After listening to her father's introduction, Judy Lan glanced at the pictures a few times, feeling very complicated and helpless:
"Father, I think, personally, as long as the real person image is acceptable, who would be willing to act as an electronic shadow puppet?
"Just like the shadow puppet actors in the past, they usually can sing but have an unflattering image, right?
"Nowadays, even if people do role-playing on the Internet, they should change clothes and put on makeup as directly as possible, rather than wearing a costume and participating in it.
"Let the fame and popularity you gain fall on yourself, rather than the shadow puppet character you wear?
“But Erchen thinks this industry is also beneficial.
“Originally, only naturally beautiful women and good-looking men had the opportunity to participate in public Internet live broadcasts and achieve certain success.
“Those who don’t have a good image usually can only act as clowns to impress the public.
“Even if you have special talents and can achieve success by relying on your abilities and talents, you will still be limited by your talents.
"What's more, most ordinary people don't have any talents that they can show off.
“With this electronic shadow puppet, people who are not good at image can also use shadow puppets to create more popular works.
“Let more people participate and create more entertainment programs.
"What's more, orthodox mainstream shadow puppetry does not require the performer to have a good image. Anyway, it is enough to be able to operate and sing."
The electronic shadow puppets of Ming Dynasty are obviously different in origin from the virtual anchors of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life.
When it comes to the stage of computers and the Internet, ordinary audiences know that this is a performance, a shadow puppet show moved to the Internet.
Instead of creating a virtual two-dimensional character as the anchor to interact with the audience.
Except for Zhu Jingyuan, a time traveler who still retains his past life knowledge, ordinary people are not very curious about the image of these shadow puppet performers.
Because a performer often plays different roles, or even one person performs several roles at the same time, this is inherently traditional.
Most of the performers of traditional shadow puppet shows are really actors with poor image.
As the nature of the performance continues to decrease, the nature of interaction continues to increase, especially after ordinary people participate and basically use fixed roles.
The audience began to become more and more curious about what kind of person the performer himself was.
This kind of performer is no longer an actor, but simply uses an avatar to interact and chat with the audience.
It is highly similar to Zhu Jingyuan's virtual anchor in his previous life.
However, the basis of shadow puppetry is that after the audience knows the real-life image of the performer, the frustration is not as strong as that of Zhu Jingyuan in his previous life.
Zhu Jingyuan himself didn't care much about this matter. After listening to Zhudi Lan's analysis, he added additional explanations and questions:
"The image issue is not the main point, I just said it incidentally, you don't have to think about it so much.
"The key point is how to manage this kind of thing and how the court should treat this industry."
Judy Lan thought about it for a moment:
“It’s really not a good thing for men and women to pretend to be the opposite sex on the Internet.
“Although traditional operas also have male actors playing leading roles, the reason for this was that women were not allowed to appear on stage in the first place.
“But there is basically no interaction during traditional opera performances.
“Nowadays, you have to interact with the audience while doing cross-dressing, which may have an impact on the spirit and cognition of the performers and participants.
“After long-term accumulation and fermentation, it may have a relatively bad social impact.
“So as long as the Internet management methods are maintained, this industry is completely unworthy and should not be promoted.
“Unless performers are allowed to perform on both internets.
“Even further reforms will expand the scope of integration of the two Internets.
“Even in today’s reality, there are already many industrial facilities that receive both male and female customers.
"You can only type and talk on the Internet, but there is no way to have actual physical contact. There is no need to strictly guard against it."
Zhu Jingyuan frowned after hearing this:
"Do you think it is an outdated rule to completely separate male and female users on the Internet?"
The matter of electronic shadow puppets itself is only a small matter, and the basic management method of the Internet is a big deal.
Judy Lan had usually considered this kind of thing, so now she said directly without any hesitation:
"Yes, Erchen thinks that we can consider properly merging the two Internets..."
