Last week, an essay of a hipster from mainland China aroused controversy. He stated that China can use nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean, Himalayas and Sichuan in order to combat the U.S. and destroy the whole world. Netizens in China found that he plagiarized the plot from Liu Cixin’s Three-Body, an award-winning science fiction. Therefore, some suspect Three-Body is also promoting this kind of State Terrorism.

In a country promoting extreme nationalism, everything can be twisted into patriotism, like what they did to the Bible. Actually, Three-Body is nothing about the crazy hipster’s extreme nationalism. Instead, it raises profound questions about humanity. The story is about Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist, who accidentally contacted another species in the universe, which the Earth called it as Three-Body civilization. Three-Body wants to colonize the Earth as their solar system is highly unstable. Ye welcomes their invasion because she’s desperate about the stupidity and atrocity of humans. She watches her Dad being beaten to death during the Cultural Revolution. Anyhow, it takes two hundred years for the Three-Body civilisation to reach the Earth. Thus, Three-Body sent two supercomputers which take up just the volume of a proton. It limits the growth of physics on the Earth and therefore the technology of humans will not surpass the Three-Body civilisation. Interestingly, when humans realise that, some of them actually welcome the Three-Body to destroy or educate them since they believe the human species to be hopeless.

It’s not rare to see this line of thinking. Evolutionary biologists may tell you, if humans are clever and civilised enough, they will spend all their effort, resources and time to solve the environmental problem since that is what may eventually cause the extinction of the species. However, till now, no substantial effort has been made. Humans, as a whole, still don’t have any sense of urgency to solve the problem.

World politics is a manifestation of the hopelessness of humankind as well. We, Hong Kongers may find it rewarding to have global support now. But don’t forget we have suffered for a long time and sacrificed lives to show the world the wrongdoings of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. The world should not even have given the Chinese government another chance owing to the June 4th Massacre. Xinjiang Detention Camps are still in operation every day. Countless rights-defense lawyers and activists are imprisoned in China. In other countries in the so-called global village, similar cases can be found. Palestine is one of the tragic orphans of world politics. As the U.S. needs an agent in the Middle East, no one is able to help ease the suppression from Israel. The injustice of international relations means humans only possess limited abilities in solving problems through conversation and collaboration.

Max Weber, one of the fathers of sociology, said humans have two kinds of rationality: instrumental and value. Instrumental rationality provides intellectual tools which are value-free. Value rationality provides legitimate rules and moral valuations. Jürgen Habermas, a contemporary philosopher, conceived communicative rationality to resolve the conflict between the above-mentioned rationalities. Communicative rationality describes human rationality as a necessary outcome of successful communication. To Habermas, humans are capable of tackling any problems through a rational communicative process that accommodates everyone.

As long as we demand a more just world, we may need another stage of evolution: to fully utilize our rationality and not to turn a blind eye on any victims in the world. Hence, probably, we don’t have to worry about the splitting up of humans in facing the imaginary aliens' attack.

(Pat To Yan, Active in Hong Kong and German Theatre. Playwright, Director, Lecturer. Elected Council Member and the Chairman of the committee of Literary Art of Hong Kong Arts Development Council.)

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