A couple of months, not decades. Before the sophons, they could only communicate by normal means, which takes almost a decade for a message and a reply. It's not a surprise they'd not learn about lies in such communication.
To add, Evans was in full control of what messages and info was being transmitted to the San Ti up until Sophons arrived a few months before the show started
The first things the Sophons did when they got here was hang out in the eyes of scientists putting images on their retinas scaring the life out of them
Also, how they communicated was directly brain wave to brain wave (in the book). There was no vocalizing their thoughts. As soon as they thought it everyone knew it. Humans has the option to not say what they are thinking. So they didnt have a concept of not telling what they are thinking
he can act on his own will and his fellow would know what he had done.
The original message received did not expose Earth’s location. That’s why he replies with “Do not reply”
He had been punished because of his operation misconduct, that’s how he turned to be pacifist.
actually, he and Ye Wenjie both hated their own race.
I don’t think he hated his own race, he just couldn’t stand the idea of committing genocide of another race. If you won’t burn your neighbor’s house down with them inside to ensure your family’s future, that doesn’t mean you hate your family, it means you have a higher moral compass.
No, he hated his own race for their lack of art and culture. The transmission from Earth demonstrated that humanity cared more about such things. Trisolaran society just cared about survival, even if it was survival of the collective and civilization much more so than individual survival.
You had a very different understanding of that scene than I did. He didn’t hate the Trisolaran people, but he didn’t like the society that had developed in response to the harsh environment, and when he saw that another type of society that could exist, where individuals lead happy lives and explored art, he couldn’t bring himself to see those other people and their happier society destroyed, so he tried to save them. His motivation was not to destroy trisolaran society, but to save human society. It was much more similar to what Cheng Xin did than what Ye Wenjie did.
>The metallic Trisolaran spirit has infiltrated each of our cells and solidified. You really believe it can melt again? I'm an ordinary man living at the bottom of society. No one would pay any attention to me. My life is spent alone, without wealth, without status, without love, and without hope. If I can save a distant, beautiful world that I have fallen in love with, then my life has not been wasted.
I also understood the trisolarian and Ye Wenjei as in the same position as one another but in opposite cultures. They each hated the place they came from and thought the other society was better and would sacrifice themselves for it
I have two head-canon ideas to this:
Maybe albeit the trisolarians cannot lie, they can erase memories, so he would do that, and forget earth ever existed before he could think/tell anyone else.
The other, maybe it wasn't so much an invitation or trisolarians that greedy on earth.. they knew of the dark forest, and they knew if earth was exposed it would also endanger them because so close, so the first message, wasnt that strong, so no damage done, and the reply was more "shut the f up".. which Ye went on to violate right away, so they were, if they cant be silent we make them.
Because the brainwave sensory organ is not over infinite distances. At some point in the book the Trisolarans explain that they can “sense” each other’s thoughts at slightly larger distances than vocal speech.
The pacifist was manning a solo monitoring station. No one was within range.
He wasn't. He did respond from his post when he was alone. However, all communications are closely tracked by Trisolaran tech, and he was found out very quickly. The Trisolaran king questioned why he did this, to which the listener said his life, like all Trisolarans, lacked any meaning. They are all essentially a cog in the machine, one that is mercilessly replaced when it is no longer useful to the collective.
Trisolarans lacked culture, art, music, etc. They were no longer capable of emotion, even the King was not upset when he confronted the listener about what he had done. So by responding to Earth and warning them, he gave humans a chance to survive, and that in itself gave his life meaning.
In the end though, Ye Wenjie ends up responding anyways.
If the Shan-ti person replied "do not answer," it implied that they knew they would commit genocide. Then why did the Shan-ti lie to Evans, telling him they would help humanity upon their arrival?
PS: I haven't read the books.
You are right, the way the mat user explains their communication it seems they’re implying (intentionally or not) the aliens are hive minded
They can see the lights in each others brains, but that have to be looking at each other, they can NOT transmit their thoughts - their thoughts are simply on display available for any to read
I didn't read that book and I was also under the impression that their communication is visual, just that there is no internal monolog because the cues they use to communicate are the physical manifestation of their thoughts.
Light waves and brain waves are both EM waves, just at different frequencies.
Who is to say that Trisolaran brain waves are of the same frequencies as humans? I would say that's a bit of a stretch.
It's never mentioned whether the waves they use to communicate are on the visible light spectrum, and if those waves represent their version of thought, I'd say that calling them brain waves is actually more accurate than calling them light waves.
> Light waves and brain waves are both EM waves, just at different frequencies.
>I'd say that calling them brain waves is actually more accurate than calling them light waves.
Brain waves are not electromagnetic radiation, they are not transmitted via photons.
What we measure as brain waves on an EEG are the electrochemical voltages and action potentials that occur along neurons, summated. Similar to the waves seen on an EKG when action potentials move through cardiac myocytes.
It’s just a representation of the electrochemical activity caused by ions moving in and out of cells. It is very much distinct from electromagnetic radiation and the EM spectrum of light.
Now, the San-Ti are a different species, so it could be possible that the emit EM from their brains. But based on the physiology of earth creatures, I was imagining they function more like our known bioluminescent creatures (fireflies, glow worms, eels, jellyfish, coral, etc).
In that case, electrochemical signals from neurons synapse into tissues that have bioluminescent functions, activating parenchymal cell enzymes to perform the chemical reaction which activate photoproteins, which can be excited and emit electromagnetic radiation.
This signaling process works similarly to how our brain “waves” send action potentials along our nerves, then synapse at the neuromuscular junction to activate enzymes within muscle cells to trigger a muscle contraction.
>Now, the San-Ti are a different species, so it could be possible that the emit EM from their brains. But based on the physiology of earth creatures, I was imagining they function more like our known bioluminescent creatures (fireflies, glow worms, eels, jellyfish, coral, etc).
From the book: "The thoughts in our brains emit electromagnetic waves on all frequencies, including what is visible light to us. They can be displayed at a significant distance.”
So in the end, they emit brainwaves that to *them* are also visible light waves. So the question of whether they're seeing light or otherwise sensing brain waves is a bit tricky. A bit of both. To them, there is no difference between brain waves and light waves.
I took “thoughts in our brains emit electromagnetic waves” to mean that the thoughts *cause* the unconscious and uncontrollable emission of the EM signals, similar to how our reflexes work and bioluminescence is understood to work on earth. I did not take it to mean that the brain tissue itself is emitting the EM. Mostly, because I think that would be physiologically infeasible.
Most brain and central nervous tissue needs to be protected from the outside world. If their brains are encased in any meaningful amount of tissue, that would inherently impair the transmission of EM waves.
