical progress which are not given the priority in American culture that you might prefer, but it seems obvious that progress is advancing in a vast number of fields, and both science fiction and science are more mainstream (albeit, perhaps, in a watered down pop-culture sense) than they ever have been.

gdy 7y ago

To me this journalist is disgusting and plainly unprofessional. Yes, Jiayang Fan, I am looking at you. It's ok to argue with an interviewee, but, gosh, who does it like that? While "brainwashed" Liu Cixin is "deaf to the argument", the journalist ignores opponent's arguments because of her (commendable, of course) "inflexible sense of morality" and "principles to be upheld regardless of outcomes". In case the reader is not susceptible to the journalist's line of thought, let's plug a couple of bits like "as if I were minding a small child" and "he sounds almost like a child" in seemingly innocent contexts. Of course, it has nothing to do with how Liu Cixin's words should be perceived in the other contexts. But what if the reader is still not sure who's won the argument? The journalist tells what she had read in Liu Cixin's mind: "he sighed, as if exhausted by a debate going on in his head." Of course, he sighs because he doubts what he says, what else that could possibly be? "I looked at him, studying his face. He blinked" - oh, Jiayang Fan, you are magnificent.

EastToWest 7y ago
Hey, cool down a bit. I don't think posting here on HN has any effect on the piece or journalist's style. Westerners think any opinions Chinese people have, if not conforming to Western values, are due to either "brainwashed" or "fear repercussions". I have resigned from expressing my opinions long ago in real life because I don't think people around me care much about what I think other than claiming superior or vindicating their own position. So my normal response has been "fly there and ask people what they want, see for yourself". It has been fascinating to see so many Chinese people who go oversea but end up supporting the current government even more (mind you, not everything the government does, before someone brings this up).
- gdy 7y ago
  But I feel so much better now :) Yes, what irked me is not so much her arguments as her smug attitude and the underhanded way of retelling the conversation with a person who trusted her enough to talk with her at length. If you ask me, lifting almost a billion of people out of poverty is amazing. Still, some developments in China make me feel unease. What do people in China think about the social credit system? Also while rounding up a million of Muslims in a reeducation camps is better than fucking up two countries in the wake of 9/11, it still doesn't sit well with me.

mark_l_watson 7y ago

Along with Barack Obama and probably another half billion people, I am a huge fan of sci-fi author Liu Cixin. As a fan of Liu's, it is interesting to get to know him a bit better. A fun read! His old sci-fi story The Wondering Earth is available on Netflix, which is pretty good but I prefer reading his books.