Waqas
@worqas
That's because American version completely misses the point of the books. Three Body Problem is about US-China rivalry: - Trisolaris is a dying empire (America) - It puts technological sanctions on Earth (China) to stop all scientific progress. - The dark forest is an analogy for the Thucydides trap. - The eventual solution is mutually assured destruction. There is so much more in the books that once you see it you can't unsee it. When Netflix announced the series I was really happy that Americans might see this rivalry from the Chinese perspective, but it was completely lost on Netflix. Was so disappointed when I saw the Netflix version.
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Señor Doggo
@fubuloubu
Is there any interview or material at all where Cixin Liu even hints at this interpretation?
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Waqas
@worqas
Yes, literally: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds
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Señor Doggo
@fubuloubu
Thanks! The book being written over 20 years ago, before this was at least in the common US mindset (outside of war games), would suggest a kind of prescience for this kind of take, or at least a look into the mindset of how the CCP communicates its ambitions to Chinese society
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Waqas
@worqas
I don't think that is CCP communication. For all I know, it may not even be Liu's primary goal with that work. But it is what it is. Liu is Chinese and had ideas about his 'civilization' so deeply entrenched that he may not even be aware of them. Such things come out in writing.
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Waqas
@worqas
Also btw, this rivalry had been in both Chinese and American imagination since at least the cold war. At the height of cold war, there was a fear with American planners that China might be next. I'm th 90s corporate America convinced the govt to ignore those fears.
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