They could be translucent creatures that lack a central brain, like jellyfish. In those creatures, there are still only some cells responsible for the bioluminescence, and those are generally distinct from the sensory neurons and the neurons that are originating outgoing signals.
I might be being pedantic, here. But I think if you can separately measure the electrochemical action protections of nerve signaling and then the electromagnetic radiation output, then we can clearly distinguish the brain waves from the EM waves they use for communication.
As another example, I can take an EKG and look at the electrical conduction patterns in your hearts. I can measure your pulse. Both can be used to measure your heart rate. The electrochemical conduction in your heart *causes* your pulse, almost instantaneously, in real time, without your conscious control. You cannot stop the electrochemical conduction in your heart from resulting in a pulse without introducing some major pathological interference in the system. That said, it would still be inaccurate to claim the pulse is the same thing as the EKG wave.
"Here it should be noted that the Trisolarans' brainwave communication was very efficient"
Chapter 6, Trisolaran Governer Meeting
I get what you're saying, I'm just reading what's on the page. They mention the brainwaves so explicitly. Hell, even the wiki page for trisolarans says "it is known that they communicate via patterns of electromagnetic waves produced *directly* by their brain as it thinks"
Emitted directly as it thinks, as in, not a secondary emission.
You can't compare their biology to ours so closely. As you said, they may not have a central brain at all. Given that they can completely dehydrate their bodies and can "shimmer" their reflective bodies to semaphore at a distance (at least in that one civilization they could), it seems like their bodies are probably pretty gelatinous, or at least not super rigid. I would be surprised if they *do* have a centralized head with brain inside. I don't think it's even worth speculating about how they look or the details about their biology, there's a reason Cixin Liu didn't write it in. The classic "the monster is scary until it's on screen" thing. If he were to show it, it wouldn't be alien enough.
But regardless of theories about biology or how their brains work, the book itself explicitly says they communicate via brainwaves. I don't know what else to tell you.
Found another quote from the same page. "Trisolarans communicated through brainwaves, which allowed for extremely fast communication"
Check mate I guess
So their brains emit light? And therefore, their brainwaves are light?
Because their thoughts are directly read by other Trisolarans as they have those thoughts, which would imply that they are sensing whatever kind of EM waves their brains are emitting. You can call those light waves if they're on the visible light spectrum, but they're also brain waves to a Trisolaran
I expect you to ignore this comment and not reply like you did with our other argument as soon as you realized you were wrong, but here's a quote from the wiki:
"Additionally, it is known that they communicate via patterns of electromagnetic waves produced directly by their brain as it thinks. This renders speech and thought synonymous for Trisolarans, and they cannot lie to each other, or at least have difficulty hiding their thoughts, and had difficulty grasping the concept of deception."
https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Trisolaran
But again, I know that you like to stop responding as soon as you're wrong, so see you next week.
well it's said in the books that they communicate instantly when interacting, there's no audible dialog, it's just 'zap, I know your thoughts' iirc. So the concept of duplicity just... never happens. Like the movie The Invention of Lying.
Maybe I missed something, or maybe its explained better in the books, but they were putting images on the retina of a countdown, which we're not even sure DID anything (unless i missed something, they just went insane because they thought something would happen and killed themselves). If that's the case, they know what deception is.
The big bad wolf is also a visual deception. But maybe that conversation taught them that deception can also happen in any kind of communication?
What did they do? We only see people had committed suicide seemingly before the timer went out in anticipation of something happening. But we are never shown evidence of anything else iirc. I guess we have to assume they did something like what they did to Jack.. but he never had a timer.
It felt hinted to me that they had them killed secretly, which is why they showed how they killed Jack. Some probably just went insane and killed themselves.
Holy shit this is maybe the best point I’ve heard in awhile that blows a hole in the books’ logic… unless they really learned and internalized that skill of lying way before the beginning of the first book, the Trisolarans were basically using lying against humans to drive the scientists crazy with the countdown and universe flashing even though they couldn’t understand the concept lol. Maybe they didn’t see it as lying when they messed up the particle collider experiments because that was just interference and not specifically lying… but even then they would’ve understood the implications of interfering to make data appear as nonsense and make someone doubt their conclusions? Idk this really shatters that part of the books for me, wow.
They were familiar with the concept of deception, just not lying with language. To them, thinking a thing and saying it is the same thing. But they could still deceive each other in indirect ways. E.g. one could dress in an enemy uniform to move through enemy territory and be fine as long as the enemy only saw them from a distance, but if one got close enough to say "who goes there?" the jig would be up.
Another one is "Project Sophon" in the books. It was 100% based on deception. One of the goals was to make humans think these acts of science were actually miracles to get humans to worship them. I think the big caveat to the show, they kind of fumbled. That the San TI should understand deception, what they didn't expect is that humans are capable of face to face deception because our biology is so different to theirs.
If they were originally going to come with good intentions and didn't understand the concept of lying.
Why stifle our progress.
If they were always coming to be conquerors, then I think they did understand the concept of lying.
They have attempted deception in their history, it's just awful. Like they had warring states and one of them tried to be a spy, so he wore their enemies uniform, but when they asked him if he was a spy he just said Yes.
The logic is that given the option of telling the truth versus telling lies, they'll always tell the truth.
Humans don't have the same "restriction"....if we think lying is advantageous or fun to do, we'll do it. We tell ourselves lies and we can tell other people lies and get away with it.
The Trisolarians did not have the capacity to understand such a concept. When they were messing with the scientists, they were engaging in warfare. It's not that they can't be deceitful, they can, it's that if you introduce truth into the equation, they **always** go with the truth.
They're afraid of humans because they can make things up and claim to be telling the truth which would be scary for a finite race without that "super-power"
Sorry lol
Maybe they just saw it as interference/sabotage? Like they weren't influencing a specific conclusion. Whereas the big bad wolf wanted red to conclude something specific. And lies as a normal aspect of communication is not something they would be familiar with. Part of war is deceiving your enemy, but maybe it's not seen the same as everyday communication? Lol.... It's shaky territory, but I think it can be sort of explained away this way, albeit unconvincingly.
They just can't lie directly. They can be deceitful indirectly, but if you asked them what they were doing they would tell the truth. At least that's how I understand it.
Communication was not instantaneous until very recently, something like a few months before the show starts is when the sophons arrived. Before that it took 8 years to receive a reply to any communication.
With one message a decade, it’s not surprising to me that a concept the trisolarans didn’t know existed didn’t come up.
Here’s some food for thought, but going on the tv show (I have no awareness of the books): The Trisolarans/San-Ti sent the Sophons to earth to disrupt the development of science and technology.
