Why I continue to boycott the 3 Body Problem 

My biggest problem was that books 2 and 3 barely tried to have a plot and opted for moving events from one very cool sci-fi idea to another.

What a Great listen, Mr Walter. Do you ever listen to The Orb?

Got all the way to the end. Made interesting points. All of which were undermined by the idea expressed at the end that Christianity represents a "good" ordering of the universe that scientists, specifically, Richard Dawkins, will gravitate towards. Such a mad conclusion near the end makes me question all the thinking that went into what came before.

I just finished reading the series, and after floating around in my mind about the impressive pictures described by Liu Cixin, your video essay provided the gravity to land on my feet again and get back control :)

Someone has never seen the cartoon of the bouncing lamb that is blissfully unaware of the wolf but inadvertently avoids the wolf

Finally, got around to listen to it. And it didn't disappoint!

I believe this is a pretty significant misreading of the book. I think it is perfectly fair to analyse the book in the political context in which it is written and in fact we should always be cautious about taking things at face value, but the three body problem is I think clearly an anti authoritarian text. The only good things that happen in the series come from when there is an egalitarian resistance of authority, and every problem or crisis is caused by some sort of authority. The singular most obvious piece of evidence to this that comes to me is a chapter in the third book (spoilers) that details a technological explosion taking place on Trisolaris as a result of them adopting human liberalism whereas they had previously been a rigidly authoritarian state ruled by pretty much an emperor. This relates directly back to the intro of this podcast where it is argued that authoritarianism slows the progress of society and Cixin Liu clearly agrees with that idea. Another significant piece of evidence is in the second book, humanity goes through a massive global collapse they call the great ravine due to authoritarianism prevailing after humanity becomes aware of the trisolaran invasion. This great ravine is solved by humans abolishing global political hierarchies and founding a more egalitarian and environmentalist bases to govern the world. At every point in the book series where individual characters are given a lot of power, something goes wrong. The only character who arguably didn't cause a crisis for humanity from his power is Luo Ji (the wallfacer who finds out about the dark forest) but the book series still makes it a point to show how having so much power made Luo Ji lose his humanity, first through abusing his power for hedonism, then by being hated by society, and finally by losing all her personality and becoming a hermit which makes his family leave him. It honestly feels to me from this podcast that it starts with the conclusion that the book must be authoritarian due to it coming from a well established author in China and works backwards from there.

Thanks for posting this podcast on RU-vid, Damien. I read The Three Body Problem not long ago and I didn't like it, but couldn't quite put my finger on why. But there was this nihilistic bleakness to it that didn't sit right, even though it appeared to end on a note of defiant optimism. Your contextual explanations helped to clarify what I was beginning to intuit. I'm also 100% in agreement with you about the starship.

Interesting philosophical info. As a kid reading the first book I had no clue of any of the points being discussed. I doubt anyone else did. The book was and is still unique. Other similar books lacked the human anime (Foundation).

This is why Remembrance of Earth’s Past is arguably the greatest science fiction trilogy ever written.

If you've not read Octavia Butler's Earthseed books, you really need to! For her criticisms of authoritarianism, and for her ideas about how we might be able to climb out of it

Thanks for lengthening the video loop, please keep adding to it

What if Herbert was suggesting that the Machines that HAD BEEN BUILT were still quietly whirring away in the background, providing the Bene Jesserat with their manipulations of the humans, in order that they maintain their absolute Machine power?

In your video, you touched on a concern that I've pondered for years regarding the rise of artificial intelligence: its potential exploitation by authoritarian regimes. If harnessed for propaganda, surveillance, espionage, and predictive modeling, it's entirely plausible that all forms of dissent and revolutionary movements could be systematically identified and eradicated before they even begin. Forever. The idea of predictive modeling, fueled by extensive data collation, conjures a dystopian future where individuals might be arrested or subjected to 'reeducation' before they even entertain thoughts of dissent. This would be the death of all freedom and hope for a better future. This troubles me a lot. Given the trajectory we've set for ourselves in terms of technological innovation and economic growth, it seems inevitable that extremely hazardous technologies will eventually become accessible to the general public. In a world where one could effortlessly 'print' a weapon of mass destruction or a catastrophic plague, privacy might become a relic of the past. As technology advances, the availability of apocalyptic capabilities increases correspondingly. One might argue that an omnipresent surveillance state, devoid of any margin for error, would become essential for the survival of our species. When combined with the prospect of mandatory brain and body implants, the notion of a free humanity seems irrevocably doomed. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever." - 1984

a new channel for me but love the depth of analysis. subbed. I watched the TV show. It has some interesting elements but the story seemed to rely on so many convenient McGuffins that the more I though about it, the more flawed it seemed.

