The world enters the age of myth

Everyone was in front of the screen, thinking about it.

This ability is so weird!

Weird...even dangerous to the extreme!

However, it turns out to be an important opportunity to become an interstellar civilization!

“Can culture also be modified?”

"Of course you can. It's more difficult to modify culture and the more aspects are involved."

For example, there is a culture in the West called "rebound sex", which means that after a breakup, women will randomly find a man to be a backup, and it is not impossible to even go to bed directly. In the West, this is a relatively common phenomenon. People were not surprised by this, and no one said anything.

In the East, although it is common to find a spare tire, it is morally condemned.

This is the difference in acceptance of a certain concept from a cultural perspective.

Now, through the concept rewriting device, the moral acceptance of "looking for a spare tire" can be rewritten at will.

You can set it anywhere from 0%, where everyone despises this behavior, to 100%, where everyone accepts this behavior.

But you must know that the rewriting of a concept will involve aspects of social development methods and will also bring about a large number of butterfly effects.

If you want everyone to despise the behavior of looking for a spare tire, then this society must have extremely high moral requirements and even a society with solidified morals. It is not surprising that something like the "Three Guidelines and Five Constant Rules" has evolved.

If the acceptance of "the behavior of looking for a spare tire" is 100%, then the institution of marriage will inevitably cease to exist, and human society will evolve further.

There are many similar concepts, and you can even create a concept out of thin air, such as "put on a ring." Everyone must wear a ring.

But the consequences are difficult to judge. It's possible that the ring suddenly went out of stock, and the relevant manufacturers made a fortune; it's also possible that people without rings were heartbroken and became slaves of those with rings, and even in huge In agony, they committed suicide one after another.

This consequence depends on the strength of the "concept". A concept that is too strong is obviously inappropriate.

Faced with such a complex and vast universe-like ability, Lu Yiming didn't know what to say.

Obviously, the humans in the City of Clouds themselves are unable to use this ability.

The final result of blind changes will most likely be worse, not better.

"... Are there any template samples that have been successfully modified?"

"Of course there are. We have currently collected 11,289 thinking templates of interstellar civilizations. If your civilization is willing to abandon its entire culture, it is feasible to choose any thinking template."

"So many interstellar civilizations...the number is really quite large."

However, no one is willing to give up his heritage, abandon everything, and choose the culture of another civilization.

It's like Westernizing all the thoughts of the Xia people and abandoning everything, which is really impossible.

"You don't need to worry. Many civilizations need hundreds or even thousands of years to prepare for this step. The number of fine-tuning of the overall civilization's thinking is tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of times.

"Since each civilization's cultural history is different, we will not give any detailed recommendations."

…

About sixteen hours later, this expedition team came out of this base.

This time, the harvest was so great, and it also faced real challenges, that everyone was silent and didn't know what they were thinking.

Interstellar civilization... was actually achieved through this method!

This is a shortcut, a dangerous but rewarding shortcut!

"Army, how's the situation?" asked a soldier guarding the door.

"Down there is a large industrial factory. We also found some biological computers and some artificial intelligence."

"Close the door first to prevent monsters from entering." Lu Yiming swallowed: "This may be our long-term scientific research base in the future. The engineering team's future key construction direction will be here."

"yes!"

Fortunately, this place is not far from the main base. It is more than 40 kilometers away. If a railway is pulled over, the basic defense facilities can be completed in one or two months.

After this, the expert team can officially enter the scientific ruins for inspection.

What makes Lu Yiming feel worried is another point.

Regarding the problem of thinking modification... it is really too vast and complicated.

…

In the following report meeting, Lu Yiming focused on what the expedition team saw and heard in the ruins of Akala civilization.

Even though everyone was highly mentally prepared, they still felt frightened.

"This time, we have gained a lot. The technological artifacts in the ruins can be moved at will. Except for the life-sustaining products of Xia Civilization's artificial intelligence, we can pack everything away."

"There are quite a lot of technological creations in it. The number of robots is conservatively estimated to be more than 300,000, and the number of various large machine tools and generators is also tens of thousands. Among them, a large tokamak device was found on the 29th floor."

"This nuclear fusion device should be a project developed locally by the Akala civilization. We have the possibility of imitating it."

Xia Wenming's technological products are so high-end that if you don't understand the principles, you won't be able to understand them even if you get the actual product.

It's like people in the Qing Dynasty suddenly got an electronic computer. At most, they could only learn how to use the computer. It was almost impossible to copy and create one by themselves.

However, the scientific and technological level of Akara Civilization is much lower than that of Xia Civilization, and it must be of greater reference significance to current human beings.

The meal has to be eaten in bites and the road has to be walked step by step. Being able to find these things is already very satisfying.

As long as a large-scale nuclear fusion device is obtained, the energy problem will be completely solved and industrial capabilities can be further improved.

"But regarding the request made by Xia Wenming Artificial Intelligence, we did not directly agree or reject it. As long as we help build the Worldwide Fulcrum, they will all join us. The risks and benefits brought about by this need to be addressed. A certain level of assessment.”

"There is also the issue of thinking modification. The development of interstellar civilization is not just the development of productivity, but an all-round qualitative change. The society of interstellar civilization is completely different from our current society. The improvement of productivity can be easily , but it is difficult for people to change their minds..."