Zhu Jingyuan immediately asked:
"Then have you ever considered what impact the merger of the two Internets will have? What are the pros and cons?"
Judy Lan said quite calmly:
“The biggest impact should be that it will improve women’s social status.
“Because in the past, in reality, young women did not have many opportunities to contact and get to know men of the same age.
“Who you marry can only be chosen from the options provided by your family, and your autonomy is very low.
“If men’s and women’s Internet platforms merge, there will be no restrictions on contact and communication between men and women.
“Women can reach a large number of men through various platforms on the Internet.
“I have the opportunity to meet all kinds of men and meet men who really suit my liking.
"And then it conflicts with the blind date arranged by the clan in reality.
“This will reduce the clan’s control over family members, which in turn increases the court’s control over specific family members.
“The clan will inevitably oppose this approach, so Internet mergers must be gradual.
“We can first add more overlapping areas of men’s and women’s Internet based on the original blind date platform.
“Create a third public Internet that allows men and women to participate and interact relatively freely.
"And gradually expand the scale of this common Internet..."
After hearing this, Zhu Jingyuan asked directly:
“You should continue to think along this line of thought and take a longer-term view.
“What impact will it have over time if men and women are fully integrated and have free access to the Internet?”
Judy Lan thought for a while and said:
“Maybe... excessive virtual social information will be generated, causing cognitive dislocation of the parties concerned?
“Since the cost of socializing on the Internet is extremely low, men, as male animals, tend to sow seeds by casting a wide net…
"So men may have no qualms about trying to reach as many women as possible.
"Switching to the female perspective in this situation, most women may think that they have countless 'suitors'.
"And there are always new 'suitors' who want to join the pursuit of themselves.
“They feel like they have endless options at all times.
"And then continue to raise the standards for mate selection.
"They will despise the people they can really choose, that is, the people they can come into contact with in reality.
“Again, the same goes for men.
“It seems that men can have as many women online at the same time as they have online suitors.
“Every woman is just one of countless choices in a man’s imagination.
“But the mates that men actually have the opportunity to choose are still basically only the women with whom they have direct contact.
“Over time, both men and women will despise each other.
“Men feel that they can find countless women, and women feel that there are countless men pursuing them.
“This can push them against the traditional marriage arrangements around them.
“Making real-life marriage arrangements extremely complicated may even lead to the collapse of existing families, which means more people commit adultery.
"Taken together... it is detrimental to social stability...
“Therefore, the Internet cannot be completely merged, let alone unlimited mergers.
“The scale of the public Internet that men and women can access must be controlled, and the management system must be stricter than separate men’s and women’s networks.
"The existing rules on contact based on marriage should also be largely retained.
“Continue to publicly display your true identity on the information interface, publicly display the number of opposite-sex friends you have, and display the total number of opposite-sex messages you have sent.
"We can't let them feel that they have countless people to choose from and have no idea about other people's friends.
“We need to make it clear to them that everyone has a lot of choices.
“The Internet has indeed greatly increased the social scope of ordinary people, and the key issue should be to make all participants feel and remember this.
“Just don’t cause cognitive misalignment due to the influence of real-life experience.
“In fact, disclosing the number of friends of the opposite sex and the number of opposite sex messages that have been sent publicly will in turn limit the frequency of contact between the two parties.
“Because when the public reveals their true identity, they will avoid being labeled as slutty by the opposite sex.
"Ultimately, the number of men and women who actually come into contact with the opposite sex will not be as high as it is in theory."
After hearing this, Zhu Jingyuan did not directly comment on the plan, but continued to ask other new questions:
"Have you noticed that the number of children people have is changing..."
Zhudi Lan has been doing practical training at the local level and has been directly exposed to civilian affairs for a long time.
Although there is no specific research, I often look at various civil affairs data and have noticed this:
"Erchen has noticed that the number of children given birth to by newlywed couples in the past ten years seems to be decreasing.
“Among the older generation couples, it is most common for one woman to have six to seven children.