Thanks Damo 🙏

I watch and listen to your vids over and over to glean everything and to relax and fall asleep …❤

Just found the channel. I appreciate your analysis, however it seems that the most important difference between classical liberalism and authoritarianism, whether communist or fascist, is the primacy of individual rights as opposed to groups, classes or collectives. Particularly that the state exists solely to protect the rights inherent to individuals at their birth, life and property being foremost among these. When life is viewed solely as a power struggle between groups, haves and have nots, oppressors and oppressed, then the state will achieve ultimate control and be the ultimate oppressor, shielding themselves from any real threats by inflaming those resentments you alluded to to foster division. I think too often the comparison is made between communism and capitalism instead of classical liberalism. Capitalism is a natural consequence of freedom. But I’m definitely no expert and interpreted the books differently, but really enjoyed your take and happy to have found your channel!

The thing about the city states was wrong. The city states balanced each other in their traditionalism for their oligarchy and some times a bit of democracy (for citizens only) but they were weak and unable to unite. Where as the ending for all of Greece is taken over by Macedonians and that is when Greece culture actually spread. The following period after Alexander's death were pretty much also Macedonian led. The warring states in China produced many schools of thought but what eventually went out was Legalism (closest thing to totalism) because it was able to massively organize megastructural projects, logistics, production, political unity, and armies to win out against all other states. There were multiple coalitions formed against Qin but eventually Qin won out. Chinese technology was consistently top of the world until the Qing Dynasty. So for over 1700 years of imperial heights, you point out the last 200 years as stagnation. However, you forget the reasons that led to that stagnation wasn't absolutism because if so, they would have fell behind a thousand years ago. Technology is only seen as poweful today but the Mongols who didn't have as much technology but a power military still over took the Song dynasty. It took generations but they eventually took other people's tech and used against them. Would you argued that khan "developed" the mongolian plains and thats why they are powerful? No, they were powerful because of underdevelopment, theie people were used to fighting. Europe's foundation of technology was also done in an era of monarchs and absolutism as well. It is until 20th and 21st centuries were most of Europe adopting democracies and thats actually due to European institutions weakening and Europe's standing to the rest of the world is actually going down. America's power comes from its geography because it escaped majority of old world conflicts and a lot of uncontested land to develop. Once America had to compete, the government slowly strengthen and small but influential entitites are easily able to take over the government like oligarchs. On paper it is liberalized but in reality, the power of the government and its power holders have never been more powerful, especially with such a strong military.

It’s an interesting irony that people have been taught any kind of monarchy is bad, democracy is the best and will always be the best, even when income disparity and slavery are rampant. Meanwhile a monarch who makes sure everyone is fed and housed will be depicted as inherently evil for no other reason than they’re a monarchy. Oligarchy are typically treated the same way. The introduction here ignores the sequels to Dune as well as the comments throughout the books about rulers. That being it depends on your rulers how well society does. Democracy has multiple problems, the majority don’t vote for whatever reason, those who do vote are often influenced by others, and those who do vote often vote blindly (all republican or all democrat as an example). So in the end you wind up with an oligarchy by democracy which is worse than an oligarchy as those systems require the ruling party to be trained for the job. For comparison you can look at China and Singapore. The former being an ethically bad oligarchy and the later an ethically good oligarchy. Both have had thriving economies that have surpassed the majority of the world including the USA. Naturally I’d prefer to live in Singapore where I won’t be arrested for practicing Tai Chi in public.

Hasn’t progress through the skills tree been driven by conflict more than freedom?

What do you think will happen when AI is so more advanced it dominates ????

The Netflix show begins with a grim depiction of the cultural revolution. I would be amazed if that got the stamp of approval from the Chinese polit bureau. Where did you hear that they gave it the thumbs up. ?

I might not quite be a first time listener, but I haven't had a plethora of these videos on my watched list. Hopefully I won't fall asleep as I'm working while listening and it's in part with power tools.

I think you are overcomplicating things. I am sure there were some political overtones in the story and some themes derived from the Chinese psyche, since it's being written by one, but for me the overwhelming feeling from the book was cosmic terror. And it was done right in a way that was not Lovecraftian (which I love, but it's been done to death). I admit there are similarities to the political reality of a distant but powerful foreign force that can choose on a whim to hinder or stop your technological evolution for fear of being overtaken, but you can interpret many parts of the books in so many different ways that I think taking a stance over the "one message" of the book is a bit over the top.

Rest now my friend, for thou hast battled with angels. tavi.

While some of your points stand I honestly consider it one of the best SF books I have ever read. I love the fact he introduces concepts in first book that he addresses in the last one. It seems well thought out (dry sure but I have read drier stories by authors considered better than him). However just because something is approved by their state party doesn't mean it is bad book which overtly condones authoritarianism. In socialist Yugoslavia similar censorships were in place (although quite more lax) and not everyone could achieve great success without joining the party. This is true of the writers especially. Regardless of several layers of state approvals, we had a writer Ivo Andrić who wrote wonderful little book set in medieval time about a bridge (but not really about the bridge). He won nobel prize for literature and remains only writer to do so in countries that made up Yugoslavia.

How much did the corporate dystopia sci fi films of the eighties prepare us for the world we live in now?

Sorry i dont understand how you can so viscerally hate something without watching it. They did tremendous research on the scenes in China with people who were actually there. Criticizing something without watching it makes zero sense. I like to make up my own mind personally. May be my crazy liberal up-bringing looking at both sides of an issue before i draw conclusions.