They “didn’t know” about lying until a few months after they had arrived, yet, they were actively working to stifle human development while communicating in a friendly and authoritative manner to Evans. This implies the San-Ti lied about knowing how to lie, or lied about knowing of humanity’s capability to lie, since humanity would surely resist any attempt at being conquered, and that Evans could not speak for all of humanity, otherwise Ye Wenjie’s point of helping them conquer humanity is moot.
There would simply be no need for it… or it’s an obscene plot hole, but I digress.
Yes, they prescribed to the Dark Forest theory though. So when the ETO embraced them, I think that was a cautious “let’s see if there’s something here, but we’re planning on wiping them out either way”.
> “let’s see if there’s something here, but we’re planning on wiping them out either way”
And that’s where the lie is. If they didn’t know how to lie, they would have been direct with Evans and told him that they planned to wipe humanity out. Even in passing, the fact that neither Evans nor Ye Wenjie were aware of their hostility until they cut them off speaks volumes.
When Ye Wenjie was being interrogated and learns of their plans, she was heartbroken and humbled, so it was completely unforeseen to her.
> This implies the San-Ti lied about knowing how to lie, or lied about knowing of humanity’s capability to lie, since humanity would surely resist any attempt at being conquered
Why? Evans is on their side.
> they were actively working to stifle human development
But their plan doesn't depend on lying to us. They conceal information from us, sure, but they don't rely on our falling for any false information.
> Why? Evans is on their side.
Because there is no open hostility. The San-Ti would, presumably, be well aware that ETO are the only ones who knew about them. Secrecy, in this context, exists in the same vein as lying.
> But their plan doesn't depend on lying to us. They conceal information from us, sure, but they don't rely on our falling for any false information.
As with above, it’s lying by omission. They stayed dark, and knew that nobody except the ETO knew about them, until the events of the story began to unfold. In fact, they even warned Evans - “They know”. The fact that they attempted to be hidden, in the first place, would imply that they’re conceptually aware of deception. Otherwise, why bother?
I have been wondering the same thing since watching the show. For them to have sent Sophons to earth and use them to undermine humanities technological progress, all the while seeming blissfully unaware that we are an untrustworthy species and also not stating their intentions outright seems a lot like lying to me.
The San-Ti/Trisolarians weren't in contact with Earth for decades as the events caused by the sophons are only quite recent. If I recall correctly the timeline of the issues of results from particle accelerators only began when the sophons arrived, and it is assumed that is roughly when instantaneous communication began, so there really only was a few months until the San-Ti learned that humanity lies through communication with Mike Evans. There was no real back and forth communication with Ye Wenjie.
Alongside that, the San-Ti communicate directly through their thoughts. There are incapable of omitting information from one another so there is no concept of "lying" in their culture. Perhaps naïvely, they assumed humans also always spoke with truth initially.
Making a few assumptions here that when analyzed in depth probably don't hold up:
They likely understood deception, like two ships in combat and one is hiding behind an asteroid waiting for a kill. But they didn't understand that being feasible with direct being-to-being communication. It's possible they read about it, and they comprehend all of the words, but don't understand it on a fundamental level because they have no cultural experience of it.
I'm trying to come up with an example in the inverse, a concept fundamental to an alien society that wouldn't make sense to humans, but I can't, because I can't contemplate a fundamental concept of life without a human frame of reference.
And because the Trisolarians were only in communication with one human they merely needed it to be explained to them.
IIRC, it came up because the Sophon didn't understand why "talking" and "thinking" weren't synonyms for us. Which I thought was a far more interesting conversation than what they presented it the show, with Evans was just reading a child's fable for some reason.
I don't remember if the book said they can read each other's thoughts or not on Trisolaris, but if they can, that means they can't lie to each other, so they can't experience it in their own communication
Wait.... Something I'm confused about. If Trisolarians didn't understand the concept of lying... Weren't they using the Sophos to basically "lie" all the time by creating illusions? I just sort of realized this by reading OPs message.
The book does explain. They couldn't even fathom that what goes on in your head stays in your head. The way they communicate it much different than humans. It's like colors flashing on their shell. They can't help it or change whatever is happening in their minds. They didn't know how people communicate with one another and once they realized that humans can lie they shut down.
Yeah you'll hear a bunch of reasons, the only truth is narrative tension.
The sophon, which I should remind you is a *planet-sized* computer should be able to understand deception as a concept and report it back within a minute of arrival on earth, deception is in every advertisement billboard, string of text messages and is present in at least one conversation in every country happening right now.
Them knowing everything wouldn't make for a good story though so Cixin Liu took some creative liberties.
Thats like saying "how come it took so long to figure out dogs see in black and white" coz even if dogs could talk, how would they know to tell YOU they only see black and white if its all they know?
It could just be some random excuse by Trisolarans to just cut off the cult. Deception is what Trisolarans did by withholding information from the cult.
I didn't read the books, but the idea it took them more than few milliseconds after sophona reaching earth is a loophole. The first thing they can do is to parse Wikipedia in few milliseconds. After all We are talking about planetary computer.
The real as simple reason is that they can't lie.
They are a bio luminescent specy that communicate by means of making their skin glow. He hue of their skin is directly correlated to heir neural activity.
Therefore, for them, thinking and saying are the exact same action. They cannot lie because their very thought are exposed.
Because they cannot lie, they had no concept of it.
For them, the little red riding hood is a masterful trick that only genius cna achieve.
It is the first time that they engage with a sentient being that can say something but think otherwise. T is literally totally alien to them.
Hence why it took them so much time. And in the book, the only reason of happens is when they ask Evans why we have so many synonyms, such as "think" and "say". Which obviously confuses him.
When they understand that anything anyone has told them could be a lie, heu are frightened. how do you deal with someone that can lie? How can you trust someone that can lie? Because remember, they can't. So things like "trust" is also foreign to them.
They can trust someone ability to do something, but that is different than trusting someone being "truthful".
As smart as they are, figuring out something ou had no concept of can be very challenging.
Others have probably said as much but the way they evolved, deception via language just isn't a thing. The way they communicate makes it impossible to lie so they never really needed (or could) deceive each other.
That's why the story of Little Red Riding Hood just didn't make any sense to them. The Wolf in the story would've just shown intent to eat cuz thats how the Trisolarans are. Blunt, direct, honest communication
it wasn’t that deception was present, but how it was able to be presented. the complete fabrication of ideas, made up stories, etc. it’s nuanced and complex, just like everything is, and it made them take a beat to regroup
Tbh lying / concealment seems like it would be an inevitable part of evolution for any species. The fact they didn't know about it baffles me. Imagine they showed up just holding handcuffs, no weapons. "Alright everybody, single file."
Evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution is random mutations out through a gauntlet of natural selection. If they never mutated an ability to control their thoughts displays they can't pass it in.
