Deep Space Wandering Fleet

Seeing everyone seated deep in thought, Captain Feng continued, "After a year of buffering and propaganda, I believe the timing is basically ripe. Rather than letting the public run wild with speculation, it's better to release more information and initiate a grand debate involving the entire society!"

"Let the public analyze the pros and cons of forming an alliance with the Half-sphere Civilization themselves."

"After analyzing the pros and cons, they will naturally make their own choices."

"Captain..."

About a minute later, a member of the propaganda department explained, "The matter of the Military Alliance is just too significant, and our current plan is to release information bit by bit."

"Otherwise, there will inevitably be a large number of dissenting voices in society. You've also seen many rumors on the Internet. In fact, many people are not very fond of this overly transformed civilization. The Half-sphere people are already leaning towards being robots, and many people have an innate fear of them."

"Moreover, there will inevitably be some people whose thinking is still xenophobic and conservative."

Captain Feng herself was a person of fairly extreme views, not very fond of the current mode of propaganda. But the current political system was not hers to dictate alone. Plus, she had been quite busy recently and had neglected this aspect.

It wasn't until her recent discussion with Zhang Yuan and a series of mathematical deductions that she resolved to improve in this area.

The way we work should evolve with society. If there was a method that could be used permanently, it's quite likely that the work staff had grown complacent.

She thought for a while and said, "Opposition voices in society will exist no matter what. No matter what you do, there will be opposition, and that's quite normal. Are we to stop what we're doing just because there's opposition? Of course not."

"Many in our government believe that transparency can improve efficiency, but making certain rules too clear can have negative impacts, affecting the 'emotions of the people.' This claim has an underlying implication that they believe themselves to be smarter than the majority of the people and that they understand truths that others don't."

"I suggest we all let go of this sense of superiority. Don't think we're smarter than most people. What we can see through, most people can also see through. Regarding this matter, we should disclose what needs to be disclosed, and as long as we persuade with logic, I believe most people will be able to understand."

In fact, the issue of governmental transparency has always been a focal point of societal conflict.

A civilization cannot possibly be all noble, great, and full of saints. If there's a bright side to a civilization, there must be dark aspects as well. Corruption and decay exist perpetually in civilizations that have not reached Level 5, which is why we need constant reform.

There are some dark aspects that, if dealt with internally by the New Human Government, should suffice, without the need for complete transparency that leaves everyone in disgust.

And then there are secrets. If everyone knows them, can they still be called secrets? Disclosing too much sensitive information could lead to social unrest. In the event of an actual war or an emergency, should we still disclose information to the public for discussion? Of course not!

Even then, there are some particularly forward-looking things that are indeed incomprehensible to the common citizen...

But then there are some things that exist in a "Schrodinger" state of transparency and opacity. Often, even expert teams are unsure whether transparency or secrecy is better.

Of course, Zhang Yuan thought that transparency would be better concerning the comprehensive cooperation between the two sides.

The reason he was so confident was because within the Unreal Laboratory, there was a special sociological model designed to calculate the degree of social intelligence enlightenment, also known as "societal group IQ."

Societal group IQ personifies a civilization to deduce the collective intelligence of large groups of citizens and whether they can think clearly about some issues.

This method of calculation is somewhat idealized and rough, lacking in precision, but its broad applicability often serves to judge the potential of a civilization.

Take, for instance, the encountered Gliese Civilization, a bunch of drug-addled Pangolins, with a societal IQ of about 36, equivalent to a Human with an IQ of 30—essentially an idiot. They still can't solve many basic societal problems.

The Riley Civilization, a religious civilization, has a societal IQ of 26. It's considered good enough that they can solve their food and clothing needs.

The Taipu Civilization, which possesses the technology of 20th-century Humans, has a societal IQ of 60, just reaching the threshold of universal values and the qualifying line for developing Science.

The Badeit Civilization, a third-level civilization that attacked Humans with Millennium Bug Virus, has a group IQ of about 86. While the Badeit Civilization's Racial Value is high, it's not as high on a societal level.

Usually, the group IQ is much lower than the average individual IQ and is related to societal intelligence, political systems, and population size.

According to this algorithm, the New Human Civilization's "group IQ" was 108; the Half-sphere Civilization, however, was terrifyingly close to its individual intelligence score, reaching a group IQ of 127.

With a group IQ of 108, in theory, they could accept the idea of the "Alliance."

When the Captain presented this mathematical model, everyone fell silent.

Zhang Yuan sat down below and smiled, "All these civilizations weren't investigated for nothing. Mathematics, after all, is the most persuasive."

The interests entangled between Humans and Half-sphere people weren't particularly complicated and wouldn't affect Human operations themselves. With a sufficiently high quality of interstellar citizens, they could rationally determine the benefits reaped by Humanity.

Societal group IQ has a certain feedback effect on the development of a civilization. As long as people understand the nature of societal operations and possess the ability to discern right from wrong, it averts certain interest groups from brainwashing the masses with their narrative control for their own profit.

This aspect is very important. For example, some countries on Earth in that era built their democracies on the basis of keeping their population uneducated. Various media outlets raced to fabricate political rumors or conduct misleading analyses of current events to siphon votes from the electorate on behalf of the political parties and capitalist forces backing them.

During that time, many media outlets, websites, and marketing accounts dumbed down and brainwashed the public to spark controversies, with typical examples like extreme feminism, extreme environmentalism, and nationalism drawing in traffic. These absurdities were clearly extreme, yet certain groups with specific preferences truly believed in them.

If these tactics were applied to the current elite layer, they would immediately be ridiculed and derided.

The world isn't simply black and white!

"Instead, discussions, debates, and quarrels among the masses can often achieve better results. The public will gradually understand what true feminism and true environmentalism are. Once people have the ability to understand the world, they can better execute public supervision, creating a positive feedback loop."

"The same principle applies to the topic of forming the Alliance; it can also generate good debate."

After much exploration and verification, the propaganda department finally changed their strategy for communication.

The meeting came to an end, and that very night, some media workers rushed out a blockbuster story.

"Regarding the Proposed Treaty for the Formation of a Military Alliance Between New Human Civilization and Half-sphere Civilization"

Like a Hydrogen Bomb thrown into the sea, the whole society was in an uproar!