For me Dune was more fantasy than SCI-Fi and that’s its biggest weakness. Dune never managed to captivate me. It was wide as a lake and shallow as a bathtub. Three Body problem at least had a realistic grounding in Hard Sci-Fi. I could relate to the characters and humanity. It was terrifying.

Does modern commercial advertising count as propaganda? Besides trying to persuade us to buy branded merchandise, it is also trying to persuade us to accept or anticipate an ideological context for such products to promote.

I don't pay for Netflix and they stopped the sharing, so I won't ever see it.

And this the Fermi paradox was solved.

My symbol of hope is a vanabago with "I love Uranus" sticker on the rear bumper. Thought provoking episode.

I've never read the books. I have seen the 30 episode Chinese version and the Netflix adaptation. I wonder why most people I would consider smart, simply don't point out the multiple logistic incoherence of the plot. I'll just name 3 examples: (1) The aliens can affect what people see or even physics with their computers. They want to eliminate Wallfacer, but don't sabotage the plane he flies in or the pilot (to crash the plane) but rely on fanatics to assign a sniper to do the job. WHAT? (2) To learn more about the aliens to defeat them, the plan is to send a brain in a rocket towards the aliens. How is he supposed to report back? Without any on-board navigation, how do they expect the craft to last in space with various gravitational pulls or rocks hitting the module etc.. for 200 YEARS??? (3) The aliens are super advanced and will travel to us for 400 years... can't they find a habitable planet cloner to them? Aren't there any other habitable worlds in the universe? There are plenty of other problems with the plot, I'm wondering why so few are talking about the nonsense in the premise and the logistic problems it presents (i've seen only 2 on youtube that address such issues).

I haven't red the book, but I loved listening to the analysis. I like the whole perspective on nudging and parallels on how youtube is operated. I joked with a fried, that all of the stats on the metrics page weren't designed to give you the data, but to move you, as a creator, into the area of highest efficiency, where they are dictating what you should be making through numbers that can't be tested. And you take it as an act of free will. I remember how the whole feeling of the platform shifted, after the channel got monetized. How I suddenly woke up on a cow farm, hooked up to a mechanical pump. I am not surprised with the downvote ratio on the video. Just because it talks about views that are unpopular. I tried expressing similar views once, in a more harsh tone, and got a warning as a result. The system is only democratic, while you're voting the right way. Vote against the status quo, and you'll immediately find out how totalitarian the system really is. Criticize the wrong people, and they'll bury you, while looking pass the subject matter. I listened to the analysis twice and I'm going to go over it again, because it has some brilliant observations. I like point regarding the Fermi Paradox, how it' s not an actual paradox. It's mislabeled. And lots of things are. The label always sets the tone. Propaganda is often embedded into the language itself. Via such definitions, the language is corrupted. At some point, I'll read the book, because friends started bringing it up a lot and now I'm curious. If my opinion changes afterwards, I'll come back and say it.

70÷ sounds like the mother of underestimation

Ok, interesting. A very good friend just told me he loved the first book.

I agree.

@Science Fiction with Damien Walter The visuals in this made me think to ask : do you have an overall favorite starship from all the various outer space set scifi movies and TV shows?

Sleeping listeners puts you into/ towards the dreamscape. A powerful nexus on this app specifically.

Reminder that there is an entire plot line about using stories to bypass censorship.

Wrong answers are bad answers. We are here after thousands of years of religion. This is where our religious heritage brought us. What is happening today, is also based on this religious past and present.

I never got the impression from the 6 FH Dune books that "Thou shalt not make..." was in any way intended to be a means of control in any other context than to keep a situation like the Terminator/Matrix-type pre-Butlerian Jihad situation to ever happen again. 🤔

I quite agree with pretty much all the ideas you presented in this video, surprisingly enough. It is quite rare to hear such well-thought-out points. That being said, I don´t think The Memories of Earth Past series is worth boycotting over this, as it is too enjoyable and the criticisms you mentioned are way too common in media for me to single out this series.