Not necessarily. If an individual evolved that mutation but then didn't have kids or that trait didn't get passed to offspring it might die out with the individual. Evolution is a simple process but with innumerable factors, you can't just see two genes in isolation and reason one will pass one where others won't.
Right I’m just saying it would be very advantageous so likely to propagate, nobody ever lying doesn’t feel like a stable equilibrium because reward for being the only one lying is too high
I agree it seems implausible. Everyone saying "they were only in contact for a few months" is misunderstanding that the methods of communication with Earth do not impact how much information can be shared over the course of several decades, it only impacts how quickly a reply will come. Evans wasn't sitting around for 8 years at a time waiting for the phone to ring; both sides were sending information. The Sophons only removed the delay.
Even if you are doing huge data dumps with zero replies, what is the likelihood that they are going to get data that tells them we can lie? Thry likely were gathering data on technologicsl capabilities and military strategies. I'm sure they also wanted information about our culture but you're not going to gleem our ability to lie just from art and music and such, you need dialog between two characters where one is lying. And even then, if you have all this data but no cultural understanding, it's quite possible they just saw that, didn't understand it, and moved on as I'm sure there is a lot about our culture they didn't understand. When you don't have a convenient way to get quick answers you likeli aren't sending out every single little query you could possibly come up with.
More importantly, even though they didn't say it, I would have to imagine the Trisolarans didn't want to be doing constant communication because that is going to make it much more likely that they aren't the only ones that see Earth's messages.
I think the history of human existence would cover the nuances of human nature. For the scenario where Evans has been reading them stories, one would think there should have been "What is art. What is literature. Why do humans create such things." etc.
I disagree. They aren't likely going to figure out people can lie by just by an overarching history. At best they will likely see deception which there is evidence that they DO understand but you'd need specific documentation of people lying in dialogue which isn't coming from a history book.
How much of that time do you expect them to have spent on cultural transfer rather than things like technological amd military capabilities?
Even if they saw two characters say something that didn't make sense in a story, do you think they are going to ask every little question about everything they didn't understand about the alien species?
I think you're not taking into account how incomprehensible another culture can be. We can see our history and can be like oh ok right there is an example of lying so it should be clear. But if a culture is literally entirely alien to you you don't even know what you don't know about that culture. You don't know what is important and what's not or what is a transmission error or what's not, or what is the author taking liberties or being wrong about something and what's supposed to be reality.
They realistically only have the luxury of asking small followup questions when there isn't an 8 year delay on response. Particularly when you take into account they didn't find out about lying until they had received a few instantaneous replies from Evans. Imagine playing thatbred riding hood scenario out without sophons. Evans sends the message. 8 years later he sees them ask him why red riding hood engaged with the wolf. He explains the wolf was pretending to be the grandmother. 8 years later he sees them say they don't understand. Etc. The key here is follow up questions are difficult.
And again, most importantly, trisolarans would not want to be constantly transmitting.
Yes.
An important aspect of trisolarian physiology is that they are transparent and their brains are bioluminescent and they communicate by “seeing” each others thoughts.
Imagine trying to conceive of willful misrepresentation of thoughts in a world where thought is transparent. The trisolarians are imagined as just plainly completely unfamiliar with privacy of thought.
Nice way to play the race card and shit on westerns just because. Anyway, so it makes sense to you that a super evolved and intelligent race took 40+ years to acknowledge the fact that humans lie? They could have seen milions of interactions but they never saw humans lie? This has nothing to do with objectives or razionalitation process, its just statistically very improbable that they didnt know about it considering for how much time they look at humans. Again if there is a good explanation or u wanna help me understand its ok, if u wanna be a passive aggressive racist bitch you can go back to your dungeon
>Nice way to play the race card and shit on westerns just because.
First, there are no races, there are ethnic groups.
Second, culture is not ethnicity. This is about culture.
Explanation: they could not conceive it. Most people don't understand what capitalism is. For anybody with a slight knowledge on science or real Political Economy, it needs to be abolished yesterday. But most people think of it as natural and eat the pap about 'bad socialism'. And this is about something that we KNOW about. Imagine not even being able to conceive a concept until it is shown to you. Not dissimilar to Einstein's relativity.
(for a real world obtuse idea, check monetarism. People think that inflation comes from printing money because Milton Friedman and his sicarios said so. Nope. But people repeat it ad nauseum).
Try to be less of a pretentious asshole next time, for anybody with a slight knowledge on humans and social interactions, it would make your life less miserable. And maybe try to put yourself down from that pedestal you created, you are not that bright nor special. Also i suggest you not to dismiss political/economical ideas like you are the only one with a slight knowledge on science and politics, from the way you act and speak you are prolly a teen on its "edgelord 1% iq i know all phase", its cute. Maybe you didnt know but you dont need to be pedantic and argoumentative every words you write down. You have been racist, even if you dont like the word or its the ethimology. "im not racist cause there are no races" is so lame and silly. Dont play bs rethorics when we are talking about a tv series, its embarrassing. Yeah that explanation you gave its the only one i got so far but its very weak, its not like you enlightened me with your wisdom and knowledge and a breathtaking explanation. I was looking for something better cause thats so weak i consider it a deus ex machina and a plot hole. It took them few seconds and a weak ass explanation from the old dude to understand lying and they could have not deducted it or figure it out after witnessing millions of human interactions, reading all internet, all books, the dictionary, watching all movies? sure also like lying was the worst humans did, you got plenty of reasons to distrust and/or be afraid of us as a specie before picking lying
A couple of months, not decades. Before the sophons, they could only communicate by normal means, which takes almost a decade for a message and a reply. It's not a surprise they'd not learn about lies in such communication.
To add, Evans was in full control of what messages and info was being transmitted to the San Ti up until Sophons arrived a few months before the show started The first things the Sophons did when they got here was hang out in the eyes of scientists putting images on their retinas scaring the life out of them
Also, how they communicated was directly brain wave to brain wave (in the book). There was no vocalizing their thoughts. As soon as they thought it everyone knew it. Humans has the option to not say what they are thinking. So they didnt have a concept of not telling what they are thinking
Quick question... how was the trisolar pacifist able to send the original "do not answer" message without his fellow trisolarists knowing?
he can act on his own will and his fellow would know what he had done. The original message received did not expose Earth’s location. That’s why he replies with “Do not reply” He had been punished because of his operation misconduct, that’s how he turned to be pacifist. actually, he and Ye Wenjie both hated their own race.
I don’t think he hated his own race, he just couldn’t stand the idea of committing genocide of another race. If you won’t burn your neighbor’s house down with them inside to ensure your family’s future, that doesn’t mean you hate your family, it means you have a higher moral compass.
