"You're still hesitating."
Seeing Jiang Zhou still keeping a straight face and saying nothing, without any expression. "Madeline" stopped gushing before, she stared into the eyes of the man in front of her, and spoke concisely.
No expression is also an expression.
"Why do you hesitate? Is it because this system touches your moral bottom line?"
Seeing that there was still no response from the other party, "Madeline" tried to soften her tone - at this moment, her attitude was as gentle and patient as the union president who was entrusted by the company boss to help coordinate labor issues.
In her opinion, in this whole matter, what really needs to be solved is the other party's psychological problem. So, she continued to persuade:
"I understand... you may think this is very inhumane, or criticize the operating laws of this city from other moral perspectives. But I must remind you that this is not the basic reality. Continue to adhere to the morality in reality Discipline is completely an act of carving a boat and seeking a sword.”
This is a common thing - many newcomers to the City of Sages will do this after learning the truth. Although their spirits have become detached from external objects, their minds are still pulled by the gravity of reality and cannot adapt to those changes.
At this time, it is necessary to "enlighten" them.
"Madeline" continued:
"When I was very young, I once read a famous science fiction book about the invasion of aliens from the AD era. There is a sentence in it that I have remembered to this day - a fish that lands on the beach is no longer a fish.
"We are fish that landed on the beach, or in other words, monkeys that came off the tree. The research results you found in the database earlier are proof that what we can achieve far exceeds those of native people... In this case, we There is really no need to continue to respect those moral concepts that are based on reality.”
Obviously, she regarded those whose digital personalities were uploaded into cyberspace as landed fish. It is believed that they are no longer the same kind of creatures as those humans who have real flesh and blood in the basic reality.
Then she continued:
"If you still can't accept it... then think about the beginning of it all, think about the first deep diver who uploaded his digital personality, think about the super artificial intelligence named Janus. In Isn’t what He went through a change similar to ours?”
It is a comprehensive evolutionary revolution for marine creatures to climb onto land; and it is also a great evolutionary revolution for humans to upload their digital personalities to the Internet and become information life.
By analogy, in the second revolution, the first "fish" to land in the "New World" was the "first deep diver" a hundred years ago. And the great achievements that its evolutionary product "Janus" has finally achieved and the earth-shaking changes it has brought to the world are obvious to everyone living in this era.
And in today's era, if they don't seize this opportunity to "come ashore", then in the future, when those "fish" come ashore, they will evolve into "human beings". When they hunted their ancestors with the "harpoons" and "fishing nets" they invented...or worse, when they inadvertently destroyed species due to their exploitation of "ocean" resources or the discharge of pollutants. When it goes extinct...it's too late.
"So, if you are struggling with moral issues..."
At the end of the sentence, "Madeline"'s voice gradually became serious:
"Then I'm telling you... don't try to be moral in this eternal, brutal battle for survival. That's unethical."
After speaking, she let out a long breath - for a moment, she herself was moved by the power of her words.
After the "Great Impact", there were too many opportunities that changed human evolution and led to too many paths for human upgrade. However, the inertia of past life and the historical legacy dragged behind mankind are too heavy.
Even for those roads that have been laid, those in power who have witnessed the ascension still choose to restrain them. They used the Styx Firewall to block the abyss dark web, where countless treasures were buried, layer by layer; they were afraid of the pioneers walking on the road of evolution, and put shackles on those people through various means. .
Perhaps from a human perspective, they are very smart. But from an evolutionary perspective, these people are simply stupid.
"Madeline" thought so, then looked at Jiang Zhou and asked confidently:
"So, what's your last choice?"
She believes that after understanding the potential of this city and knowing the pros and cons between the two options, the other party will be able to make the right choice.
"I have to admit, I quite agree with your statement about the fish landing..."
On the other side, Jiang Zhou, who had been listening quietly from beginning to end, slowly opened his mouth under the other party's eager eyes.
However, before the other party showed a smile, he took a deep breath and continued:
"However, I reject your proposal."
"Why?"