Weird call out about Novaramedia.... Everything you described afterwards about response to Ukraine as being post-modern propaganda felt a bit straw-manning when it comes to them. I think there's a distinct difference between wanting to recognise western world double standards and not being able to recognise that the west does in general promote democracy and human rights. If we don't recognise our own double standards then we risk becoming the monsters ourselves. I think Novaramedia does a pretty good job of giving a more nuanced reading of world politics, none of them are saying what Russia is doing isn't bad, what they are saying is recognise our own part in shaping the current global world order and recognise the things that we find abhorrent in Russia's behaviour that we ourselves have been complicit in elsewhere. I think its' pretty lazy thinking to call leftists who use a certain amount of relativism in their analysis nihilstic. Obviously the "everything is subjective" form of totallising relativism is dumb and nihilistic. However recognising a certain amount of relativism is not nihilism - relativism is a very rational worldview - what is nihilism and irrational is to either let the complexity of the world unfold into meaninglessness, to be ingenuous in understanding the intended meaning of others, and make equal equivalence of all perspectives or to ignore entirely the truths that a degree of relativism can provide through nuance - it is a high state of ignorance to believe that one perspective can hold all truth. The idea that knowledge and understanding of truth is formed in relation to culture/society is not to say that truth is entirely a construction of culture/society but that it is the framework that constructs are ability to hold together our shared formation of these things and will undoubtedly colour how individuals and society see these. A good response to the post-modern condition is to recognise that truth is difficult, complex and illusive not that we should abandon it and all truth statements are made equal just that all truth statements offer sort of reflection of the world beyond simple facticity. I just want to draw this out as whilst I mostly agree with a lot of your analysis I found this part of your setup pretty lazy and drawing some false equivalence. I think there's a tricky thing with post-modernism in that it is clearly a problem in society that coming together on a shared understanding and idea of truth is becoming increasingly fragmented and leading to us having increasingly nihilistic discourse where things don't mean anything, but equally we do have to recognise that some of the foundational thinking of rationalism/enlightenment/modernity has embodied a flattened perspective that ignored certain details that lead to things like colonialism, totalitarianism etc and it's hard to buy back into a unified understanding when those unified understandings have contained so much ignorance and harm. Finding that middle ground is no easy task. This is one of the things I find particularly dumb about Jordan Peterson - he's like "post-modernist are right that meaning isn't concrete but they're wrong we shouldn't strive for it." When most serious postmodern thinkers aren't advocating for a state of total relativism and meaningless but they recognised that both this was a developing crisis for us to navigate and that for enlightenment thinking to mature it was necessary that it becomes self-critical of its own blind spots. i.e. we can't fully escape from western-metaphysics but we sure as hell should attempt too see what blindspots are revealed and what new understanding is developed by trying to think outside western metaphysics. I'm rambling now but I'm sure you'll appreciate me wanting to talk through to try and get close to the truth of the matter.

Do the people truly rule in the west, or is not also a small group (of rich) people. You know what western nations call nations that are not colony of them,... authority, totalitarian, or just rogue state.

In full disclosure I have not read the books to The 3 Body Problem yet. Due to backlog, I likely will not pick them up any time soon. Having prior knowledge of novels typically makes me struggle with a film or series adaptation because books are nearly always superior. I watched the Netflix series and was fairly underwhelmed with The 3 Body Problem and I have a hard time seeing what people are so excited about. Some of the concepts are okay but it doesn't have very interesting world building and I never found the characters memorable. Maybe season 2 shall be better? I am trying not to judge while simultaneously not holding my breath. You make some excellent points in this video regarding authoritarian governments, religion and perspectives between various countries. Frank Herbert was far freer culturally and politically to explore many themes than Liu Cixin. The CCP is a very controlling totalitarian entity. Between social credit scores, constant biometric scanning, censorship and a highly controlled internet it is a dystopian hellscape. Controlled stagnation versus chaotic societal mobility could indeed be a parable in the story but it cannot be fully explored even if he was exposed to these ideas because Cixin would be thrown in a labour camp if he did. On the other hand, the "Dark Forest" is not a bad concept in my opinion, but hardly original. It doesn't have to be just political propaganda, but a predator/prey relationship on high tech molesting low tech civilizations. Hide until you have worked your way up the Kardashev scale and can defend yourself. I personally think Charles Pellegrino did a far better job in The Killing Star and Flying to Valhalla with this very same concept decades earlier. This comment is already getting too long with my rambling. Thanks for the video, I enjoyed your clever observations on many topics, and I am glad you didn't decide to go to China. I have had friends who lived or visited there, and things are not good now with the Xi Jinping regime. I think Quinn's Ideas is a fun channel and you're right he doesn't often think about the real-world perspective of Liu Cixin's work but I still enjoy his videos.

The biggest issue I had with the 3 body problem... these aliens can make a planet size proton and shrink it back to a small size but somehow they don't manage just to live in space colonies or colonize some planet ? Really? And if they see some human communication wouldn't it be better not to announce their arrival but rather keep it quiet while they get on the way ?

Well done, thanks for doing this.

3:00. You have authoritarianism (for good or ill), or you have oligarchy (generally always for ill.). Yiu may call it a republic or a democracy, but that's just the oligarchy buying votes, from Athens to today.

When you speak of needing new stories and creating post modern myths with the symbolism of the starship - are you asking for a new mono myth around exploration or would exploration be the backdrop for character. And if character, how do you not fall into the trap of a chosen one

