In Stanislaw Lem’s excellent book “The Sum of Technology” (the very title shows Lem’s talent and erudition – an ironic paraphrase of the title of the work of one of the “fathers of the Church” Thomas Aquinas “The Sum of Theology”, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Tommaso d’Aquino, “Summa Theologica”), in chapter seven, “The Creation of Worlds” and The paragraph “Growing information” mentions an ancient Chinese philosopher, a wise thinker, Liao Xi Ming, who wrote a monumental work on the fight against dragons. The work is so detailed, exhaustive and practical that those who read it will not have a shadow of doubt about their ability to defeat ANY DRAGON in single combat!

“The only catch,” — Lem ironically remarks, – “was that those who learned his science could not find a dragon anywhere.”

In this paragraph, Lem self-critically and self-ironically compares his reasoning with the teachings of Liao Xi Ming. But this comparison is absolutely not applicable to the work of Lem, one of the most brilliant thinkers in the history of human thought.

I have already written critically enough about the idea of “Growing information” and therefore I will not repeat myself.

But as I read various manuscripts, I couldn’t help but wonder at the apparently excessive number of loyal followers of Liao Xi Ming!

Basically, these are the creators of “perpetual motion machines”, seekers of brothers in outer space, prophets, fortune-tellers, all kinds of “extra-senses”…

It’s hard to even figure out what’s more in them: Impenetrable stupidity or equally armored swindleness. Most likely, both qualities are enough – their sum is a constant value for each, but in each such flaming bright fires seeker of space bros, they are distributed differently. In some, there is stupidity and a dull thirst to communicate with “foreign intelligence” (extreme case: there is zero fraud, but everything is filled with inquisitive stupidity), in others, on the contrary, to profit from this obvious fraud, and WHAT and WHERE to “look for, predict, anticipate, survey the unknowable past and future, build a working Perpetuum Mobile, making gasoline from ocean water, launching a “cold thermonuclear reaction” to synthesize helium from hydrogen and making bed warmers out of it (because there is not enough fraud for more) does not matter (the other limit of the indicated amount is zero interest in the topic, but one hundred percent fraud in order to profit from fools with money).

Julius Fucik (well known mainly to the inhabitants of the “socialist countries”), a Czech journalist who was killed by the Nazis during World War II and wrote the death commandment “Report with a noose around my neck or a word before execution”, concluded this “word” with a call:

“People, I loved you! Be vigilant!”

I’ll end this scribble with a paraphrase-allusion:

“People, I DIDN’T love you and I DON’T love you (because THERE’s NO REASON!), but try, despite your stupidity, be vigilant!”

The appeal, of course, is the purest utopia, although, as the unforgettable Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria said:

“It’s better to be overvigilant, than to be undervigilant!”

14 VI 2026