i should clarify “cosmic horror” for me is a MUCH broader concept in my mind than most think of it, for me, it encompasses so much more than just space gods beyond human understanding. i classify cosmic “entities” as anything out of control of humanity and of the “outside” in some vague sense, capitalism is a lovecraftian monster out of human control, it is not foreign to our world, but a.i. is also very similar in this regard, as is the weather/climate change, to a lesser extent. For me, the lovecraftian concepts in three body was the very idea of a dark forest, the idea that you fundamentally cannot know if the dark forest is in fact real, so they had to more or less assume it was, similar to that even if life is a simulation in order to prevent complete chaos we would still need to assume it’s all real so we aren’t just going crazy and doing ridiculous stuff on the off chance that it isn’t a simulation and murder and such things did matter, such concepts no matter the authors beliefs on how it ends up are always VERY interesting to me.
Just from this line “what could make an ancient and powerful race so scared and helpless that they need to build an escape hatch in the universe?’” I am already curious and will probably grab the book shortly and read some later tonight.
I consume book therefore i am, maybe, probably, we’ll see after i read X more books that further break down my preconceptions on everything i used to think i understood. Somehow i think i will just be less certain :P