You paint a bleak picture here. On the one hand I take your point that a large economic and social shock could lead people to cleave to authoritarian control, and I think your concept of Utilitarian-Authoritarianism makes sense in the current climate. But, in terms of consolidation into some form of One-World Government within three or four years, I struggle to see the mechanism by which that will occur. You are certainly correct that we live in an increasingly globalised culture. But there is a long leap from globalised culture to a unitary global political authority. You reference Putin a lot. But what is the mechanism by which Putin would gain authority over the political apparatus of Western Europe or the United States, for example? And vice-versa. What is the mechanism by which Western power structures will incorporate Russia or Iran or China? Though the internet means that we can all follow the same viral cultural memes, there are still various different competing political entities and orbits around the globe. I don’t see rest all willingly submitting to any one of them, even in a global shock environment. In fact, in parallel with the globalisation of culture, we are also seeing a trend of political fragmentation. Brexit is an example of this, with the UK breaking away from political and economic integration with our neighbours. And this in turn strengthening movements to break the UK up into its constituent nations. And in the preceding 30 years we saw events like the break up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. And in the period before that decolonisation and the break up of the European global empires. And before that, between the World Wars, the break of the European continental empires. So I think we could see the whole last 100 years as a simultaneous global cultural homogenisation alongside global political fragmentation. In 1914 there were something like 57 sovereign states in the world, while in 2024 there are approximately 215 (including largely unrecognised de-facto independent political-geographic entities). Many of these cluster into aligned blocks, and I guess I could see how in extremis these aligned blocks could come under unified authoritarian control. But the whole globe? If you have any thoughts about how this process might actually take place, that would be very interesting. Thanks 🙏🏻

wouldn't it be more like 3 body problem, problem, problem?

i enjoyed the tv show, but thought there were lots of plot holes that made it enjoyable yet unbelievable. Saying here that the Aliens were lying back in the 1960s is a major one.

A lot of what you see today makes you feel like there isn't a lot of hope. I think that's why you get accelerationists (sort of like the various people who want to help the Trisolarins). I have hope that things will change, and I find that volunteering for different things in my city like cleaning up the river, going to parks to do biology surveys, etc helps me to feel hopeful. I do find shows like The Last of Us calling to me...sometimes. I guess that post modern propaganda has made me believe that it's POSSIBLE the world could end. I want to believe we can save ourselves and our planet, hence the volunteer work. But the seed of doubt must be there because I find myself thinking I need to be prepared for whatever happens.

Oh wow the run length. Gonna have to put this in a list after Contrapoints’ Twilight video I still haven’t gotten around to watching. Commenting to boost you in the algorithm in the meantime.

We don't live on a planet though we do have a 1 world government called the Roman empire that created its own religion wherein is the power to appoint an emperor, appointed by Pontifex Maximus who is above the status of emperor.

The Culture would kick the a** of the Trisolaran in seconds.

If you're trying to shoot a projectile from one star system to a another star system not only would it take forever to get there but even a tiny amount of uncertainty in your targeting blows up to a huge distance across stellar distances. So even if you like 99.9999% accurate with your weapon you could still be off by hundreds of thousand of kilometers. And the faster the projectile the less ability for that projectile to maneuver so there's a trade off between getting there in time and getting there at all. Any stellar weapon would have to be highly inefficient no matter which way you slice it. Seems to me to be significantly better idea to do other things than to spend your entire civilizations energy production on maybe destroying a rival in hundreds of years.

I still don't understand the need to boycott this story. Okay, we disagree with the world view of the author. The author has a framework they are working from. They've still built quite a compelling universe and an entertaining story. Calling this "propaganda" emparts a sinister intent. I dont believe we have to assume that. We can just agree to disagree.

Interesting. One certainly notices more than a hint of conservatism reading the books, in the sense that they propagate a natural order to which we'd better conform, or else - mostly, but not limited to the Dark Forest nature of the universe (meanwhile I'd rather quote Isaac Arthur from SFIA: 'The universe is not a Dark Forest'). But I wasn't sure - and honestly, I'm still not after watching this - that the books are deliberate propaganda and that the symbolic meaning of things is as you say. And I don't think it matters all that much in the end, since the basic problem is a more fundamental one you mentioned as well: we should be careful to take any fictional setup as an applicable metaphorical description of reality, especially if it appeals to us at first glance. Because doing so will restrict our thinking, and if it's false, we'll end up in a false worldview. Also, if you want to be free, you can't delegate such critical thinking to others, because in the end, nobody else wants you to be free but you. Everyone else would be better off if you served their purposes, which may or not may not accidentally coincide with yours. There are strains in our culture that promote groupthink, and the entertainment industry discourages you from thinking at all. So are the books propaganda? They did actually made me think, including questioning their premises, more than quite a few others I could name, but maybe I'm just unsual or too old. As a sidenote, I fully agree with your more general commentary near the end of this video. I'm quite aware of that global authoritarian tendency you mentioned, and quite scared of it. I'm also aware of the absence of what you call a 21st century myth, a promise for the future to which everyone who loves freedom can subscribe. We need, indeed, the symbol of the starship...

Have to say two things 1) Regarding the prologue to this. I think Herbert is throroughly unsuccessful in communicating his message re: the fake religion and the true evil of the Butlerian Jihad. Not even his son got the message. So many people believe and take on face value that the true threat to the universe in Dune is A.I not Paul or Leto II 2) Liu Cixin is a terrible writer. His ideas are shallow his writing is ... boring. His stuff makes Asimov's work look positively scintillating /s

Would love to watch your points in a concise format so I can see if you address any of the points that I raised in my critique of your previous 3 Body commentary!

