Civilization Template

Chapter 141 Big Filter

Qing University, near Spring Garden.

Although the weather has warmed up, spring has not yet arrived.The core of the Jinchun Garden is a small rockery and pond, which look very dilapidated against the backdrop of dead branches and rotten leaves.

Everyone was very disappointed with the sight in front of them.

The area of ​​Jinchun Garden is small, but because of Zhu Ziqing's "Moonlight in the Lotus Pond" and Tsinghua University, it has an astonishing reputation.

I really don't know how big the old literati's brains have to be to write an immortal chapter for this insignificant bubble in front of them.

The people who had completed the task of preaching from the auditorium took a temporary rest here.

The temperature around zero is considered cold for the people in the capital city, but it is already warm as spring for the students in the ice city.

Chen Quan and Qu Yanqiu sat on the bench.

In the days after returning, due to intense rehearsals, the two did not have much time to be alone.Winter vacation, Spring Festival, plus the whole of February, I haven't seen each other for almost two months.

As time goes by, the angle of the sun gets lower and lower.The figures of the crowd also became longer and longer.

Under the setting sun, the entire sky and the earth, as well as everything within sight, were dyed a beautiful red.

Looking at Qu Yanqiu's pink face beside him, Chen Quan hesitated for a moment. "I am familiar with this scene."

"You are very familiar?" Qu Yanqiu was taken aback. "He's been here? What did you see?"

"It's not him, it's me."

"You?" Qu Yanqiu was a little confused. "You saw this scene, when?"

"Do you remember, last May, we were in the back garden of the main building of Gongda?"

"Oh, I remembered." Qu Yanqiu smiled. "Is it the time before the AI ​​left?"

After finishing speaking, she deliberately turned her face up, stretched out her hand to stroke Chen Quan's cheek, and then said softly, "Is this sadness?"

"Uh"

Chen Quan's heart, for some reason, suddenly trembled. "Don't do this, you make me very uncomfortable."

"is it?"

Qu Yanqiu shrugged.

Although she remembers this period of history very clearly, after all, the subject has changed and the angle of viewing things is also different.

From Qu Yanqiu's point of view, this was just an interesting experience.

After such an outburst, both of them stopped talking, but quietly looked at the small calm pond in front of them.

The sun finally sank completely below the horizon.With the disappearance of sunset red, Jinchunyuan returned to a lifeless state.

Due to the drought and lack of rain, the water level in the pond is already quite low.With a few dead branches floating on the water, and the surrounding bare tree trunks, the famous Jinchun Garden actually gives people a sense of desolation.

"Maybe in your heart, there is always a difference between me and her, right?"

After a long silence, Qu Yanqiu suddenly asked.

"I do not know."

Chen Quan shook his head.

Although, AI and Qu Yanqiu are absolutely impossible to be a "person".But when he was with Qu Yanqiu, he could indeed feel that AI was by his side.This sense of familiarity made him feel very at ease.

Maybe the eyes can be deceived, but not the senses, not the intuition.

Chen Quan couldn't tell what was going on in this strange state.
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"Actually, during your absence, I have been thinking about who 'they' are. If you don't understand this issue, you will have no way of understanding what they want to do."

Qu Yanqiu took the initiative to change the topic.

"Oh?"

Chen Quan was a little surprised.But also looking forward to it.Qu Yanqiu's inductive ability is not comparable to ordinary people.

"They are not from Earth, there is no doubt about that, right?"

"Of course not." Chen Quan tried to recall. "I had a direct contact with them once, and it was in a distant starry sky."

Time flies, what happened a few years ago, to Chen Quan, seems like a lifetime away.

"You know that I study physics. In modern physics, there is a famous paradox, the Fermi Paradox." Qu Yanqiu said.

"I've heard of the Fermi Paradox."

Although Chen Quan is not a physics major, he still dabbles in popular science topics.

The Fermi paradox describes the contradiction between the overestimation of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of relevant evidence.