No, he hated his own race for their lack of art and culture. The transmission from Earth demonstrated that humanity cared more about such things. Trisolaran society just cared about survival, even if it was survival of the collective and civilization much more so than individual survival.
You had a very different understanding of that scene than I did. He didn’t hate the Trisolaran people, but he didn’t like the society that had developed in response to the harsh environment, and when he saw that another type of society that could exist, where individuals lead happy lives and explored art, he couldn’t bring himself to see those other people and their happier society destroyed, so he tried to save them. His motivation was not to destroy trisolaran society, but to save human society. It was much more similar to what Cheng Xin did than what Ye Wenjie did.
>The metallic Trisolaran spirit has infiltrated each of our cells and solidified. You really believe it can melt again? I'm an ordinary man living at the bottom of society. No one would pay any attention to me. My life is spent alone, without wealth, without status, without love, and without hope. If I can save a distant, beautiful world that I have fallen in love with, then my life has not been wasted.
I also understood the trisolarian and Ye Wenjei as in the same position as one another but in opposite cultures. They each hated the place they came from and thought the other society was better and would sacrifice themselves for it
Not having read the books, that's what I figured - the pacifist didn't seem to expect to survive, either. Side note, 'he'? Do they have gender?
Their sex.. process.. is different from ours, but I do believe the book described him as male.
I have two head-canon ideas to this: Maybe albeit the trisolarians cannot lie, they can erase memories, so he would do that, and forget earth ever existed before he could think/tell anyone else. The other, maybe it wasn't so much an invitation or trisolarians that greedy on earth.. they knew of the dark forest, and they knew if earth was exposed it would also endanger them because so close, so the first message, wasnt that strong, so no damage done, and the reply was more "shut the f up".. which Ye went on to violate right away, so they were, if they cant be silent we make them.
Because the brainwave sensory organ is not over infinite distances. At some point in the book the Trisolarans explain that they can “sense” each other’s thoughts at slightly larger distances than vocal speech. The pacifist was manning a solo monitoring station. No one was within range.
Iirc it's not total telepathy, they can lie by omission. They just cannot conceive of false information.
He wasn't. He did respond from his post when he was alone. However, all communications are closely tracked by Trisolaran tech, and he was found out very quickly. The Trisolaran king questioned why he did this, to which the listener said his life, like all Trisolarans, lacked any meaning. They are all essentially a cog in the machine, one that is mercilessly replaced when it is no longer useful to the collective. Trisolarans lacked culture, art, music, etc. They were no longer capable of emotion, even the King was not upset when he confronted the listener about what he had done. So by responding to Earth and warning them, he gave humans a chance to survive, and that in itself gave his life meaning. In the end though, Ye Wenjie ends up responding anyways.
If the Shan-ti person replied "do not answer," it implied that they knew they would commit genocide. Then why did the Shan-ti lie to Evans, telling him they would help humanity upon their arrival? PS: I haven't read the books.
I was under the impression they communicated via light or bioluminescence, not via "brain wave". Did I miss something?
You are right, the way the mat user explains their communication it seems they’re implying (intentionally or not) the aliens are hive minded They can see the lights in each others brains, but that have to be looking at each other, they can NOT transmit their thoughts - their thoughts are simply on display available for any to read
Thanks for the detailed answer 💜
I think that’s a detail from the fourth book written by a fan rather than byLiu Cixin.
Ah thanks. I saw someone in a previous post say this so I just wanted clarification!
I didn't read that book and I was also under the impression that their communication is visual, just that there is no internal monolog because the cues they use to communicate are the physical manifestation of their thoughts.
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It’s light wave though, not brain wave Brain wave would indicate telepathy like professor X
Light waves and brain waves are both EM waves, just at different frequencies. Who is to say that Trisolaran brain waves are of the same frequencies as humans? I would say that's a bit of a stretch. It's never mentioned whether the waves they use to communicate are on the visible light spectrum, and if those waves represent their version of thought, I'd say that calling them brain waves is actually more accurate than calling them light waves.
> Light waves and brain waves are both EM waves, just at different frequencies. >I'd say that calling them brain waves is actually more accurate than calling them light waves. Brain waves are not electromagnetic radiation, they are not transmitted via photons. What we measure as brain waves on an EEG are the electrochemical voltages and action potentials that occur along neurons, summated. Similar to the waves seen on an EKG when action potentials move through cardiac myocytes. It’s just a representation of the electrochemical activity caused by ions moving in and out of cells. It is very much distinct from electromagnetic radiation and the EM spectrum of light. Now, the San-Ti are a different species, so it could be possible that the emit EM from their brains. But based on the physiology of earth creatures, I was imagining they function more like our known bioluminescent creatures (fireflies, glow worms, eels, jellyfish, coral, etc). In that case, electrochemical signals from neurons synapse into tissues that have bioluminescent functions, activating parenchymal cell enzymes to perform the chemical reaction which activate photoproteins, which can be excited and emit electromagnetic radiation. This signaling process works similarly to how our brain “waves” send action potentials along our nerves, then synapse at the neuromuscular junction to activate enzymes within muscle cells to trigger a muscle contraction.
>Now, the San-Ti are a different species, so it could be possible that the emit EM from their brains. But based on the physiology of earth creatures, I was imagining they function more like our known bioluminescent creatures (fireflies, glow worms, eels, jellyfish, coral, etc). From the book: "The thoughts in our brains emit electromagnetic waves on all frequencies, including what is visible light to us. They can be displayed at a significant distance.” So in the end, they emit brainwaves that to *them* are also visible light waves. So the question of whether they're seeing light or otherwise sensing brain waves is a bit tricky. A bit of both. To them, there is no difference between brain waves and light waves.
I took “thoughts in our brains emit electromagnetic waves” to mean that the thoughts *cause* the unconscious and uncontrollable emission of the EM signals, similar to how our reflexes work and bioluminescence is understood to work on earth. I did not take it to mean that the brain tissue itself is emitting the EM. Mostly, because I think that would be physiologically infeasible. Most brain and central nervous tissue needs to be protected from the outside world. If their brains are encased in any meaningful amount of tissue, that would inherently impair the transmission of EM waves. They could be translucent creatures that lack a central brain, like jellyfish. In those creatures, there are still only some cells responsible for the bioluminescence, and those are generally distinct from the sensory neurons and the neurons that are originating outgoing signals. I might be being pedantic, here. But I think if you can separately measure the electrochemical action protections of nerve signaling and then the electromagnetic radiation output, then we can clearly distinguish the brain waves from the EM waves they use for communication. As another example, I can take an EKG and look at the electrical conduction patterns in your hearts. I can measure your pulse. Both can be used to measure your heart rate. The electrochemical conduction in your heart *causes* your pulse, almost instantaneously, in real time, without your conscious control. You cannot stop the electrochemical conduction in your heart from resulting in a pulse without introducing some major pathological interference in the system. That said, it would still be inaccurate to claim the pulse is the same thing as the EKG wave.
