Liu Cixin's Three Body-Problem

 

The Three-Body Problem took the western science fiction world by storm when it was translated from Chinese into English in 2014. Liu Cixin not only wrote an amazing science fiction [and he's the most critically acclaimed Chinese science fiction writer] novel but the novel is also the first eastern novel to earn the prized historic Hugo Award [the best award for science fiction novels], thus becoming a bridge between western and eastern science fiction. 

The Three-Body Problem challenges the western conceptions of science fiction, thus introducing us to different ways of seeing science fiction writing, and showing us how very different the idea of Chinese science fiction can be. Science fiction from different cultures are all very different. British science fiction, French, Polish, German, Russian, and American science fiction are all different, well, Chinese science fiction might even surprise us even more than all of those, simply because we, as westerners have never read any Chinese science fiction. 

Keep in mind that I'm an avid science fiction reader, having read all the golden age science fiction short stories [starting with the 1950s stuff], and all the important sf writers of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And The Three Body Problem is much different from all of that. This book is great because it is different, it introduces us to a new cultural genre. The Three-Body Problem is just the first part of Cixin's series, there are two other books in this series after, The Dark Forest, and Death's End. 

The story begins with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and follows with protagonist Wang Miao's investigation in a list of suicides. There's this mysterious video game where you have to wear a haptic suit and its virtual reality. The game is connected to an alien civilization facing extinction. The story takes place throughout different points in space and time that keeps the readers engaged to the end. The characters in the game have to dehydrate their bodies in order to survive these great periods of draught and darkness, a unique feature of the game. 

There are a lot of hard science elements. Liu Cixin is an engineer, uses complex astrophysics in an accessible way for the modern average reader, in order to dive deep into the philosophical nature of man's place in the universe. The novel explores how first contact with aliens would go, alongside the ethical dilemmas if Earth was destroyed by the aliens or other humans. 

The story opens with the turbulent violent era of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which is much different from the western American Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. However, because of the history of America's Revolution in the 1960s, we can see/compare/contrast that with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and learn something from it. There's a deep Chinese cultural connection to this novel that transcends most Americanisms in American science fiction. Liu Cixin loves China, and its easy to see that even from the first page's violence of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which, by the way, gets you hooked right in from the get-go. We can learn from the way Cixin uses the Chinese Revolution as a way to explore deeper elements of science fiction in an emotional way. 

The book is very strong from the get-go. It keeps your curiosity high and the element of the virtual reality video game is sort of like an anime, another eastern import. The only weakness I can see here is that the English translation may or may not be as strong as how the book really is in Chinese. A lot of people have critiqued the translation and said that it feels wooden, but I think this is how Cixin actually writes and sounds. He wouldn't have wanted a wooden translation put out into the west, and The Three-Body Problem would not have earned a Hugo Award if the translation was off. 

However, I do think that because some of the elements of science fiction aren't your traditional hard American/western science fiction elements, I do think some people will simply not like it. But it's their loss, as the book shows you how different and how great Chinese science fiction can be. While Western science fiction often frames humanity as exceptional and destined for the stars, The Three Body Problem humbles us with cosmic indifference, suggesting we may be merely insignificant players in a universe governed by forces beyond our comprehension or control.

The Chairman's Method: Re-Education Through Labor

Hello, ladies and gentlemen of the internet. My grand extravaganza of a birthday weekend just passed. Here are a few thoughts on that said birthday, and what it feels like to be 31 in 2020. 

Life is moving pretty fast these days it seems. Yes, the pandemic has brought everything to the penultimate halt but people are still out here trying to make their dreams become reality. Today, my manager and co-worker sort of grilled me about how I need to get a real career going. I've been at the company for some seven years in retail there at the market. Things have gone okay but not great there. And now with the pandemic in full effect [and it will get much worse mind you], hours have been scarce, including for me. 

So they mentioned that I should go to trade school. And that a four year degree is worthless. Well, I agreed with that part at least about the four year degree. The way I see life and work is that I chose the road less traveled, the much harder road, the road where you'll feel your work through your blood, sweat, and tears, [like the rock band] more so than through your paycheck. 

What I mean is that I chose re-education through labor rather than the traditional college route. To be honest I have no regrets but eventually my body will feel it a lot more [this is why I must lose weight and become as healthy as possible because my 40s will be much harder] in the next decade. I've never been a follower, so consequently I've never had a leader, meaning that I've pretty much gone my own way my entire life. A real lone wolf in that sense. Scary and intense as fuck! Lol.   