The first point of the Fermi paradox: There are 2500 billion stars in the Milky Way, and there are 700 billion (7 x 10^22) stars in the observable universe.Even if intelligent life occurs with a very small probability, there should be quite a few civilizations within the galaxy alone.

The second point of the Fermi paradox: Considering the continuous pursuit of resources by intelligent life, as well as the original external expansion, any advanced civilization will open up their star system, and then set foot in neighboring galaxies.

If interstellar travel is feasible, no matter how slow the spacecraft is, it will only take 5 million to 5 million years to conquer the galaxy where it is located.

According to the above two inferences, our field of vision should be full of aliens. After all, the history of the universe is more than 138 billion years old.But this is obviously inconsistent with human observations.

Qu Yanqiu explained slowly: "In order to solve the Fermi paradox, someone put forward a brand new point of view, that is the big filter.

The core idea of ​​the Great Filter Theory is that due to certain natural limitations, all civilizations are unable to create manned spacecraft that can fly out of their star systems. "

"Oh? The big filter? Do you mean that there is any power that suppresses the development of interstellar civilization?"

Chen Quan was a little surprised.

"Yes. According to my deduction, there is a big filter naturally on the earth. This big filter is the cradle of our humanity, the earth itself."

"What do you mean?"

"Although the earth gave birth to human civilization, it will eventually limit the upper limit of civilization.

Logically, although there is the possibility of human beings getting out of the cradle, because the scale of the cradle is too small, people cannot obtain the technology needed for interstellar travel. "

"Can you explain in detail?"

"To explain this big filter, let's look back at the history of human development. Learn from the past."

Qu Yanqiu put on a posture of teaching and educating people.

Chen Quan was very familiar with Qu Yanqiu's posture, and hadn't seen it for a long time.

That's what the AI ​​taught him before.

"In the history of mankind, the concept of city-states has appeared many times. The early ones are more famous in the era of Greek civilization, such as Athens, Sparta, and Chloe.

In the Middle Ages, Mediterranean city-states such as Venice, Genoa, and Milan appeared.The Lübeck you went to this time is also a typical one, but it is not so famous.

In modern times, we also see large city-states like Belgium and the Netherlands.Although they think that they are not just a city, but from our point of view, this small country is not much bigger than a city. "

"Interesting." Chen Quan was a little curious. "What is the reason for you to single out all these famous city-states in history?"

"Didn't you hear any rules?" Qu Yanqiu asked back.

"Rule? Is there any rule in this?"

"Okay, then I will continue. As time goes by, small countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands are quickly replaced by Spain and the United Kingdom. After that, we have seen the rise of France and Germany.

After World War II, there were only two major powers vying for hegemony: the Soviet Union and the United States.

Are there any trends you haven't seen so far? "

"It seems a bit." Chen Quan had some vague guesses in his heart. "Isn't it, as time goes by, the scale of countries that can participate in the hegemony is getting bigger and bigger."

"That's right!" Qu Yanqiu clapped her hands.

"What is the reason? Is it due to the increasingly fierce competition? Or the lack of wise leadership? Or the internal management level, management mechanism? Leader selection system?"

"No!"

Qu Yanqiu shook her head. "It's the population!"

"population?"

"The problems faced by these national-level civilizations are similar to the Fermi Paradox. The core problem is the length of the entire industrial chain.

In the ancient Greek era, as long as a city could support a bronze smelting workshop with hundreds of people, it would have the capital to conquer the world.Therefore, the main body of the struggle for hegemony is the small and medium-sized city-states.

In the Middle Ages, with the emergence and development of navigation technology, the minimum foundation for fighting the world was a complete shipbuilding industry.The rise of Genoa and other Mediterranean city-states.

With the emergence of gunpowder technology, the types of work required for the entire industrial chain have become increasingly large. In addition to the shipbuilding industry, it is also necessary to be able to produce artillery by itself.The population size required by the industrial chain is also increasing.At this time, only small countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands can participate.

When the ironclad ships appeared, small countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium could only lose because they could not provide a complete industrial chain within the scope of their territory.

