Chapter 455: The First Day’s Conversation (2) |
The awakening of the individual?
After the Dialoguer gave this answer, everyone present—and those watching from screens—was deeply puzzled.
The professor pressed: “What do you mean by the awakening of the individual?”
The Dialoguer: “To explain that, you must first ask yourselves: what is an individual?”
The scholar: “Do we even need to ask that? An individual is simply each single person.”
The debater, driven by professional habit, had been speculating on the Dialoguer’s intentions and said, “Are you trying to persuade us to abandon the collective and pursue only individual interests? It sounds like your goal in talking with us humans is to undermine our unity.”
The Dialoguer smiled at the debater.
The debater: “Am I wrong?”
At the same time, many watching felt the debater was right.
The Dialoguer: “The ‘individual’ I refer to can mean either a single human or an entire civilization.”
The professor: “How can an entire civilization be an individual?!”
The Dialoguer: “On the scale of the starry sea, there are more civilizations than grains of sand on your planet. If you consider a single human an ‘individual,’ why not a civilization?”
Everyone looked stunned.
Since entering the era of Doomsday Rules, humans had been forced to accept the existence of extraterrestrial life. And based on the observable scale of the universe, the number of alien civilizations must be enormous.
But those were just speculations—now the Dialoguer had said it outright. The thought that there were more civilizations than grains of sand made some people excited, while others felt only fear.
The Dialoguer: “However, given human habits, it’s not a problem to use ‘individual’ to refer to a single person.”
The scholar: “Then please explain: what does ‘awakening’ mean?”
The Dialoguer: “Take the physical phenomenon you call ‘friction’ as an example. When a small ball slides across a flat surface, the less friction it encounters, the faster and farther it moves. The more friction, the slower it goes until it stops. An awakened individual would eliminate all friction hindering survival.”
The professor: “From a physical perspective, it’s impossible to completely eliminate friction!”
The Dialoguer: “Correct. Only in an ideal physical model would there exist a world without friction or resistance, where energy could be fully converted into kinetic energy, achieving maximum efficiency. But unfortunately, the real world isn’t a physical model; a small ball cannot slide in a frictionless vacuum. All one can do is minimize friction as much as possible.”
The debater: “Earlier, you said several of humanity’s major plans are detrimental to survival. Are those the ‘friction’ you’re talking about? Please explain why.”
The Dialoguer: “Let me reiterate: I am not a teacher, and you are not students. We don’t need to keep this question-and-answer format going… But on this point, I’ll give just one example.”
Everyone held their breath, listening intently.
The Dialoguer: “For instance, the human ‘digital memory’ project you mentioned earlier is not a technical challenge. The challenge lies in its implementation after technical success. As I said before, humans do not ‘rule’ this planet; you cannot utilize all its material and energy. To digitize just one human’s memories and personality consumes more electricity than ten major cities require for normal operation.”
The moment the words fell, countless gasps erupted from before the screens.
People couldn’t believe that this technology consumed such enormous resources!
In the meeting room of the Suroma Empire’s Senate, discussions erupted instantly.
“Ten major cities! God! That’s almost as many as the surviving major cities in Suroma!”
“Digitizing memories requires that much energy?!”
“If that’s the case, even if the experiment succeeds, how many people could actually have their memories digitized?!”
“Your Majesty, did you know about this?!”
The senators turned their gaze in unison to Bruce, seated at the head of the table. They knew he had been personally managing the project’s experiments, never allowing any senator to interfere.
This emperor, wielding great power, now had a dark expression. His thin, pale lips were tightly pressed together, and his eyes, fixed on the screen, occasionally flashed with resentful light.
A senator whispered, “Your Majesty already knew? How long were you planning to hide this from us?”
Another senator looked at Bruce incredulously. “Your Majesty, were you planning… to enjoy the fruits of this only for yourself and your daughter?”
“No wonder we were never allowed to know where our laboratory was!”
