Chapter 487: Supplementing the Dark Forest Law_1

Jiang Yu's cigarette had gone out after only one puff, so he lit another.

In recent years, Jiang Yu rarely smoked in public, but today he was too agitated. He felt as if his brain had suddenly broken free from an invisible shackle, allowing him to see many deeper things, and he needed nicotine to numb himself.

The meeting room fell into a prolonged silence, as everyone reflected on Jiang Yu's just spoken words. The more they thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed, otherwise the existing Dark Forest Law alone could not fully explain why the universe was so quiet.

The Milky Way is vast, with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years, but if there were a hundred million civilizations within this space, under the premise of the Dark Forest, many civilizations would have long since been wiped out.

Especially after the advent of lightspeed spacecraft, a war between two advanced civilizations spanning thousands of light-years was common.

The wars of dozens of advanced civilizations would be enough to turn the Milky Way upside down.

Hiding in earnest?

Impossible, if the density of civilizations was too high, there would simply be nowhere to hide.

At that time, threats from the Dark Forest would be overt—the deadly battles between civilizations.

But according to humanity's current observations of the universe, space is very empty, and a civilization wanting to skulk around and develop has plenty of places to hide.

At least within a few dozen light-years of the vicinity, apart from the Silicon Star People and the Trisolarans who seemed to have run off to some unknown place, humanity had not discovered a fourth intelligent life form.

And in outer space, apart from the occasional Dark Forest Strike, no large-scale space battles had been observed.

All of these evidences indicated that the universe was very quiet.

"I've thought of a question an old friend once asked me," Jiang Yu said after smoking half a cigarette, "He asked me: What should our species do if it stops making progress?

"Human greed will not stop, but when the material life ceases to move forward and can no longer satisfy human greed, what should we do then?

"What should we do?

"The first time I heard this question, I thought I knew the answer.

"It was not until the second time I considered this question that I realized I might not know the answer!

"Now, I finally understand the inherent meaning of this question."

Jiang Yu extinguished his cigarette again, "Gentlemen, at that time my friend already had a vague awareness of the crises coming from within humanity.

"Our technology is becoming more complicated, our society is becoming more complex.

"What if one day our technology reaches an unmatched height, and our society becomes unprecedentedly excellent?

"Does that mean that our development will stop? Technological benefits will gradually be used up, social benefits will also become increasingly unable to satisfy everyone's appetites, and in the end, we might face collapse."

Ricks gave a wry smile, "I don't know how to discuss this with you, because I find myself unable to keep up with your train of thought."

Jiang Yu waved his hand, "Then just listen to me first.

"I believe that this should be one of the supplementary parts to the Dark Forest that we have been looking for: as a civilization expands, the more complex the civilization becomes, the greater the threat from within the civilization!"

He paused before continuing, "I tried to apply this rule to other civilizations, such as the 'Black Cuboid People,' They seem to be a prime example of ignoring threats from within a civilization.

"From their achievements, attacking their civilization couldn't completely destroy them, yet they still perished in the end.

"Based on the information we've gathered and speculation, a large part of their demise was due to internal issues within the civilization.

"Firstly, they were too careless. After learning of the clues on Venus, they put all their bets on Venus.

"After arriving on Earth, they acted like a bunch of fools, and it's hard to imagine that they could actually starve to death!"

"I think it's not that their intelligence was insufficient, but that their previous life was too comfortable; when the civilization was fatally struck, they suddenly didn't know how to cope."

"Thus, under the blows from both internal and external forces, the 'Black Square civilization' perished."

"I remember the last Black Cuboid Person saying that they knew too late."

"Perhaps by the time they realized the dangers within their own civilization, it was already too late to change their predicament."

Experts had just digested Jiang Yu's previous thoughts, and now they found themselves plunged into a new, deep contemplation.

Jiang Yu took a few sips of his drink, waited for them, and then continued, "Let me try to apply the same law to Venus; he must have known the full picture of the Dark Forest Law."

"Has anyone considered, why did Venus say it had only one consciousness?"

"There are only two possibilities, the first is that this species naturally shares a single consciousness, and the second is that they merged the entire species' consciousness to avoid internal threats!"

Jiang Yu let out a sigh: "And then there's humanity itself, the civilization we are most familiar with. From the very beginning of our existence, we have never had a moment's peace.

"It can be said that war has always accompanied human development, and facilitated it.

"Initially, we developed the ability to destroy ourselves in order to deter our own kind!"

"After the founding of the Solar System State, we've had contradictions with other people or political entities."

"Now, humanity has become one state, but internal contradictions have never ceased."

"The military has contradictions with the Governing Council, the former Governing Council has contradictions with the current one."

"The contradictions among the people are even more numerous; the first batch of immigrants has contradictions with the second batch."

"The earliest residents of the Solar System State have contradictions with the two groups of immigrants who came after the battles of Neptune and the second conflict."

"One very important job of the Governing Council is to actively mediate the contradictions within the country, which is why the Solar System State is currently still relatively healthy."

"Once the functions of the Governing Council begin to weaken, it's very likely that the Solar System State will disintegrate in a very short period of time!"

Jiang Yu frowned and concluded, "It may be that the saying holds true: we are heading toward extinction! And the saddest part is, we can't stop."

Ricks was taken aback: "Whose famous words are those?"

Jiang Yu smiled: "I just thought of them."

Ricks and several experts smiled, and the atmosphere in the conference room lightened considerably.

An expert asked Jiang Yu, "Even though this momentum is irreversible, is there really no solution?"

"There is," Jiang Yu said, "Always on the road, or forever striving to climb higher peaks."

The experts fell silent again because the method seemed too idealistic; roads always come to an end some day, and there's always a time when the highest peak is reached.

"I'll leave the specific plans to the Strategic Department and the Governing Council to consider." Jiang Yu added, "You help me think first, is the law I've proposed universal enough!"

An expert said, "I think that, for now, such a phenomenon does indeed exist in the universe.

"We can temporarily assume that this law is correct; if we observe situations that do not comply with the law, it is not too late to make amendments."

Jiang Yu nodded, "So the first law of the Dark Forest regarding internal civilization issues is hereby established!"