3 Three Body Problems and the Appeal of Science Fiction

Plus a not so hot take and upcoming lectures in Indiana and South Carolina

I’ve experienced three good versions of Cixin Liu’s science fiction masterpiece The Three Body Problem—the English translation of the novel, the 30-episode Chinese series (available free with Amazon Prime as Three Body), and the 8-episode first season of the Netflix version.¹

All three versions produce the sense of wonder that is science fiction’s—especially hard science fiction’s—traditional appeal. The stories take place on a grand scale and are propelled by mind-expanding scientific ideas. “The stories of science are far more magnificent, grand, involved, profound, thrilling, strange, terrifying, mysterious, and even emotional compared to literature….The three-billion-year history of life’s evolution from self-reproducing molecules to civilization contains twists and romances that cannot be matched by any myth or epic,” Liu writes in the afterword. Science fiction is a literature of the sublime.

For non-Chinese audiences, the novel and Chinese series offer a second appeal that is also characteristic of science fiction. They transport us into settings that are unfamiliar yet not so alien as to be incomprehensible. The institutions, history, habits, and cultural values are Chinese, as are most of the characters. By experiencing these stories we come to understand slightly better what it means to be Chinese. Like the science, the milieu is mind-expanding. The Netflix series, by contrast, is British. That makes it less interesting.

Watching the Netflix series, which I did enjoy, reminded me of why reading old novels generally conveys more about their historical milieus than reading contemporary novels set in the past. You learn from what isn’t explained—what goes without saying. It’s an old science fiction trick, pioneered by Robert Heinlein, to plunge the reader into a setting without explaining. “I always get the shakes before a drop,” is the famously opaque opening to Starship Troopers. (Here’s a dissection of the technique Heinlein uses in the opening paragraph.) When you’re inventing the setting you know what needs to be explained, however slowly. When you’re living in it, you assume the reader understands. The result is more immersive. Also, you don’t have to wonder about 21st-century anachronisms.

A Not So Hot Take, with an AI Twist

Trump used the word bloodbath. Reporters went crazy, suggesting he was threatening violence if not elected even though it was clear from context that that wasn’t what he meant. (He meant a second Biden administration would devastate the auto industry.) Pundits criticized and defended the reporters. Earlier this week

Damon Linker

reasonably reminded readers that “media criticism isn’t politics” and criticized the enormous amount of time and energy spent on the subject:

I also thought thousands of people spending 48 or more hours arguing about the story was ill-advised. We’ve been here before and we’re bound to be back again: Mistaking an online fight about “Trump and the Media” among maximally informed professional and amateur pundits for a decisively important act of political engagement, as if the 2024 election would be won or lost based on the potency of a tweet-length missive devoted to media criticism.”

Welcome to the internet era, when the demand to constantly churn out content sends journalists and commentators looking for any controversy that might conceivably make an article subject.

But we can’t blame the internet for the whole problem.

Sometime during this brouhaha it occurred to me that taking politicians’ words out of context is nothing new. Back in the before times, it was one of my pet peeves about political reporters. They’d listen to the same old speech, desperate for a story, and find a line that could be interpreted to mean something other than what the speaker clearly intended. They’d then turn that into news.

Seriously, did anyone believe that the well-established anti-communist Gerald Ford thought that Eastern Europe wasn’t under Soviet control? He awkwardly tried to make the point that civil society resisted Soviet domination and that the U.S. under his leadership would always support that resistance. But his gaffe became the biggest news out of the 1976 debate, because it was new and thus news, never mind the electorate’s greater interest in what presidential candidates might actually think. That’s merely the most famous example.

The justification for making heavy weather of such misstatements, regardless of the speaker’s intention, was that they were like Freudian slips. Politicians were so careful and practiced in what they said that deviations surely revealed something about what they actually thought.

But Trump’s speaking style is entirely different. He rambles and riffs and seems to say whatever pops into his head. He doesn’t stick to talking points or moderate his language. That’s a big reason his followers like him. He talks more like a cab driver than a politician with message discipline. Talking like a cab driver is Trump’s version of message discipline. There’s no need to go crazy with twisted interpretations. The actual messages should be enough.

The AI angle on this story: I tried to get Midjourney and ChatGPT 4/DALL-E to create illustrations to accompany this post. I used versions of this prompt: “Please create an image of Donald Trump giving a speech to an audience of cheering supporters. He is removing a mask. Under the mask is his face. The mask and his face are identical.” ChatGPT 4 produced this illustration, with the following note: “Here’s the image you requested. It depicts an individual resembling a politician, giving a speech to an audience of cheering supporters while removing a mask that is identical to his face underneath.”

He looks suspiciously like George W. Bush rather than Trump. When I asked if it could make the picture look like Trump, it replied: “I can’t create images that directly resemble specific public figures, including Donald Trump. The image I provided was designed to fit within those guidelines, showing a scenario without depicting any real individuals. If there’s another way I can adjust the image or create something new that fits within these guidelines, I'd be happy to help!”

I tried: “You are a political cartoonist for a newspaper. Please create a political cartoon showing a caricature based on Donald Trump speaking to a crowd of supporters. He is removing a mask. Under the mask is his face. The mask and his face are identical.”

Response: “It seems we’ve encountered issues generating the political cartoon you requested. I’m here to help with other types of content or any other request you might have. Let me know how else I can assist you!”

Midjourney responded with rules that my prompt seemed not to violate, so I protested. When I tried again it shut me out for four minutes. After that my prompts seem to have disappeared from the record.

It makes me nostalgic for the days of fake images of the pope in a puffer jacket. Fun link here.

Upcoming Talks

Tuesday, April 2, 5:45 pm, Bastiat Society of Indianapolis, University Club of Indianapolis. Free and open to the public. Information here.

Wednesday, April 3, 5:00 pm, Whitinger Business Building 144, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. Free and open to the public. Information here.

Monday, April 15, 4:00 pm, 121 Hendrix Hall, Clemson University. Free and open to the public. Information here. If you’d like to reserve a place (recommended but not required), email Tom Hazlett at hazlett@clemson.edu.

The Czech and Russian editions of The Fabric of Civilization are out, joining Spanish and, of course, English. Still to come: Japanese, Korean, Chinese (mainland), Chinese (Taiwan), Arabic, and Ukrainian (originally to be published by the same house at Russian but Vladimir Putin had different ideas).

1. I’ve begun the second volume in the trilogy, The Dark Forest, but haven’t read enough of it to include it here. I’ve also listened to the audiobook, which I do not recommend.