“Your Majesty’s actions could already be considered betrayal…”
Facing the barrage of questions from the senators, Bruce remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking: “According to the plan, the experiment won’t be completed until summer at the earliest. Whether it will succeed, I don’t know. As for the resource consumption, yes, the lab director mentioned it to me. There’s no need for you to worry.”
“How can we not worry?” A tall, gaunt, dark-skinned senator stood up, glaring at Bruce aggressively. “Unless Your Majesty gives us some assurance.”
“Assurance?” A flicker of murderous intent flashed in Bruce’s eyes. “What kind of assurance?”
The senators murmured among themselves for a moment and quickly reached a unified proposal.
“Before the plan is completed, entrust your Majesty’s daughter, Yishan, to stay in the Senate for a while, handling some clerical work.”
Bruce felt a relief in his heart, though his face showed anger. “My daughter? She’s my only remaining child.”
“That’s exactly why we’re making this request,” the senator said. “But this is also for Your Majesty’s consideration… Yishan has caused no shortage of trouble. After all, one of the bishops of the Fire Thief Cult managed to infiltrate the assassination mission as a mole, and your daughter played no small part in that. A stint in the Senate might give her some time for self-reflection.”
“…Hmph!”
Bruce snorted coldly and stood up to leave.
This behavior, however, greatly satisfied the senators.
They knew Bruce: when he didn’t explicitly oppose something, it meant he agreed.
What they couldn’t see was that, despite his grim expression, Bruce felt incredibly relieved inside.
Not long after leaving the meeting room, he even allowed a faint smile, satisfied with the senators’ proposal.
“A bunch of fools,” he thought. “If a powerful person doesn’t bother to discipline their child, it only means they never intended for that child to inherit their power.”
…
The chaos the Dialoguer’s words caused in the Suroma Senate was bad enough; its impact on the common people was even more severe.
Under the power of the Fire Thief, every person’s screen displayed the live scene and conversation, making it impossible for national authorities to control the information.
Thus, in shelters, gathering points, and other crowded places, loud arguments erupted everywhere.
“Are you kidding me? If digitizing one person’s memory consumes that many resources, even if the technology succeeds, what chance does it have of being widely adopted?!”
“I knew it all along. Nothing falls from the sky. Everyone backing up their memories for cybernetic immortality… that’s pure fantasy!”
“As ordinary people, shouldn’t we resist this technology’s development? If it succeeds, only the Top Levels will enjoy the benefits, while the other 99.9% will never have access.”
“Resolutely oppose it! In the era of Doomsday Rules, energy is already incredibly precious. How can we waste this level of resources on fulfilling the needs of a tiny minority?”
No matter the country or situation, the wave of opposition surged higher and higher.
It wasn’t just ordinary people fueling the uproar; various “rent-seekers” also joined in.
Because from the information the Dialoguer had revealed—if ten cities’ worth of electricity was needed to digitize one person’s memories—then how many people could an entire nation satisfy?
It was like a joke from peacetime: if there really were an elixir of immortality, even the world’s richest people wouldn’t rank in the top five hundred to receive it.
In the current world, the new elites replacing the former wealthy were naturally the powerful Ascendants.
The allure of “digital memory backup qualifications” had reached the level of an “elixir of immortality.” If even powerful Ascendants affiliated with the government couldn’t secure a spot, then of course they’d join the masses in opposing it.
At this moment, Guan Tong was staying in his shelter, equally surprised by the Dialoguer’s words.
He didn’t know much about this technology. He’d seen experts online speculate before—considering the complexity of the human brain’s neurons and the vast number of subconscious thoughts, the resources required for backup must be terrifying.
But he hadn’t expected the Dialoguer to give an answer that exceeded humanity’s tolerance.
The electricity of ten major cities… In peacetime, when Tianshui Star had a population of billions and was thriving, maybe it could be tolerated. But after entering the era of Doomsday Rules, the past two years had not only wiped out over 90% of the population but also hundreds of major cities destroyed by the rules. The remaining electricity was mainly allocated to sustain daily life—there simply wasn’t that much extra power.