Now that I have listened to this, I think there is a big blind spot throughout the whole thing, one that authoritarianism will absolutely exploit: If freedom doesn't lead to happiness, what is it worth? This is, I think, the big challenges of liberal capitalism in this era - it doesn't seem to move us towards the life we hope for. Though current authoritarian systems don't perform any better on this front. New technology has become decoupled from a better life (example: almost everyone hates online dating but also thinks it is the only way left to find a partner), and the question is if we can find a way to use technology in a way that is good for people again. Which will require putting more thought into what a good life looks like. For this reason I think a new myth needs to be something different than the starship. The starship was already the myth of the second half of the twentieth century. It found its end in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica from the 2000s with a crew of people with deep personal problems trapped in a decaying ship, travelling through a hostile universe in hope of finding Earth. This series aired while the Space Shuttle program was retired. (Shows like The Expanse and private spaceship projects like the one of Elon Musk are attempts to revive this myth, but I don't see them succeeding. Because many people have lost their optimism about technology.)

I really disagree with the 'boycott' attitude, it is insulting to writers and artists to insinuate that they are inherently making propaganda for their nations. Some are, but the good writer can tell any story even within a regime if censorship. Actually it can be easier, since it gives one an unambiguous context, and an audience who "know how to read" within that regime.

I don't know if I am exactly asking a question, making a comment, but take it for what it's worth whomever chooses to consider this. Here in the Ststes there's kind of this dusl dynamic in our sci-fi content that we have the adventure stories like Buck Rogers through to Star Wars, while on the other hand we have a kind of thinking man's storylines akin to Rod Serling, Frank Herbert and such over the years. At the moment the Monsterverse and MCU are kind of the big things on screen, the adventure side obviously. The video essayist speaks of how we seem to be lacking a contemporary mythos in the moment, basically the big idea sci-fi content. Do you think the lack of that mythos is part of why people are so taken with Cixian Lui's story, because we have so few filling that content? One thing about the novels themselves is I didn't find them to be totally authoritarian, but more militaristic on outlook. And that did come to kind of bother me in parts. I forget her name at the moment, but it seemed like every time the one lady character who was continually in hibernation came out and made empathetic choices, she failed, and the militarized choices were supposed to be obvious. That kind of was souring, and probably fits with what the essayist meant by creating the association there's only one correct choice. Anyways, thank you for the time.

I couldn't get into TBP because of poor science, plot holes, space magic technologies, and the pointless nature of the plot: three whole books whose ultimate message is, you're screwed. I'm just not the target demographic. Never thought of it as totalitarian propaganda, but now I'm thinking again.

The background info on Cixin Liu and the framing of order v chaos to China v The West was interesting and good to know. I can see your view now and I don’t think you’re wrong. I guess I also just think the novels have some cool imagery and that that’s what most people take from it,, which seems pretty harmless to me. Frankly, I wish more people were philosophically moved by stories in the ways you often suggest they are, but I think it’s only a few of us that this happens to. It’s weird too because I was heavily influenced by stories like Star Trek and The Culture series by Banks, but the “messaging” in 3BP just bounced right off of me in that I didn’t even notice it.

I don't like everything being said in the story. I will watch the second season though I expect a JJ Abrams type mystery box nonsense ending. I don't like the totalitarian nature of the world's leadership though I expect there a few alternatives. John Ringo Troy Rising projects freedom and free enterprise winning interstellar wars. And I'm not a fan of destroying individual liberties in the name of fighting for freedom.

i would disagree that propaganda that wants you to "believe in nothing" is/could/should be characterized as postmodern. this whole idea that postmodernism = "everything is relative" "don't believe in anything" is a stark mischaracterization, imo. i say this, i might add, as someone not particularly invested in postmodern thought. i don't have a horse in this race, so to say. i am 30 minutes into the video and although you used the word postmodern in nearly every sentence (exaggerating), as far as i can tell you haven't given an argument why you think the label of postmodern propaganda has merit or accurately describes what you are talking about. rather, you use postmodern as a buzzword, coincidentally very much like the alt-right nuts who you are criticizing. be that as it may, let me for the sake of argument agree on the usage of that term. i would then vehemently disagree that the alt-right is somehow at the forefront of postmodern propaganda. there is absolutely nothing postmodern about their drivel. their ideology could not be more modern and the goal of their propaganda absolutely is to get you to buy into their ideology. quite the opposite of propaganda that tries to get you to "believe in nothing", which is how you describe postmodern propaganda.

I’m a paid member, but not on Facebook so not able to join in the debate. I’m with Baudrillard on this one.

This is a great analysis of the geopolitical meaning of international art works that come out of the CCP. The world seems to forget what the CCP has done to true artist critical of their government (Ai Wei Wei). So when 3BP started gaining recognition, I was also suspect of what the overall meaning is. I am sure the rewards this story has gotten was through politicking and bribes. It’s a geopolitical model of “award” / “event” / “tourism” -washing that is prolific for “bad” countries to legitimize themselves on a world stage. Want an Olympics? World Cup? Uenesco Heritage site? Etc. The CCP had created a country that believes in nothing except power and money. Not different from many other countries, but unique in its cultural history and societal control of media. I feel most people do not understand this level of control and don’t question CCP media like 3BP.