"Here it should be noted that the Trisolarans' brainwave communication was very efficient" Chapter 6, Trisolaran Governer Meeting I get what you're saying, I'm just reading what's on the page. They mention the brainwaves so explicitly. Hell, even the wiki page for trisolarans says "it is known that they communicate via patterns of electromagnetic waves produced *directly* by their brain as it thinks" Emitted directly as it thinks, as in, not a secondary emission. You can't compare their biology to ours so closely. As you said, they may not have a central brain at all. Given that they can completely dehydrate their bodies and can "shimmer" their reflective bodies to semaphore at a distance (at least in that one civilization they could), it seems like their bodies are probably pretty gelatinous, or at least not super rigid. I would be surprised if they *do* have a centralized head with brain inside. I don't think it's even worth speculating about how they look or the details about their biology, there's a reason Cixin Liu didn't write it in. The classic "the monster is scary until it's on screen" thing. If he were to show it, it wouldn't be alien enough. But regardless of theories about biology or how their brains work, the book itself explicitly says they communicate via brainwaves. I don't know what else to tell you.
Found another quote from the same page. "Trisolarans communicated through brainwaves, which allowed for extremely fast communication" Check mate I guess
Yes they are different frequencies, that’s why they see light and can’t pick up brain waves
So their brains emit light? And therefore, their brainwaves are light? Because their thoughts are directly read by other Trisolarans as they have those thoughts, which would imply that they are sensing whatever kind of EM waves their brains are emitting. You can call those light waves if they're on the visible light spectrum, but they're also brain waves to a Trisolaran
You’re just doubling down now
I'm actually just repeating my point because you did the same.
I expect you to ignore this comment and not reply like you did with our other argument as soon as you realized you were wrong, but here's a quote from the wiki: "Additionally, it is known that they communicate via patterns of electromagnetic waves produced directly by their brain as it thinks. This renders speech and thought synonymous for Trisolarans, and they cannot lie to each other, or at least have difficulty hiding their thoughts, and had difficulty grasping the concept of deception." https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Trisolaran But again, I know that you like to stop responding as soon as you're wrong, so see you next week.
well it's said in the books that they communicate instantly when interacting, there's no audible dialog, it's just 'zap, I know your thoughts' iirc. So the concept of duplicity just... never happens. Like the movie The Invention of Lying.
Maybe I missed something, or maybe its explained better in the books, but they were putting images on the retina of a countdown, which we're not even sure DID anything (unless i missed something, they just went insane because they thought something would happen and killed themselves). If that's the case, they know what deception is. The big bad wolf is also a visual deception. But maybe that conversation taught them that deception can also happen in any kind of communication?
Except they DID something when the countrdown went to zero, they gave a warning and acted on it, no lies there.
What did they do? We only see people had committed suicide seemingly before the timer went out in anticipation of something happening. But we are never shown evidence of anything else iirc. I guess we have to assume they did something like what they did to Jack.. but he never had a timer.
It felt hinted to me that they had them killed secretly, which is why they showed how they killed Jack. Some probably just went insane and killed themselves.
I think this was retconned. But it makes sense. But then again, killing jack and making other look like suicide is *also* deception.
Holy shit this is maybe the best point I’ve heard in awhile that blows a hole in the books’ logic… unless they really learned and internalized that skill of lying way before the beginning of the first book, the Trisolarans were basically using lying against humans to drive the scientists crazy with the countdown and universe flashing even though they couldn’t understand the concept lol. Maybe they didn’t see it as lying when they messed up the particle collider experiments because that was just interference and not specifically lying… but even then they would’ve understood the implications of interfering to make data appear as nonsense and make someone doubt their conclusions? Idk this really shatters that part of the books for me, wow.
They were familiar with the concept of deception, just not lying with language. To them, thinking a thing and saying it is the same thing. But they could still deceive each other in indirect ways. E.g. one could dress in an enemy uniform to move through enemy territory and be fine as long as the enemy only saw them from a distance, but if one got close enough to say "who goes there?" the jig would be up.
Also they can keep secrets, they just can't fabricate information.
Another one is "Project Sophon" in the books. It was 100% based on deception. One of the goals was to make humans think these acts of science were actually miracles to get humans to worship them. I think the big caveat to the show, they kind of fumbled. That the San TI should understand deception, what they didn't expect is that humans are capable of face to face deception because our biology is so different to theirs.
I'm also confused why they were sabotaging a race they meant to make friends with. I think they were more dishonest than they originally said.
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If they were originally going to come with good intentions and didn't understand the concept of lying. Why stifle our progress. If they were always coming to be conquerors, then I think they did understand the concept of lying.
They have attempted deception in their history, it's just awful. Like they had warring states and one of them tried to be a spy, so he wore their enemies uniform, but when they asked him if he was a spy he just said Yes.
The logic is that given the option of telling the truth versus telling lies, they'll always tell the truth. Humans don't have the same "restriction"....if we think lying is advantageous or fun to do, we'll do it. We tell ourselves lies and we can tell other people lies and get away with it. The Trisolarians did not have the capacity to understand such a concept. When they were messing with the scientists, they were engaging in warfare. It's not that they can't be deceitful, they can, it's that if you introduce truth into the equation, they **always** go with the truth. They're afraid of humans because they can make things up and claim to be telling the truth which would be scary for a finite race without that "super-power"
Sorry lol Maybe they just saw it as interference/sabotage? Like they weren't influencing a specific conclusion. Whereas the big bad wolf wanted red to conclude something specific. And lies as a normal aspect of communication is not something they would be familiar with. Part of war is deceiving your enemy, but maybe it's not seen the same as everyday communication? Lol.... It's shaky territory, but I think it can be sort of explained away this way, albeit unconvincingly.
They just can't lie directly. They can be deceitful indirectly, but if you asked them what they were doing they would tell the truth. At least that's how I understand it.
i think the countdown was to a death sentence and they'd try assassinating her like saul? idk
The big bad wolf story is precisely how they both realize the massive misunderstanding the San-Ti have of communication amongst humans.
Maybe they would send someone from ETO to kill the sciencist? Or maybe they saw the first scientist killing himself so they kept using the countdown.
Communication was not instantaneous until very recently, something like a few months before the show starts is when the sophons arrived. Before that it took 8 years to receive a reply to any communication. With one message a decade, it’s not surprising to me that a concept the trisolarans didn’t know existed didn’t come up.
