vrcanaries Chapter 114 Mirror and White Ice
Chapter 114 Mirror and White Ice
The three parties eventually reached a consensus and signed a series of related treaties.
First, Earth International needs to share its scientific, cultural, and educational technological achievements with Fleet International, and must not continue to engage in overload mining on Earth.
Second, Fleet International is required to provide Earth International with strategic resources such as energy, minerals, intelligence, and protection, and is prohibited from establishing research stations in outer space without authorization.
These two treaties were essentially a process of exchanging goods, which led Fleet International to abandon scientific research and Earth International to abandon production, allowing them to focus on their own duties.
The third treaty concerns Lin Xuan.
The process of international transactions between Earth and the fleet must be completed through Lin Xuan, who can take a 10% cut of energy materials or a portion of scientific research results.
This third clause effectively transformed Lin Xuan into a middleman, requiring all transactions between Fleet International and Earth International to pass through his hands, and allowing Lin Xuan to take a cut.
This is definitely the biggest middleman in the solar system making a profit from the price difference.
As for the last two points, they are the benefits that Lin Xuan brings to Fleet International and Earth International.
Fourth: Lin Xuan is required to submit RX-cell division regeneration fluid to Fleet International every month.
Fifth, Lin Xuan needs to provide Earth International with the right to use the Super Dream Database.
These last two deals, which seem like Lin Xuan lost money on, were actually his most profitable trade.
Fleet International is a militarized organization modeled after the three major fleets. Many of its members are actually part of the Future Reinforcement Project, and therefore possess a large number of immortals.
Lin Xuan simply extended their lifespan from 300 years to 1000 years.
If the people of the Fleet International have exceptionally long lifespans, it means they will develop low birth rates and severe class stratification, which would be extremely advantageous for Lin Xuan's control.
As for the SuperDream Database, it would be even better if someone were willing to use it. After all, the more data uploaded, the more realistic the algorithm optimization for Lin Xuan's future would be. This would be like working for him for free.
This can be considered a win-win situation.
"Win-win" means that Lin Xuan won twice.
Crisis Era 27, 2034 AD.
Earth International was officially established, and its flag adopted the original United Nations Earth symbol, but it differed from the former.
This war led to the complete annexation of many small countries, which disappeared into the annals of history. This is reflected in the flags, and the terrain of many regions will also change, making the whole earth look more like a single entity.
The flag abandoned its original sky blue as the main color and changed it to the same deep blue as the universe, signifying that mankind has officially entered the space age.
As for the three major fleets, they were officially renamed Fleet International. Of course, they also established their own independent government – the Solar System Fleet Joint Conference.
Crisis Era 30, 2037 AD.
Under Lin Xuan's supervision, the trauma inflicted on human society in the early stages of the Great Depression was quickly repaired.
Earth International is paying increasing attention to environmental protection. Any unauthorized mining is prohibited, and those found guilty may even face the death penalty.
Humanity's monetary system has also been unified, and apart from those who are in hibernation, everyone's wealth has undergone a complete reshuffling.
The middle class is among the hardest hit, with many of them losing their fortunes in the downturn and now having to start all over again.
Fortunately, their technical experience and personal connections remained, and within three years, they had climbed back into the middle class.
At the same time, language and writing were also unified.
There were originally thousands of different languages in the world, but in the era of the global community, all of these languages were unified into three.
English, Chinese, and Arabic.
Initially, everyone wanted to keep only English, since English is definitely the best choice, both in terms of computer programming and the complexity of languages.
Later, everyone discovered a very serious problem: due to the grammatical characteristics of English, serious misinterpretations can occur when describing certain things.
For example: I passed the exam this year without any preparation.
A direct translation into English would be: This year I took off all my clothes and went to take the exam naked, and then climbed ashore.
This would become very strange.
Even if we don't go straight to the point, it would still take a long time to express such a sentence.
Later on, in order to save time, people would deliberately shorten some syllables when saying each word, making the whole sentence faster.
This is somewhat similar to the evolution of the Beijing accent in China, which has become shorter and shorter over time.
However, in Chinese, reducing some syllables does not affect the meaning, but in English, it is completely different.
Ultimately, people had no choice but to compromise and join Chinese and Arabic as one of the three major international language systems on Earth, alongside English.
This is a good thing for China, since Chinese students learn English from a young age. Back in the days of the United Nations University, English was one of the main subjects for Chinese students.
Now, English has been elevated in status again, becoming one of the compulsory subjects to be learned, and is even close to becoming a basic course for universal education.
Because if English were removed from the main curriculum, the impact on the lower classes would be almost devastating.
The reason is quite simple: the areas influenced by English can be mainly divided into three aspects: computer technology, access to scientific research literature, and international communication.
Its existence is no longer just about a language; it represents a class divide.
Once its mandatory nature is removed, English will become an insurmountable gap between the upper and lower classes.
People at the bottom of society cannot learn English, or the cost of learning English will be extremely high, just like art and music, English will become the privilege of the privileged class.
Master's students require English language education to access literature, which has become almost a necessity for them.
With this cancellation, it will be even harder for children from poor families to succeed. A bachelor's degree will become the highest ceiling for the lower classes, and the poor will never be able to become master's degree holders.
Scientific research, politics, and economics will completely close their doors to the grassroots.
In that case, within five years, class stratification will return, and the gap between people will be greater than the gap between people and animals.
However, in order to save learning time, Lin Xuan still made the language pack download function available to all mankind free of charge.
Just like language packs in a game, if you want to switch languages, you can download a new language pack from the Dream World to your brain. This feature is one of the few free benefits that the Dream World offers to everyone.
Educational reform is also reflected in the increased emphasis placed on the humanities and social sciences.
Literature, sociology, philosophy, history, political management...
These previously declining disciplines have been revitalized.
However, there is only one discipline that has been controversial, and that is education.
The discipline of education was in a very awkward position during the era of the Southwest Associated University.
Many people mistakenly believe that education is about becoming a teacher and that this major should lead to good employment.
In reality, that's not the case at all; education is actually the least suitable major for becoming a teacher.
For example, if you study Chinese language and literature and want to become a Chinese language teacher, you might find that they only hire students majoring in Chinese language and literature. After all, you need to study both education and Chinese language and literature, while they specialize in Chinese language and literature. In everyone's eyes, they are obviously more professional.
The same applies to subject-based education in physics, mathematics, and chemistry.
They all have professions that can perfectly replace them, which makes them seem like the most useless group of people.
In fact, pedagogy originally had some room to survive, but the emergence of the Dream World dealt a devastating blow to pedagogy.
People don't need to study; they can acquire knowledge entirely through the Dream World. So what's the point of having teachers?
If you want any type of knowledge, just download it, right?
Just like doing homework, you can directly get the answers using homework help apps, which requires no learning process at all, and is even more convenient than that.
Sometimes, some junior high school students, after downloading knowledge through the Super Dream World, even become more knowledgeable in this area than their teachers. What's the point of going to school then?
It's completely unnecessary.
This almost led to the abolition of the teaching profession. It was only thanks to Luo Congmin leading a joint protest movement by teachers from around the world that the profession's value was preserved.
They launched a large-scale boycott of the use of the Dream World, demanding that Lin Xuan control the proliferation of Dream knowledge, but this had no effect.
Once people get used to elevators, they won't want to walk up long staircases anymore.
Even Lin Xuan, the inventor of the Dream World, felt powerless to change this.
After all, he couldn't possibly have completely destroyed the Mewtwo database, could he?
What left Lin Xuan speechless was that he never expected that the first person to stand up against him in the new era would be Luo Congmin, whom he had raised since childhood.
Luo Congmin studied education.
Lin Xuan had Luo Congmin enroll in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) as a liberal arts student, but UCAS had cut down to only two liberal arts majors at the undergraduate level during the early stages of a major downturn: English and Marxist Philosophy/Politics.
Luo Congmin was not interested in either of them, so Lin Xuan asked Principal Liu Chang to create a new major for her.
However, opening a major is not something that can be done on a whim. You must have the corresponding educational qualifications, and at least the teaching staff must meet the standards. Otherwise, even the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences cannot conjure up a new major out of thin air.
After much searching, it seems that education is the most suitable liberal arts major.
The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences is, after all, a university, and it has no shortage of teachers. It has more than enough faculty to offer an education major.
Therefore, Luo Congmin studied education, and after graduating with her bachelor's degree, she continued to study for a master's degree in education at the same school, with a research focus on social development and contemporary educational history.
This is a new major that Luo Congmin created himself, a new major that combines education and sociology.
Since they couldn't find a suitable teacher, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences simply handed her over to President Liu Chang and started a hands-off approach.
The meaning is quite clear: since you're the only one in this field, you can research whatever you want; there's really nothing we can do for you.
Just when everyone thought that Luo Congmin's postgraduate studies were just a waste of time and that he wouldn't be able to produce any substantial research,
In her first year of graduate school, she published a research paper that shocked the world.
Research on the inability of cloned humans and artificial intelligence to generate self-awareness.
In her paper, she pointed out a term frequently mentioned in Marxist philosophy—subjective initiative.
Artificial intelligence and clones have never been able to truly possess independent consciousness; what they likely lack is a kind of subjective initiative.
This is a startling finding from comparing the commonalities between cloned humans and artificial intelligence.
They can mimic your actions, your way of thinking, and even download the consciousness of others into a clone's body, perfectly replicating an identical "humanoid" creature, but that is still not a human.