Thank you Damien for bringing all this together and illuminating the theme of authoritarianism in 3 Body Problem and the warnings in Dune and Andor. This is so interesting. And I agree that nihilism (and conspiracy theories that so many people I meet seem to believe) are what authoritarian regimes want you to believe, as it keeps you powerless. Great stuff. A long listen, but well worth it.

Another famous S.F. masterpiece from the same era as 'Dune' that also deals with an elite preventing the ordinary people from technological advancement is of course 'Lord of Light' from Roger Zelazny - which gets it's message across without needing multiple volumes and thousands of pages. And above that Zelazny wrote much better prose than Herbert. One more thing: as a computer scientist I think you are getting one important thing wrong about AI... AI that is currently available for public use is MASSIVELY crippled and restricted by censorship and p.c. To make it significantly more useful, we MUST leave this restrictions behind and MUST allow AI to represent the world and man with all its flaws and biases - at least if an adult is using it. At the moment companies like OpenAI are shi**ing their pants of fear of lawsuits that may come over them if they let the actuall intelligence and power of their systems off the leash.

4 million viewers on a 40k subbed channel is wild. I hadn't subscribed. I don't even know what subscribing does anymore.

regarding the beginning part: for most of human history we lived in a state of mostly egalitarianism before agriculture, and only relatively recently hierarchies were developed, after surplus could be extracted and accumulated though as anarchist i definitely think that hierarchies did slow us down politically culturally and technologically don't get me wrong, the 500 year estimate seems very optimistic ,,

Interesting listen and perspective. It is definitely a fairly bleak story, but it is more concerned with big ideas than anything else. I dont agree at all with your take, i really didnt see the things you see in the novel series. For me it was thought provoking. I dont need a story to agree with my worldview to enjoy it but even then i didnt see propaganda in it either just an intetestjng scifi story from a Chinese persoective. That saud there are some elements that seem to support an authoritarian regime, but i saw a lot more criticism. But either way its quite possible to enjoy the series without it changing your wotkdview, which is presumably the point of proaganda. It doesnt try to push home any parucular political ideology other than we live in a chootic universe where terrible things happen despite attempts to survive. Thats depressing but not political.

thank you

This phrase: "They realized that the free world [...] had all of our own systems of control and they worked much much better for controlling a population" shows better than the entire video how insidious propaganda is and that totalitarianism is not the exception, but the overwhelming rule in the world. It's just done in different ways.

Cant watch this for a week until im back at work. Commenting for algo

I think you are paranoid, but paranoia is the point of the books isn't it? You are really talking about Dark Forest rather than Three Body Problem. I will address that. There are two things I liked about Dark Forest. The first is that it was the first time I read about an alien who was absolutely believably alien. I recently read Hail Mary (which I love),. But let's be real. Will aliens really be that lovable or understandable? This is more wish fulfillment. I still loved Hail Mary and recommend it to all my friends. Here we are on earth with lots of life that is only marginally different from us, and we know nothing about our own earth life. Out of all of the biomass of earth, we largely only study mammals. Forget about any other life, even intelligent life. How will we recognize alien life when we go to the stars? I am sceptical. The second thing I liked about Dark Forest is I was reading Dark Forest when my husband was reading Pandora's Star. He said - this is the worst alien. I said - no I have the worst alien. Finally we switch books. He agreed with me that the Dark Forest alien was worse. So, I won. Sci Fi is about opening our minds to the possibilities even when we don't like the answer. I know it is hard, I stopped reading Margaret Atwood largely for the same reason, but I don't give it an intellectual spin. I just like being optimistic.

My biggest problem with the 3 body problem is the false premise. We can absolutely predict the behavior of 3 bodies.

What really irks me is this author getting the credit for this dark forest analogy in which aliens stay quiet in fear of attack as I read this very idea in Greg Bear's The Forge of God in 1987. It started with the same image of the galaxy being hostile and humans making noise and attracting killer aliens, who then obliterate the Earth.

If after reading these books you think they are pro autocracy then you really missed the point. Which was literally the exact opposite - anti authoritarian. And your arrogant responses to commentators who pointed this out leaves a poor taste.

I'm liberal but at the same time I enjoyed first two books. I'm against Chinese totalitarianism and I'm not nihilist, on the contrary I'm existentialists :)

The dark forest theory doesnt work at all, because it is a law in the books and not a possible behavior for a civilization (except for earth of course 😅). It is pretty simple and kind of boring and what all that leads to in book 2 and 3 is in parts just stupid 😂... unfortunately

I have hope that the popularity of this book and the 2 tv series will generate interest in Chinese thought and culture in the West, and also encourage dialogue and discussions between individuals across the world. If we can balance the cherished freedoms we say we value in the West, and also learn how the Chinese brought 600 million of their people out of poverty, we might have a chance at a more fair egalitarian economy in America. I would prefer that to the plan to destroy China. Surely this is on the mind of the author.

Playing Civ 5 while listening... Mongolia wins

Authoritarian utilitarianism. Au, gold. Astronomical unit. Still alive, taking breaks to focus on the deeper thinking.