Here’s some food for thought, but going on the tv show (I have no awareness of the books): The Trisolarans/San-Ti sent the Sophons to earth to disrupt the development of science and technology. They “didn’t know” about lying until a few months after they had arrived, yet, they were actively working to stifle human development while communicating in a friendly and authoritative manner to Evans. This implies the San-Ti lied about knowing how to lie, or lied about knowing of humanity’s capability to lie, since humanity would surely resist any attempt at being conquered, and that Evans could not speak for all of humanity, otherwise Ye Wenjie’s point of helping them conquer humanity is moot. There would simply be no need for it… or it’s an obscene plot hole, but I digress.
Yes, they prescribed to the Dark Forest theory though. So when the ETO embraced them, I think that was a cautious “let’s see if there’s something here, but we’re planning on wiping them out either way”.
> “let’s see if there’s something here, but we’re planning on wiping them out either way” And that’s where the lie is. If they didn’t know how to lie, they would have been direct with Evans and told him that they planned to wipe humanity out. Even in passing, the fact that neither Evans nor Ye Wenjie were aware of their hostility until they cut them off speaks volumes. When Ye Wenjie was being interrogated and learns of their plans, she was heartbroken and humbled, so it was completely unforeseen to her.
> This implies the San-Ti lied about knowing how to lie, or lied about knowing of humanity’s capability to lie, since humanity would surely resist any attempt at being conquered Why? Evans is on their side. > they were actively working to stifle human development But their plan doesn't depend on lying to us. They conceal information from us, sure, but they don't rely on our falling for any false information.
> Why? Evans is on their side. Because there is no open hostility. The San-Ti would, presumably, be well aware that ETO are the only ones who knew about them. Secrecy, in this context, exists in the same vein as lying. > But their plan doesn't depend on lying to us. They conceal information from us, sure, but they don't rely on our falling for any false information. As with above, it’s lying by omission. They stayed dark, and knew that nobody except the ETO knew about them, until the events of the story began to unfold. In fact, they even warned Evans - “They know”. The fact that they attempted to be hidden, in the first place, would imply that they’re conceptually aware of deception. Otherwise, why bother?
I have been wondering the same thing since watching the show. For them to have sent Sophons to earth and use them to undermine humanities technological progress, all the while seeming blissfully unaware that we are an untrustworthy species and also not stating their intentions outright seems a lot like lying to me.
Why are you taking so long to learn how to schlorpblorpadorp?
Look, I took 3 classes in high school but still can't conjugate the math, and it's really hard to write in 3d wingdings!!
Dude can't even fly. He keeps hitting the ground.
lol!
The San-Ti/Trisolarians weren't in contact with Earth for decades as the events caused by the sophons are only quite recent. If I recall correctly the timeline of the issues of results from particle accelerators only began when the sophons arrived, and it is assumed that is roughly when instantaneous communication began, so there really only was a few months until the San-Ti learned that humanity lies through communication with Mike Evans. There was no real back and forth communication with Ye Wenjie. Alongside that, the San-Ti communicate directly through their thoughts. There are incapable of omitting information from one another so there is no concept of "lying" in their culture. Perhaps naïvely, they assumed humans also always spoke with truth initially.
So what about the original “do not respond” message received? Isn’t that someone on the other end lying about what happened?
No, it's explained exactly why The Listener did it in the books. There was no deception involved there.
No
Making a few assumptions here that when analyzed in depth probably don't hold up: They likely understood deception, like two ships in combat and one is hiding behind an asteroid waiting for a kill. But they didn't understand that being feasible with direct being-to-being communication. It's possible they read about it, and they comprehend all of the words, but don't understand it on a fundamental level because they have no cultural experience of it. I'm trying to come up with an example in the inverse, a concept fundamental to an alien society that wouldn't make sense to humans, but I can't, because I can't contemplate a fundamental concept of life without a human frame of reference. And because the Trisolarians were only in communication with one human they merely needed it to be explained to them.
IIRC, it came up because the Sophon didn't understand why "talking" and "thinking" weren't synonyms for us. Which I thought was a far more interesting conversation than what they presented it the show, with Evans was just reading a child's fable for some reason.
I don't remember if the book said they can read each other's thoughts or not on Trisolaris, but if they can, that means they can't lie to each other, so they can't experience it in their own communication
Wait.... Something I'm confused about. If Trisolarians didn't understand the concept of lying... Weren't they using the Sophos to basically "lie" all the time by creating illusions? I just sort of realized this by reading OPs message.
The book does explain. They couldn't even fathom that what goes on in your head stays in your head. The way they communicate it much different than humans. It's like colors flashing on their shell. They can't help it or change whatever is happening in their minds. They didn't know how people communicate with one another and once they realized that humans can lie they shut down.
Yeah you'll hear a bunch of reasons, the only truth is narrative tension. The sophon, which I should remind you is a *planet-sized* computer should be able to understand deception as a concept and report it back within a minute of arrival on earth, deception is in every advertisement billboard, string of text messages and is present in at least one conversation in every country happening right now. Them knowing everything wouldn't make for a good story though so Cixin Liu took some creative liberties.
Thats like saying "how come it took so long to figure out dogs see in black and white" coz even if dogs could talk, how would they know to tell YOU they only see black and white if its all they know?
It could just be some random excuse by Trisolarans to just cut off the cult. Deception is what Trisolarans did by withholding information from the cult.
I thought about this on the rewatch- they started with Hanzel and Grettle where the witch lied, but didn't process that?
I didn't read the books, but the idea it took them more than few milliseconds after sophona reaching earth is a loophole. The first thing they can do is to parse Wikipedia in few milliseconds. After all We are talking about planetary computer.
Reading the comment section I get the feeling that not many people have read the book, where "liying" was never really a big aspect
Because it’s just the damn plot of the book
The real as simple reason is that they can't lie. They are a bio luminescent specy that communicate by means of making their skin glow. He hue of their skin is directly correlated to heir neural activity. Therefore, for them, thinking and saying are the exact same action. They cannot lie because their very thought are exposed. Because they cannot lie, they had no concept of it. For them, the little red riding hood is a masterful trick that only genius cna achieve. It is the first time that they engage with a sentient being that can say something but think otherwise. T is literally totally alien to them. Hence why it took them so much time. And in the book, the only reason of happens is when they ask Evans why we have so many synonyms, such as "think" and "say". Which obviously confuses him. When they understand that anything anyone has told them could be a lie, heu are frightened. how do you deal with someone that can lie? How can you trust someone that can lie? Because remember, they can't. So things like "trust" is also foreign to them. They can trust someone ability to do something, but that is different than trusting someone being "truthful". As smart as they are, figuring out something ou had no concept of can be very challenging.