On this point, members in the conference room had a long debate.

Human thinking is actually a very private thing.

Black technology like tampering with thinking...

In fact, it is difficult for most people to accept it.

It can even be said to be unacceptable.

"In this case, there is still a big potential problem." A scholar questioned: "Since thinking modification is a shortcut to interstellar civilization, why did the Akala civilization fall so quickly?"

"Shouldn't they be a true interstellar civilization?"

"Because this involves something called a 'thinking trap'." Another expert explained: "It is difficult for people to understand themselves."

"I have modified my own thinking. Can I notice it? It's very difficult. Everyone is changing. Not only the body is changing, but also the psychology is changing. The person I am at one moment is different from the person I am at the next moment. I have changed to a certain extent, it’s almost impossible to detect, right?”

"So, everyone is constantly changing."

"The same goes for the rewriting of thinking concepts. This kind of rewriting is an almost imperceptible switch. Just like last time, the concept of the moon was rewritten by a powerful creature. Didn't we notice it at all?"

"So, in the long-term process of fine-tuning our thinking, we will slowly rewrite the concepts that we think are "bad" and enter a state that we think is perfect. But in fact, it is only a local optimal solution, not a global solution. Optimal solution."

"To give a simple example, the concept of 'freedom' is understood differently by Eastern civilization and Western civilization. We think our understanding is better, and they also think their understanding is better. Who is right and who is wrong? Everyone Everyone thinks they are right.”

"The tolerance level for 'marital infidelity' is currently not high. If 0 represents absolute intolerance and 100 represents absolute tolerance, then the current level of 20 is equivalent to relative intolerance."

"If we change it to 100, 'marital infidelity' will be a natural social phenomenon, just like people are born to breathe and eat, and we have a huge tolerance for it. And there is a high probability that we will not Rewrite this thing again because it is natural and something that everyone accepts, even if our society will be changed beyond recognition because of the rewriting of this concept.”

"I see!"

Lu Yiming knocked on the table lightly, "You mean, extreme! As long as we rewrite in a certain direction, we may lose the ability to self-correct and will always fall into the trap of extreme."

"Yes, the example I just gave is still possible to quantify. There are many concepts that cannot be quantified at all, and the complexity of modification is very high."

"There is another point, which is the diversity of thinking... If everyone thinks exactly the same, we will lose the diversity of thinking. However, the ability to modify thinking can only modify the specific level, and cannot involve the macro level. .”

The tolerance for "marital infidelity" is a specific detail of thinking that can be fine-tuned. For example, some macro-level thinking concepts, such as "have a dream", what exactly is a dream? Everyone's dream is completely different, so there is no way to directly modify it.

There is also "to live a positive life" and how to define "positive". Everyone's work is different and the way to be positive is different, so there is no way to directly modify it.

For example, we can define the entire human society. "Get up early and go to bed early" is a positive symbol. "Get up early and go to bed early" is a kind of thinking detail that can be directly modified.

"After a forced definition, 'early to get up early and go to bed early' will be promoted from a moral perspective, but is this really good? It may not necessarily be a good thing, and it may not necessarily make the entire society truly positive."

"So we must find a suitable entry point to fine-tune these macro directions. And the butterfly effect caused by fine-tuning has yet to be studied."

There was silence for a long time. Faced with such dangerous but powerful technology, everyone felt like a kindergarten child holding a nuclear bomb. They had no control over the nuclear bomb in their hands and could blow themselves up in minutes.

However, this is the subject of interstellar civilization!

It's really... incredible.

Finally, in silence, Ding Yuan sighed and said: "But we still can't give up this direction. The birth rate is declining, the life span of the population is increasing significantly, and the marriage system is becoming increasingly unstable."

"And what's more... micro-mutations... can also greatly increase lifespan. As lifespan gets longer, the consequences become more and more obvious."

"People still get married and have children in their twenties and thirties, and they are married in their forties and fifties. The rate of infidelity has increased significantly. This is no longer in line with common sense, or even in line with the trend of the times."

The long life span of human beings has not only destroyed the original marriage system, but also seriously aggravated class solidification.

This is even more serious for social stability.

Leaders should be leaders for life, and workers should be workers for life? In the past, when the pace of replacement was very fast, with a cycle of 20 years, there would only be three generations working at most, and they would retire at the age of 60.

But now, people’s life span is longer. In the same 20-year cycle, there are 10 generations of people working!

Older people will inevitably gain more innate advantages.

Young and talented people with no money and no connections have to wait a hundred or two hundred years before they can find a suitable position and use their talents. Obviously this is not suitable.

In a society with long life expectancy, class consolidation will inevitably become more serious.

These complex social problems have greatly affected the progress of human development, and the top leaders of the City of Clouds really don't know how to solve them.

"So, let's find a way to study it and form a professional discipline to study the issue of human ideology in a targeted manner."

"It really doesn't work... It's okay..." Ding Yuan took a deep breath, did not continue, and looked towards the distant horizon.

However, everyone understood that what Ding Yuan was referring to was... using those ancient civilizations as experimental samples.

Maybe this is a good thing, or maybe...

…