This process is completely independent of human will.

No leadership or system can reverse this process. "

"Oh……"

Chen Quan, a person who only knows how to compete non-stop and seldom gets distracted by other things, can only be dumbfounded when he hears this level of novelty.

"With the continuous development of human science and technology, this process is still going on. With the maturity of aviation technology, the popularization of missile technology and rocket technology, only the United States and the Soviet Union are left to compete for world hegemony.

Britain, France, Germany, and Japan soon fell behind.

In the 5s and 60s, colonial independence movements emerged around the world, and the overseas colonies of Britain and France became independent one after another, which is a true manifestation of this backwardness. "

As Qu Yanqiu continued to explain, Luo Ningwei and others also surrounded her.

"When semiconductor technology is applied on a large scale, the population size of CCCP is finally not enough. Even if CCCP's system is superior, its execution is stronger, and its efficiency is higher."

"But what we heard and saw is not what we said!"

Before Chen Quan could speak, Yu Yaoying retorted first.

In the news reports at this time, it was generally discussed that the CCCP system was rigid, resulting in a sharp drop in production efficiency.In the end, the people are in dire straits and lack of supplies for people's livelihood.

"Any system has its dark side and its weaknesses."

Qu Yanqiu shrugged. "It is precisely because the total population of CCCP is insufficient. They can only fill the limited population into military industry, science and technology and other fields. Because there are not enough people in agriculture and labor-intensive light industry, it finally leads to food and daily necessities. shortage. That’s the root cause of their collapse.”

"Are there any exceptions?"

Yu Yaoying is very interested in this topic. "Although human technology is constantly advancing, the emergence of certain technologies will shorten the length of the industrial chain instead of extending it.

For example, our cars today use complex internal combustion engines.But in the not-too-distant future, there is a good chance that it will be replaced by an electric motor.The electric motor is much simpler than the internal combustion engine.

From this perspective, the industrial chain for producing automobiles has become shorter, not longer. "

"No, the phenomenon you mentioned, the industrial chain is still being extended. It's just that the way of extension is not a direct extension, but a replacement.

Intuitively, electric motors are simpler than internal combustion engines, and the industrial chain is shortening.However, with the application of electric energy in automobiles, the directions of energy storage, power generation, control, and power transmission are all expanding dramatically.Taken together, the future automobile with electric vehicles as the core, the population required by the entire industry chain can only be more. "

"Well, even if you have a point. But what does it matter to us?"

Yu Yaoying asked.

"In fact, the advancement of human technology has never stopped. Soon, it will reach a new node."

"What node?"

"Actually, I just realized this point after listening to Chen Quan's speech." Qu Yanqiu turned to look at Chen Quan, and welcomed the latter's smiling response. "The total population of the United States will soon be insufficient. Their population will not be enough to support their status as a great power."

"You don't listen to warning words, do you?"

This time, not only Yu Yao won, everyone was shocked.

"I did not listen to warning words. This is an inevitable law of human development.

You see, the total population of CCCP is 2 million, while the total population of the United States is only over 3 million.With the continuous emergence and development of new technologies, the total length of the industrial chain is still being extended.This basic logic and law of human development has never changed. "

The sky gradually darkened, and the street lights on the campus came on for the first time.

Qu Yanqiu was talking eloquently under the cold light.

"It's not the same. Isn't globalization popular now? The global economic division of labor. In this way, the world's population can be used?"

Luo Ningwei's knowledge is much better than that of a group of freshmen.

"Actually, this idea is not a new theory."

Qu Yanqiu was not overwhelmed by Luo Ningwei's point of view. "The same thing the Greeks did, the Romans did, the English did.

The strong always hope that they can occupy the top of the pyramid, drive as many people as possible, and use the resources for themselves.But who is willing to be exploited?

The Athenians did, and as a result Macedonia rose.The Romans did, and Europe rose as a result.The British did it, and America rose as a result.

The same thing is being done in the United States. Guess who will rise last? "

"Who?"

Several voices asked together.

(End of this chapter)