At that moment, the conversation on-site was forcibly interrupted. A female Human Consortium official was on-site, calming the global public.
“Everyone, please don’t take the Dialoguer’s words at face value, and do not engage in any destructive behavior. First, think: can the Dialoguer guarantee everything it says is truthful? And even if it did, could we trust it?”
“Don’t forget—it itself originates from a Doomsday Rule, and every Doomsday Rule aims to destroy humanity. If it deliberately uses lies to incite chaos, then anyone who follows suit will be playing right into its trap!”
Guan Tong nodded slightly.
He felt the official’s words made sense, though he couldn’t say how many people would actually listen.
The conversation remained interrupted for over half an hour. During that time, the official kept reasoning with the public, trying to calm them. It seemed the Dialoguer had stirred up considerable unrest everywhere.
At Beixing’s Countermeasures Research Office, they had been in a meeting about this all along.
The expert overseeing the digital memory experiment said, “At this stage, we can’t verify the truth of what the Dialoguer said. But one thing is certain: this technology really does consume massive resources. Even in the R&D phase, the daily power usage is astonishing. By the time it reaches the experimental stage, the consumption could increase by orders of magnitude.”
“So it seems this technology is doomed to never be widely adopted.” Zhang Minglu sighed. As a more technical person, he was disappointed by this outcome.
Li Meng then looked at Gao Liangwei: “Director, if that’s the case, should we discuss whether to halt this plan at the next Human Consortium meeting?”
“Halting it is impossible,” Gao Liangwei said without hesitation.
“I agree,” the expert responsible for the experiment chimed in. “I say this not just because I don’t want all our hard work to go to waste. We’ve finally acquired advanced technology with the possibility of realization. Even if it can’t be widely adopted in the end, we still need to make it. Maybe through continuous iteration, we can optimize energy consumption and eventually achieve a degree of popularization—but that all depends on us building it first.”
Everyone in the meeting room nodded.
They understood that even if they personally wouldn’t qualify to use it, they couldn’t deny the expert’s reasoning.
But the public probably wouldn’t accept it easily, and this plan’s future progress would undoubtedly face extra obstacles.
Someone, looking at the Dialoguer on the screen, sighed, “This thing, wrapped in human skin with who knows what underneath, caused so much trouble with just a few words. What a pain in the neck.”
“Its rhetoric isn’t particularly clever,” Li Meng said. “But its advantage is having far more information than we do. If it keeps dropping more harmful information, more information that destroys human hope… the consequences will be even worse. Director, I believe humans shouldn’t continue this conversation.”
“I agree. Talking with this thing, we’re always at an informational disadvantage—it’s too passive!”
“Afraid of damaging hope, so you refuse to communicate and gather information? That’s like going to the hospital, being diagnosed with a serious illness, and then refusing to hear the truth because you’re afraid—what’s the difference?” someone immediately objected. “Even if it’s bad news for humanity, as long as it’s unknown to us, it’s still valuable information!”
“That’s assuming the Dialoguer is giving true information. What if it gives us a bunch of false info, destroys human hope, and misleads our development in key technologies, causing them to stagnate?”
“Exactly. Imagine waking up with a runny nose—just a cold, take some medicine, and you’re fine. But you go to the hospital, and the ‘Dialoguer’ diagnoses you with cancer, tells you not to take cold medicine, and sends you for chemotherapy. That would harm you both in terms of hope and actual treatment.”
The two sides in the meeting room argued, refusing to give ground.
Gao Liangwei listened for a while before stepping in to stop them: “Alright, enough. Since the top decision-makers of all nations haven’t called it off, we have no authority to stop the conversation on-site either. Let’s just keep watching.”
Those who supported continuing the conversation were naturally pleased. Those opposed, however, felt indignant. Some even fumed to themselves: Talk, keep talking—the hope for digital memory backup is practically shattered now. Let’s see what other human hopes this conversation will destroy next!