Three-body: The Most Competent Wallfacer in History

It wasn't until the sun was declining in the west that Jiang Yu finally returned to his cabin through the spatial tunnel.

Xiao Qi was standing under the cherry tree, admiring the luscious cherries.

Jiang Yu noticed that Xiao Qi had completely lost his youthful appearance and had transformed into the image of a middle-aged man.

His appearance was different from Wei Xiang's, lacking that extreme elegance and instead, he bore a sense of vicissitudes, more reminiscent of a character from before the Great Depression.

Upon seeing Jiang Yu, Xiao Qi cracked a slight smile, "I was thinking of calling you 'grandfather,' but looking at your face, I just can't bring myself to say it."

Looking at them now, Jiang Yu appeared much younger than Xiao Qi.

Jiang Yu responded with a smile, "It's the thought that counts."

He glanced at the grass under the cherry tree, where the space clearly stalled for a moment, then two wicker chairs and a coffee table appeared.

Jiang Yu gestured for Xiao Qi to take a seat; he settled into one of the wicker chairs, "You seem to have gotten used to life here."

Xiao Qi paused before continuing, "Like how to use the Milky Way computer. Often, by observing your expressions and collecting data on your habits, it can understand what services you need at what times."

Jiang Yu also took a seat, "I thought it had read my inner thoughts."

"That kind of technology does exist," Xiao Qi said with a smile, "like the consciousness printer, which can print out your inner thoughts."

"However, these types of products were gradually boycotted because they pose a danger of exposing people's inner thoughts. Even though consciousness printers are advanced and can improve efficiency, they're ignored."

"Later, the congress introduced related laws that greatly restricted the popularization of consciousness-related products."

After a robot served them tea, Jiang Yu took a sip and nodded, "The tea here on Earth tastes much better than the tea I had on the Blue Maiden Star."

He then added, "I believe a view I once held is still relevant today: what people need is not always the best or most advanced products, but rather the most appropriate ones!"

"But that can slow down human development!" Xiao Qi exclaimed, spreading his arms. "Didn't you also promote genetic technologies during your tenure?"

As Jiang Yu sipped his tea, he stood up and plucked two cherries, for which the Milky Way computer considerately provided a small basket.

He continued picking cherries, "Genetic technologies were popularized because humanity needed them for its development."

Jiang Yu said warmly with a smile, "Don't rush; haste makes waste!"

"The people's way of thinking has to keep up with the pace of development. Take the consciousness printer you mentioned as an example."

"People worry that such tools could expose their thoughts to others.

"Everyone has a dark side, and if that dark side isn't manifested, then in our eyes, that person is good.

"What if you accidentally reveal your dark side while working with consciousness devices?"

As he spoke, Jiang Yu popped a cherry into his mouth; it was sweet and delicious, "The Trisolarans have minds that are wide open, but such a trait has doomed them from becoming a higher civilization."

"Privacy leads to selfish thoughts. We may not want to admit it, but selfishness greatly drives human development.

"At least with privacy, people begin to strategize for their own benefit, allowing everyone to develop along roughly similar yet distinctly different trajectories.

"The Trisolarans' development trajectory is too monotonous, however. Without private ownership and when free from survival pressure, they lose a significant drive to progress."

"I don't know how historians view the history of the Trisolaran Civilization now, but I believe that the Trisolarans began to weaken as soon as they left their harsh living conditions."

Jiang Yu passed a cherry towards Xiao Qi, who waved his hand to indicate he didn't want it.

Jiang Yu continued, "Thus, the people's thoughts are not yet at the level to popularize consciousness tools."

"When people's consciousnesses are dominated by light and they are not afraid to expose their thoughts, such tools will naturally become popular without your promotion," he added.

Xiao Qi took a sip of tea and frowned, "When will that happen?"

Jiang Yu spread his hands, "I don't know either."

Xiao Qi let out a long sigh, "What worries me most has happened, your thoughts seem to be closer to the Historian Faction's line of thinking."

He said, "The Historian Faction is too conservative, haven't you noticed that all the technological breakthroughs are basically ideas formed in the first two or three centuries of the Galaxy Era."

"We need fresher thoughts, new theories, to drive our development to higher levels; otherwise, our progress might become unsustainable."

"I think we should now vigorously develop material-to-material transformation technologies, and material-to-energy transformation technologies, so we can escape from traditional troubles like energy and living space in the future."

"Xiao Qi, your idea is somewhat presumptuous," said Jiang Yu, "I can tell you with all responsibility, I lived through the initial centuries of the Galaxy Era, but back then, no one knew which technologies and theories represented the future."

"The results you have developed now are the outcome of trial and error over more than a dozen centuries."

"You are looking at the origin with the results in mind, so it's natural for you to clarify the logic within, but at that time, we didn't know what the future outcome would be."

"Many technologies and theories that were assumed to represent the future seemed less useful the more they were studied, yet many seemingly unimportant things turned out to have a variety of uses."

Xiao Qi wasn't as worked up as before and began seriously contemplating Jiang Yu's words.

After eating a few more cherries, Jiang Yu continued, "Humanity is lucky; we've seen the outcomes of curvature propulsion from the Trisolarans; we've seen the results of spatial jumps from Venus; we've seen the outcomes of two-dimensional technology from the Singer civilization; and we've seen the results of leap-type propulsion from the civilizations of Paradise and the Gyro Civilization."

"This has saved us a lot of trial and error processes and provided clear goals; otherwise, our progress would be even slower."

"You could take the steam engine as an example, ah, that might be a very distant reference for you, so let me put it briefly."

"Actually, the basic form of the steam engine existed in Ancient Greece, but due to the lack of rubber at the time and poor air-tightness, the steam engine didn't attract much attention."

"Even Watt initially just wanted to use the steam engine to pump water."

"If the Ancient Greeks had seen a steam train, would the steam engine have been buried for over a thousand years?"

"The Trisolarans must regret not having wiped us out in one fell swoop back then because they let us 'ancients' see the 'steam train'."

Jiang Yu looked at Xiao Qi, "Your current anxiety mainly stems from your own limited perspective, being unable to see the future's face."

"No one among us is a prophet; do the things at hand earnestly, and the future won't be too bad."

"Just like the material-to-material and material-to-energy transformation technologies you mentioned."

"These were hypotheses proposed in the Common Era, and it doesn't matter that they haven't been realized yet. As long as we use the current technologies to do whatever research we can, one day these technologies will indeed come to fruition!"

Xiao Qi seemed to grasp the essence of Jiang Yu's words.

Jiang Yu laughed, "I haven't given a private lecture in quite a while."