Deep Space Wandering Fleet

Chapter 145: Chapter 146 Not Yet Reached the True Destination

Mr. Aiding wrote in his own letter, “The long-term stagnation of the entire civilization’s economy and science has caused this cultural phenomenon… The three things people care most about are money, friends, and fan circle culture.”

“The ideology of the entire civilization is too dispersed, the vast majority of people do not care about politics, nor do they care about the general trend of the whole world, let alone pay attention to the distant Earth Era or the Golden Sun…”

“Far, far away, ladies and gentlemen, this is our time, an era both vast and small.”

A great man of Earth Civilization in the 33rd century—Mr. Aiding—single-handedly maintained communication with the Earth Era, sending over a piece of his own correspondence every few years and leaving behind his sociological work, “Ordinary Civilization.”

At this point, Zhang Yuan sighed softly.

He opened the book.

Volume One, The Evolutionary Process of Civilization

Volume Two, The Principles of Civilization’s Mediocrity

Volume Three, Planetary Case Analysis

Three volumes in total, one million words, took this great man a full forty years.

So profound!

But even if the upper echelons of Earth Civilization were aware of the problem, what could they do? They might not do anything at all, as this was already the most stable state. Just as the ultimate prediction in New Civilization History states—whether it is individuals or civilizations, the vast majority of civilizations are unable to escape their ultimate fate.

The sea changes into mulberry fields, the older generation passes away quietly, and the new generation becomes the mainstream of society, with all the edges of the past slowly smoothed out.

Recalling that era, tens of millions of engineers and scientists devoted their entire lives.

People’s desire was not only to break out of Earth but also the Solar System!

When the Earth Era set out, almost the entire civilization gave it the utmost blessing…

But now, no one has such thoughts anymore. What’s the point of breaking out of the Solar System?

This feeling is like the cells of the human body, constantly renewing. Yet, the moment one crosses that peak, one inevitably falls into decline.

The thoughts of an old person are necessarily different from those of a young person. Old people abandon past thoughts, considering their former selves incredibly naive and laughable, and their way of handling things also differs from that of young people.

From a certain angle, it is not inappropriate to see civilization as a high-dimensional life form, like humans, when a civilization is strong, if it doesn’t give birth to new offspring, then there is even less possibility in its later old age.

What shocked Zhang Yuan was that a thousand years ago, someone had foreseen today’s outcome!

To prevent this ending, Earth Civilization, despite the majority’s incomprehension, threw out two seeds into the vast universe with all its might.

What wisdom this was!

He looked up, towards the bright lights in the distance, “Yes, Earth Civilization may have ended, and we… we are just beginning…”

…

The long journey is still going on, and only one-third of the trip has passed.

If Mr. Aiding should unfortunately pass away one day, the spaceship would once again lose contact with Earth Civilization, which must be said to be a very sad thing.

Even in the future, if someone were to remember these two spaceships, they would often be powerless because broadcasting a signal precisely to such a distant place would require a tremendous amount of funding that ordinary people could not afford.

The era may not necessarily produce another great person like Professor Aiding, by which time their spaceship would be completely forgotten by Earth Civilization.

But that is also an inevitable situation.

During his spare time, Zhang Yuan also tried to think about many deeper things, including the current lifestyle of Earth Civilization and how to use New Civilization History to globally plan the direction of the entire civilization…

No one wants the new civilization to become exactly like Earth Civilization in a few thousand years—even if those of us will no longer be here to see the end result, no one wishes for their descendants to follow in the same footsteps.

“If I lived in Earth Civilization” has become a very trendy topic on the spaceship.

Debates are happening all the time, with various “online philosophers” making bold statements.

“This world needs an ideological revolution. If I were president, I would try to start a revolution to overturn the whole process…”

“Bro, a president’s power is granted by the classes. Do you think it’s infinite? An ideological revolution also needs time to ferment, but now it’s like still water. Many people even feel somewhat content, so how can it ferment?”

“Brother, don’t overestimate yourself. In fact, you wouldn’t do this. If you weren’t observing from a distance on this spaceship, you certainly wouldn’t have this kind of idea. If you lived in the Solar System, you would think this world is normal, just the way it is. Those like Professor Aiding who can step out of the era are extremely rare.”

“Yes, even Professor Aiding couldn’t change the world. It’s too difficult.”

“Gentlemen, hear me out, I’ve thought it over carefully, and I’m surprised to find that this way of life is actually not so bad… Really, I’ve thought about it.”

“You’re born knowing what you are to do in the future, then you just follow the steps, no need to think too much. Rest when you should rest, and have fun when you should have fun.”

Perhaps at times one might feel indignant about not being born into a better class, but what can be done? Once you step outside of your circle, wanting to switch to a bigger one, but if they don’t accept you and ostracize you, most likely you are faced with failure.

In such situations, even the capitalists have become a bit Zen-like, with various systems already quite perfect. Exploitation that’s too harsh will be constrained by various guilds.

Over 1000 years of technology development, not just 100 years, the necessary technology has been completed. What has not been achieved requires huge sums of money for even a slim possibility, and various patents have built a deep moat.

Even the capitalist magnates dare not invest recklessly, afraid that one mistake would cause them to fall from high clouds, to be devoured by other capital. Once you fall from your class, it’s tremendously difficult to get back…

After reading those interesting frequencies, Zhang Yuan typed a string of text on the network: “Gentlemen, according to my understanding, this kind of society still isn’t the final steady state.”

“Have you all noticed that the population growth rate has started to slowly decline again? Even with artificial womb technology combined with robot childcare, it’s hard to save this sluggish birth rate.”

“The middle and lower classes think one child is enough; why should they allow their child to endure the same hardships as themselves? It’s only the upper classes, more affluent families, who will have slightly more children. When the upper classes have more, it leads to the dispersion of wealth.”

“It’s difficult to predict, with this change in pace and the reduction, even negative growth, of the population rate, what might happen in the future…”

“With high longevity, the changes in the population structure are extremely slow, and it may take a few thousand years for a series of changes to occur. By then, we’ll wait and see, of course, by then we will no longer be able to witness it.”

…