270
edits
Difference between revisions of "Practice Everyday"
no edit summary
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
== Day 170 == | |||
--- Eric version --- | |||
'''Trisolarans and the Art of War''' | |||
I was practicing my handwriting (which is still horrible) one day and found myself writing down an excerpt of the Art of War. Suddenly, through a stroke of inspiration, I thought of a genius question worth contemplating: what if the Trisolarans decided to read the Art of War? | |||
First, I shall introduce the two protagonists. The Trisolarans are amazing entities of unimaginable technological power floating around in a solar system with three stars. They are capable of destroying entire fleets of hyper-advanced spaceships only using a perfectly round piece of unknown metal. But good stories never create all-powerful forces, and their biggest weakness is their hive-mind. All of their thoughts are controlled by one being (think of it as God when he has direct control), and, to increase communication speeds, their feelings are perfectly transparent to one another. This means that if one Trisolaran dislikes another, both will know of the situation immediately and either choose to disregard it or achieve a common solution, very unlike when one human dislikes another. | |||
The Art of War, on the other hand, is a book written by the great Chinese philosopher 孙子 (Sun Zi, hence why the book is also called Sunzi's Art of War). As the name suggests, this book's main content is concerning how to win a war. There are many wise words and concepts that he wrote down, but the one we will discuss today is that of deception (AKA lying). For example, imagine a city that is full of capable warriors and is being invaded. What would you do to create an opportunity for a surprise retaliation? The obvious answer is: pretend that the city is empty, either by shutting down everything (shops, workplaces, etc.) temporarily, or making the city appear disheveled. Then, the invaders will likely expect no threat as suddenly entire armies swarm out of houses. Keep in mind that this was written in the 5th century BC as well. | |||
In the original story of the Three-body Problem, the Trisolarans have the technological advantage and drive human scientists mad while humans have mastered the art of deception, and the odds tip in nobody's favor. However, if the Trisolarans somehow discovered and read the Art of War, there should be two possible outcomes. Both of them rely on the fact that after so long of losing battles they should definitely have won, the Trisolarans finally discovered the secret behind human retaliation. The first outcome is that, due to their hive-mind, they cannot possibly utilize deception whilst knowing that it is the secret to their nigh-omnipotence, driving them mad bit by bit as time goes on. The second outcome is that their hive-mind manages to learn deception and make it so that communication between Trisolarans are still perfectly transparent while between Trisolarans and their rivals, most of the information are lies. That, combined with their technological power, would make them almost unstoppable. | |||
It's really curious how one tiny idea can expand to such a large problem with various solutions. But what's even more curious, is how the human mind can come up with these ideas seemingly out of nowhere. Artists (painters and musicians alike) use these inspirations to create wonderful pieces (of art or of music) that lasts eternally; scientists use these inspirations to push the boundaries of their fields and make striking discoveries; and philosophers use these inspirations to debate dilemmas and ethical problems. What a great species Homo Sapiens are! | |||
== Day 169 == | == Day 169 == | ||