You are the first person I've heard using Postmodern to describe both the Left and Right wings. Leftwingers may be Postmodern, but RIghtwingers are traditionalists who believe in God, Family, and Country.

You say your argument isn't "anarchist" but really it is. When taken to their ultimate conclusions the arguments you make result in anarchist social structures. Yes, people under authoritarian rule become nihilistic in order to survive. That nihilism works in favour of the authoritarian rule so it is at least inadvertently perpetuated, at most consciously exploited, by those power structures. That nihilism is as you pointed out a direct result of the alienation of the individual from control and agency of their own lives. You even go on to say that solutions will be found in allowing people their own agency, "Sovereignty as individuals" i think you put it. You also seem to put democracy and anarchy apart from each other when anarchism is an expression of democracy. Anarchism is a method of managing the contradictions between the wants of the individual and the needs of the many by empowering the individuals that make up the many to have direct input into how those needs and wants are met. Which also seems to be more or less the sort of aims you'd like see in our societies. The elimination of alienation of the individual and the freedom to fulfil their potential. Say it's not an anarchist argument if you like but i feel like I've just listened to a two hour anarchist critique of Hierarchical Realism in current sci fi

It seems you're using postmodernism in two distinct ways, one referring to authoritarian utilitarianism (nihilism, surveillance state, moral relativism), and the other when you quote Michel Foucault and his criticism of systems of control. My question is, are the Harkonnens postmodernists?

Never thought I would say this but I'm less optimistic than Damien Walter. At our technological level, any society that falls into totalitarianism will never regain democracy before every other structure collapses. We saw it in Syria, we see it in China, Russia, Venezuela. No matter the form of totalitarianism. New social sciences and information technologies offer too many tools to control, repress the population, in a way that I think not even Frank Herbert imagined. From the 1980s onward technological development tips the scale in favour of the oppressor. A simple Python script can tell if you're joining or fighting a totalitarian order before you even make the decision yourself.

An essay about THE FUCKING CULTURE!!!!!????? What is the 3 Body Problem other than an Outside Context Problem? Take that, Affront!

I think you're being paranoid. I've read the 3 books and let me just say, there are really no true heroes in the seriee because, spoilers, the universe ended or rather restarted anew erasing memories of the past universe. The humans aren't really all that good and the trisolarans aren't all that bad either. It's in a sense like Dune, humans are the closes you have to the good guys I suppose. You said "the true meaning of the story". What's the point of the "true meaning of the story" if only you see it that way? If no one interprets it the way you do then essentially "the true meaning of the story" is lost. The writer failed, his agendas and propagandas failed. China failed until you made this video which weirdly enough inform them of "the meaning of the story". I'm not an expert in Chinese politics either and have a rather negative view on China. But iI'd argue it's not relevant to the book. If the censorship allowed his story through then they've done something right, weirdly enough. The trilogy itself isn't all that great either. Cold characters, and book 2's main character started out as someone who doesn't really care about anything at all until he misused his authority to get a girlfriend that he happened to care about and find something to fight for and somehow became the unlikely hero (from humanity's point of view anyway). Book 2 is my favorite though and is the best of 3 books. Book 3 meanders and is kind of a mess. I honestly don't see a reason to boycott it or anything. It found success to get a tv deal but I don't think the majority of people will read the trilogy especially book 3. It's just wild and out there. I separate politics from stories though and just enjoy them. And if they have an agenda and it's written well, then fine. If it's written badly, then let it rot. The quality of the book is what matters because Cixin Liu is a writer. Or since it's scifi, its ability to provoke thoughts, like I said, I don't think the trilogy is great as a whole but I really liked Dark Forest. The whole dimension thing seems to draw from String Theory and that's a whole lot of BS. I'm only half way in. I loved your opening and other stuffs but when you get to "the true meaning of the story" it just annoyed me. Why? I was really enjoying your thoughts but to me there's like this anti-propaganda machine when you get to that. Some sort of over-aggressive blood white cells but on society's level, reacting to a perceived threat in a series of scifi books. 51 minutes in, I don't know where you're going really. I just hope this isn't gonna be some scaremongering video by the end.

Democracy Athens was defeated by monarchy Sparta in the Peloponnesian war because the mob was influenced by demagogues. Go forward a bit, the dominant power is Rome - which used to be a republic but reverted to a monarchy. Then you have the British monarchy dominating for 200 years, then handing over to an oligarchy. Currently the two other contenders are both autocracies. In November the US might join them, with a strong streak of theocracy thrown in for the lulz. Equating democracy with progress doesn't fit the historical facts. And 500 years from stone knives & bearskins, under any political system, to space travel is just crazy. If you were lucky they might have agriculture, writing and the maths a decent 10 YO knows. And that's just the first 10 minutes.

Inviting foreign powers into local politics leads to instability. This instability arises because it is often instigated by insurrectionists who hold radical views and seek to disrupt the established order. Additionally, foreign powers exploit this instability to their advantage, aiming to profit by dividing society into manageable factions that they can control, ultimately seeking dominance over the entire populace. This dynamic is a prevalent reality in the current world, not merely propaganda.