Sure, I've had some guidance here and there but if I'm forced into something, that's usually a sure sign of it not working out. That's why I've gone the Chairman's Method, Re-Education Through Labor. 

Instead of going to college and getting a degree and spending a fortune to educate myself, I've instead chosen to work as much as I physically can, get as much money as I can, and spend all my time off work educating myself by reading the Western Canon, history, philosophy, [and science fiction]. I've created an online persona [this blog] where I can write about, well anything and everything I've read, learned, or experienced. Another big part of that re-education is all the music I play, primarily teaching myself how to play jazz guitar through live experience with a talented saxophonist. It ain't much but its honest work. 

I feel very good about what I've done so far and I'm very optimistic about the future. I think I'll eventually figure out a more profitable job or career, but even if I don't, I won't feel like a loser because I didn't become a master of the universe [Elon or Zuckerberg]. I won't become a bitter man because I didn't become rich. I won't look at people any less. I won't become more solitary and turn away from society like some depressed slightly older millennial who thinks they deserve much more than they have received without putting in the effort in order to achieve this godlike status. I know what all those people are like. They're miserable. But I'm not. I'm actually happy. 

The biggest lie in society is that you must have, have, have, in order to be happy. Yes, you would be happier if you kept having more and more and more but the more you become attached to these things, the less meaning they contain, and until you see that, you can only truly live in a material world, free from the spiritual self, which is where the real magic happens. Until you learn to live [and let die], you can never detach yourself from the material world. The material world tells me I need a degree, that I need a trade school, that I need to do this, need to do that. But my spirit tells me all I need to know. This is where the Chairman's Method has lead me so far. If you see me on the road, don't kill me. 

With Tales of Brave Ulysses, how his naked ears were tortured, by the Sirens sweetly singing.

Goodreads

In the last two months, I spent a lot of time reading. Here's a list of the things I read and what I plan on reading in the near future. 

The Plague by Albert Camus
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Marquez
Slan by A.E. Van Vogt 
The Day They H Bombed Los Angeles by Robert Moore Williams
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame collection 
Bring the Jubilee by Ward More
The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant
Currently on page 800 out of 1400 pages in Plutarch's Lives
A little bit of Don Quixote 
The Tao Te Ching
Parts of Zhuangzi
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Parts of a 90s cyberpunk novel called Vurt

Plan on reading/finishing:

Plutarch's Lives
Don Quixote 
War and Peace by Tolstoy
The Bamboo Cutter 
Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
Being and Nothingness by John Paul Sarte 

It's a list of merit methinks. I've made a decent dent into my own personal library collection. I hope to complete the collection sometime in the near future. Reading has been the one thing that has helped me the most during this pandemic, lockdown, and quarantine. Let's hear it for the great interior life activity of reading! 

China passes loot box law

Loot boxes are a thing in many video games. You level up and you earn boxes or you can buy them for a set fee. Inside you can find many a in-game items. For example, in Overwatch you can get character skins, emotes, sprays, etc. Right now we have no idea what our odds are of getting items we want as its usually always random.

Well, China passed a law that's going to be a game changer. Starting May 2017, developers will have to start disclosing the probabilities of what could be inside the boxes in games like Overwatch, Counter Strike, and Hearthstone. 

Here are the stipulations (as translated by NeoGAF user chillybright):

2.6 ...Online game publishers shall promptly publicly announce information about the name, property, content, quantity, and draw/forge probability of all virtual items and services that can be drawn/forge on the official website or a dedicated draw probability webpage of the game. The information on draw probability shall be true and effective.
2.7 Online game publishers shall publicly announce the random draw results by customers on notable places of official website or in game, and keep record for government inquiry. The record must be kept for more than 90 days. When publishing the random draw results, some measures should be taken place to protect user privacy.

This doesn't mean that we will be able to choose what we get in our loot boxes or see the probabilities because this law is only going to apply in China. However, that doesn't mean that it couldn't reach the Western hemisphere. This could be huge for developers and us gamers who feel like loot boxes are kind of a crap shoot gambler's audition. It is kind of messed up when we put in time into a game and we don't get the items we want out of these loot boxes.

This looks like a good step in the right direction for gamers and loot boxes. Hope it comes to the West.