On Earth, humankind can step onto another continent, and without a thought, destroy the kindred civilizations found there through warfare and disease… - Liu Cixin

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On Earth, humankind can step onto another continent, and without a thought, destroy the kindred civilizations found there through warfare and disease. But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct. I think it should be precisely the opposite: Let’s turn the kindness we show toward the stars to members of the human race on Earth

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About Liu Cixin

Liu Cixin (born June 23, 1963) is a Chinese science fiction writer.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: 刘慈欣
Alternative Names: Cixin Liu Liu Ci Xin Da Liu Big Liu Daliu Liu Da Liucixin Liu Ci-Xin Ci-Xin Liu
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Shorter versions of this quote

There’s a strange contradiction revealed by the naïveté and kindness demonstrated by humanity when faced with the universe: On Earth, humankind can step onto another continent, and without a thought, destroy the kindred civilizations found there through warfare and disease. But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct.

But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct.

Additional quotes by Liu Cixin

The stern of the ship faced the Solar System, where the sun was by now no more than a yellow star just a bit brighter than the rest. The peripheral spiral arm of the Milky Way lay in this direction, its stars sparse. The depth and expanse of deep space exhibited an arrogance that left no support for the mind or the eyes. “Dark. It’s so fucking dark,” the captain murmured, and then shot himself.

Imagine if DNA never made mistakes, always replicating and inheriting with perfect fidelity. What would life on Earth become?”

“In that case, life would no longer exist on Earth. The basis of the evolution of life is mutation, caused by mistakes in DNA.”

“Society is the same way. Its evolution and vitality is rooted in the myriad urges and desires departing from the morality laid out by the majority. A fish can’t live in perfectly clear water. A society where no one ever makes mistakes in ethics is, in reality, dead.

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