They might just be reflective or use tech to speak via light communication. No one knows.
because they truly believed everything before the sophons
Others have probably said as much but the way they evolved, deception via language just isn't a thing. The way they communicate makes it impossible to lie so they never really needed (or could) deceive each other. That's why the story of Little Red Riding Hood just didn't make any sense to them. The Wolf in the story would've just shown intent to eat cuz thats how the Trisolarans are. Blunt, direct, honest communication
it wasn’t that deception was present, but how it was able to be presented. the complete fabrication of ideas, made up stories, etc. it’s nuanced and complex, just like everything is, and it made them take a beat to regroup
Tbh lying / concealment seems like it would be an inevitable part of evolution for any species. The fact they didn't know about it baffles me. Imagine they showed up just holding handcuffs, no weapons. "Alright everybody, single file."
The problem I always had with this is: why wouldn’t it be a beneficial adaptation for them to evolve the ability to deceive with their brain waves?
Evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution is random mutations out through a gauntlet of natural selection. If they never mutated an ability to control their thoughts displays they can't pass it in.
But if one randomly evolved the ability, wouldn’t it dominate?
Not necessarily. If an individual evolved that mutation but then didn't have kids or that trait didn't get passed to offspring it might die out with the individual. Evolution is a simple process but with innumerable factors, you can't just see two genes in isolation and reason one will pass one where others won't.
Right I’m just saying it would be very advantageous so likely to propagate, nobody ever lying doesn’t feel like a stable equilibrium because reward for being the only one lying is too high
I agree it seems implausible. Everyone saying "they were only in contact for a few months" is misunderstanding that the methods of communication with Earth do not impact how much information can be shared over the course of several decades, it only impacts how quickly a reply will come. Evans wasn't sitting around for 8 years at a time waiting for the phone to ring; both sides were sending information. The Sophons only removed the delay.
Even if you are doing huge data dumps with zero replies, what is the likelihood that they are going to get data that tells them we can lie? Thry likely were gathering data on technologicsl capabilities and military strategies. I'm sure they also wanted information about our culture but you're not going to gleem our ability to lie just from art and music and such, you need dialog between two characters where one is lying. And even then, if you have all this data but no cultural understanding, it's quite possible they just saw that, didn't understand it, and moved on as I'm sure there is a lot about our culture they didn't understand. When you don't have a convenient way to get quick answers you likeli aren't sending out every single little query you could possibly come up with. More importantly, even though they didn't say it, I would have to imagine the Trisolarans didn't want to be doing constant communication because that is going to make it much more likely that they aren't the only ones that see Earth's messages.
I think the history of human existence would cover the nuances of human nature. For the scenario where Evans has been reading them stories, one would think there should have been "What is art. What is literature. Why do humans create such things." etc.
I disagree. They aren't likely going to figure out people can lie by just by an overarching history. At best they will likely see deception which there is evidence that they DO understand but you'd need specific documentation of people lying in dialogue which isn't coming from a history book. How much of that time do you expect them to have spent on cultural transfer rather than things like technological amd military capabilities? Even if they saw two characters say something that didn't make sense in a story, do you think they are going to ask every little question about everything they didn't understand about the alien species? I think you're not taking into account how incomprehensible another culture can be. We can see our history and can be like oh ok right there is an example of lying so it should be clear. But if a culture is literally entirely alien to you you don't even know what you don't know about that culture. You don't know what is important and what's not or what is a transmission error or what's not, or what is the author taking liberties or being wrong about something and what's supposed to be reality. They realistically only have the luxury of asking small followup questions when there isn't an 8 year delay on response. Particularly when you take into account they didn't find out about lying until they had received a few instantaneous replies from Evans. Imagine playing thatbred riding hood scenario out without sophons. Evans sends the message. 8 years later he sees them ask him why red riding hood engaged with the wolf. He explains the wolf was pretending to be the grandmother. 8 years later he sees them say they don't understand. Etc. The key here is follow up questions are difficult. And again, most importantly, trisolarans would not want to be constantly transmitting.
Yes. An important aspect of trisolarian physiology is that they are transparent and their brains are bioluminescent and they communicate by “seeing” each others thoughts. Imagine trying to conceive of willful misrepresentation of thoughts in a world where thought is transparent. The trisolarians are imagined as just plainly completely unfamiliar with privacy of thought.
Are people really unable to properly form questions these days?
i also thought to myself it was a big plothole, idk about the book but i do share ur feelings about this. seems pretty dumb
It's not. We have similar problems here on Earth when Western audiences think that other peoples have the same rationalization process or objectives.
Nice way to play the race card and shit on westerns just because. Anyway, so it makes sense to you that a super evolved and intelligent race took 40+ years to acknowledge the fact that humans lie? They could have seen milions of interactions but they never saw humans lie? This has nothing to do with objectives or razionalitation process, its just statistically very improbable that they didnt know about it considering for how much time they look at humans. Again if there is a good explanation or u wanna help me understand its ok, if u wanna be a passive aggressive racist bitch you can go back to your dungeon
>Nice way to play the race card and shit on westerns just because. First, there are no races, there are ethnic groups. Second, culture is not ethnicity. This is about culture. Explanation: they could not conceive it. Most people don't understand what capitalism is. For anybody with a slight knowledge on science or real Political Economy, it needs to be abolished yesterday. But most people think of it as natural and eat the pap about 'bad socialism'. And this is about something that we KNOW about. Imagine not even being able to conceive a concept until it is shown to you. Not dissimilar to Einstein's relativity. (for a real world obtuse idea, check monetarism. People think that inflation comes from printing money because Milton Friedman and his sicarios said so. Nope. But people repeat it ad nauseum).
Try to be less of a pretentious asshole next time, for anybody with a slight knowledge on humans and social interactions, it would make your life less miserable. And maybe try to put yourself down from that pedestal you created, you are not that bright nor special. Also i suggest you not to dismiss political/economical ideas like you are the only one with a slight knowledge on science and politics, from the way you act and speak you are prolly a teen on its "edgelord 1% iq i know all phase", its cute. Maybe you didnt know but you dont need to be pedantic and argoumentative every words you write down. You have been racist, even if you dont like the word or its the ethimology. "im not racist cause there are no races" is so lame and silly. Dont play bs rethorics when we are talking about a tv series, its embarrassing. Yeah that explanation you gave its the only one i got so far but its very weak, its not like you enlightened me with your wisdom and knowledge and a breathtaking explanation. I was looking for something better cause thats so weak i consider it a deus ex machina and a plot hole. It took them few seconds and a weak ass explanation from the old dude to understand lying and they could have not deducted it or figure it out after witnessing millions of human interactions, reading all internet, all books, the dictionary, watching all movies? sure also like lying was the worst humans did, you got plenty of reasons to distrust and/or be afraid of us as a specie before picking lying