“It is not uncommon to have eight or even nine children, and we have also seen people with more than ten children.
“But among the younger generation of couples, a woman usually only has four or five children.
"Six children are already rare. Seven children are as rare as ten."
Zhu Jingyuan paid more attention to this matter, so he paid special attention to relevant news from the Ministry of Household Affairs:
"Yes, in the past ten years, the number of children given birth to by ordinary people has decreased, mainly because the frequency of childbirth has significantly reduced.
“In the past, after couples got married, they usually continued to have children if they could, and usually gave birth to a child in less than two years on average.
“Having six or seven children in ten years is a normal rate, but having five children in ten years is significantly lower than the average rate.
“The ten years between the ages of 20 and 30 are the most suitable for childbearing in a person’s life.
“In the past, a woman usually had six to seven children.
“In recent years, after a new generation of couples has their first child, it usually takes more than two years for them to have another child.
“Couples still usually get married between the ages of eighteen and twenty.
“In the ten years between the ages of 20 and 30, usually only four or five children are born.
“Whether you will continue to have children after the age of thirty depends on the specific situation.
“Due to the continuous upgrading of medical technology, fetal and infant mortality rates continue to decrease, and the life span of ordinary people continues to extend.
“In addition, the older generation continues to have children, and the new generation has families that have more children.
“So the overall population growth rate is still not slowing down.
“But this state of affairs is unsustainable.
“When medical technology reaches its bottleneck, the premature mortality rate will be reduced to the limit, and the life span will be increased to the limit.
"The overall population growth rate will be lower.
“So why do you think the new generation of couples are having fewer children, both more frequently and in fewer numbers?
“More importantly, will the number of births continue to decrease in the future?
"For example, a couple only has one or two children, or even doesn't want any children at all?"
Judy Lan really hadn’t considered this issue before.
After thinking for a few seconds, he said:
"Erchen thinks it may be because the child mortality rate in the old days was so high that people didn't know how many children they would survive.
“That’s why we have a situation where we continue to have children as long as we can.
“Just like in the past, the hit rate of weapons was low, and they could only achieve the destruction effect by stacking the number.
"Nowadays, the premature death rate of children is getting lower and lower. Even if it is a difficult delivery, the baby can be delivered by caesarean section, and the mother and baby are basically safe.
“So people started having children according to their practical ideas.
“If you want to have a few children, you will have a few children, and then concentrate on raising these children.
"Instead of having unlimited children, let's see how many can survive.
“Based on this logic, the number of children that ordinary couples have will not continue to decrease in the future.
"Er Chen has dealt with many workers and asked them questions about their children.
“The vast majority of workers want to have four or five children.
“This way they have a high probability of getting two boys.
"Although the mortality rate of young children is now lower, the probability is not zero after all, and there is still a risk in adulthood.
“So having two boys can ensure the normal continuation of the family line.
"The natural ratio of boys to girls is basically the same, and if you have two boys, you're likely to have two girls.
“Most workers also feel that it is better for boys and girls to have brothers and sisters.
“So they actually generally want to have four or five children.
“Actually, most workers themselves still feel that the more children they have, the better.
“Just having children and raising them does take a lot of energy.
“Ordinary workers basically only have one wife, take care of four children and take care of housework, which is already quite tiring.
"On the other hand, there are relatively more children from wealthy families who can hire specialized servants."
Zhu Jingyuan was just like his grandfather when he talked to him.
Keep your own opinions in mind for the time being, and your main goal is to evaluate the philosophy of the child in front of you.
At the same time, continue to ask him to get more and deeper thoughts:
"If all ordinary workers in the future continue to have children at this rate.
“Will there come a time when our population reaches a certain level that the entire world can no longer support.
“It should be said that before that day comes, our court and society are already on the verge of collapse.
“It’s just like the three-hundred-year periodic law of all dynasties over the past two thousand years.
"At the end of the road again?"
(End of chapter)
