I was watching The 3 Body Problem and remembered a scene where a character reads fairy tales from Brothers Grim (worst choice of book imo!) to the San-Ti (name of alien species with much more advance technology), specifically “Little Red Riding Hood”.
Which book would you send to the aliens knowing that they would be able to translate it to understand about our species? Not necessarily your favourite book either. For example, I adore Don Quixote, but what ideas would an old self-delusioned character teach them? Or how the Don and Sancho often get beat up by characters they run into? Maybe not the best image of humanity.
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by MrMontaigne
4 Comments
Cormac McCarthy’s *”Blood Meridian”* should serve as adequate warning.
If they wanted to dig deeper, then George Orwell’s *”1984″* might be in order.
Slaughterhouse Five
Or Catch-22
Grey’s Anatomy – why stall, show them where the choice cuts are right off and maybe they’ll be “humane”
no, best bet would be Memory Dog by Kathleen Anne Goonan and hope they haven’t evolved past a need for empathy and they understand it
I’m aiming for their hearts, it’s our only hope, don’t show them how smart we are yet continued to fudge it all up lol
Sapiens by Yuval Harari
It isn’t perfect, but it’s a good introduction to human history and society