The completely unexpected answer made "Madeline" and thousands of spectators around her burst into uproar at the same time.
After reacting, "Madeline" immediately raised her voice and asked over the noise in the audience:
"Is it because you still can't pass the level of your own moral discipline? If that's the case..."
"It has nothing to do with morality."
In response, Jiang Zhou simply interrupted.
Yes, it has nothing to do with morality. If what the City of Sages has done can really guide human evolution. To be honest, Jiang Zhou would definitely not mind submitting the source code of his digital personality.
He is such a person. As long as he makes the right choice, he never cares about worldly opinions.
However, after he learned the truth about the "City of Sages", Jiang Zhou really didn't feel that it could shoulder the important task of "human evolution".
He looked around at the people in the audience, and finally his eyes fell on "Madeline" again:
"The reason for my refusal is the same as the things you criticized before... This system of yours cannot be said to guide evolution at all. It is not even as good as any slum in any resettlement area in basic reality."
His almost humiliating words caused the whole venue to burst into uproar. Countless voices of doubt and insults came from the stands.
"What did you say?"
"Madeline" looked at Jiang Zhou, bit her lower lip slightly and asked.
"I said, you can't guide evolution at all. As for the basis for my judgment..."
Jiang Zhou paused as he spoke.
He was not an expert in evolution, but when the system was completely revealed in front of him, it didn't even take a minute to find out the fatal problem.
"The basis of evolution is iteration, and the basis of iteration is rebirth and apoptosis... So please tell me, does this eternal city have such a thing?"
The river and the boat are like the road.
Here, there is no reproduction, no death. A new entity will not be born out of thin air, and the old existence will not die on its own.
Here, there are only so many thousand immortal citizens who are the eternal masters of this city; only the Bacchus Bureau works hard to maintain the vitality of their existence; only the Sun God Bureau sorts out and calculates their output day and night, and then constantly repairs this system. A fundamentally wrong system.
Yes, citizens here can indeed study complex topics according to their own interests and produce technological blueprints that even Olympus Enterprises are difficult to replicate. However, a person's mental model has its limits. It is almost impossible for them to continue to dig deeper forever, and it is also difficult for them to open a new field without being affected after making a breakthrough in a certain field.
In response to Jiang Zhou's words, "Madeline" immediately suppressed the intensifying boos around her, and then retorted:
"Although we don't have rebirth and death, we do have iterations, and that is..."
"Is that me? Or, new person? New mental model?"
In this regard, Jiang Zhou interrupted again.
Seeing that the other party did not speak, Jiang Zhou knew that he had guessed correctly and continued:
"I have seen that you will even hold a carnival for the uploading of a new personality source code... In other words, you actually do not have the ability to 'make blood' innovations on your own. All iterations need to rely on external input. Once there are no 'newcomers', it is water without a source.
"Based on this, you still want to be able to 'go ashore'?"
When she said this, the entire venue's stands exploded, and some angry retorts reached his ears:
"The current situation is only temporary. After we accumulate strong strength in the future, we will expand!"
"We will expand to other places in Narcissus Plains, to the Abyss Dark Web, and to the World Wide Web!"
"We will absorb all the wanderers, then the abyss wanderers, and finally the humans in the base reality!"
It seems that this "Utopia" has no intention of continuing anonymously forever...
In response, Jiang Zhou sneered.
There is no replication, growth, aging, and apoptosis, no normal life cycle, no possibility of mutation, and no ability to make his own blood... He needs to lie on living bodies of the same origin and suck their nutrients to survive, and it will expand infinitely.
There is another name for this type of thing that is more commonly known to the public.
cancer.
With their abilities, if they continue to develop here, they will definitely become a terminal disease for this human civilization in the future.
Fortunately, there are only more than a thousand of them now, and they don't have many resources at their disposal. It seems that they are not yet viable.
Jiang Zhou felt that thousands of pairs of eyes were focused on him at this moment.
This is early stage cancer.
he thinks.
And what he needs to do now is to remove it.
Or... be assimilated by them.
(End of chapter)
