The dreamer of Kai Lung, Bramah,  also related..."It is said with reason, "During the earthquake men speak the truth." (The Mirror of Kong Ho).
I wonder if more earthquake would have revealed more truth. Certainly the people can only learn when the facts are full and, in their season, harvested. Sure do hope this event serves as a lesson to the legislature.
Don't think I had encountered Bramah previously. If space aliens ever arrive, I hope our experts read him and his account of the Chinese man of much intelligence encountering London and British ways, including cricket. 
You meet people who look like  you, and act like rational creatures, and yet, upon further examination, you see that they are less rational, and more like lost daydreamers whose interpretations of reality defy belief.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene