Scott
and Hella have been asleep two hours. They will probably awaken in
about an hour. In the previous century it was considered normal for
people to waste about one-third of their lives sleeping. One way to
attack the problem of increasing the effective life-span has been to
make two or three hours of sleep as effective as eight or nine hours
previously was. Several genetic improvements, an increase in oxygen in
the sleeping chamber, plus the development of deeply relaxed
personalities almost free of hostility and tension has proved
successful.
Further genetic improvements are expected to minimize even more the amount of sleep required. The reduction, if not elimination, of sleep is not desired for its own sake. This world of the latter part of the twenty-first century is stimulating and challenging. There is so much to do and see. The limitless intellectual horizons, the esthetic delights, and the sensual feelings are too many and varied to be fully savored in the average lifetime of 200 years.
Although Scott and Hella are asleep, they are surrounded by great dynamism. Everything around them is being controlled by their home computer, known as the cybernator. This small computer is built into the wall and they never see it although it is in use every minute of the day. They have gradually trained their cybernator to meet their needs in thousands of ways. Through the cybernator Scott and Hella can verbally command any mechanism in their apartment. The cybernator also handles their messages to the Correlation Center.
The automated bed upon which Hella lies nude and unrestricted by clothing, sheets, or blankets, responds in a living way to support her body. There are no pressure points, no creases. This soft membrane gradually moves in a rhythm and pattern that over the years has proved to be most relaxing to Hella. The rhythm that is most relaxing to Scott during sleep is slightly different and the cybernator is also attending maximally to his needs. Since people change, the input sensors of the cybernator in the apartment are constantly scanning to explore whether they would have more relaxation if the sleeping membrane were to undulate in a different manner.
If Scott and Hella were to have a thousand servants, they would not receive the services that are available to them through the cybernator. Not only are the undulations of the bed constantly adapted to meet their needs, but other aspects of their sleeping chamber are being maintained by the cybernator to give maximum restfulness and comfort. A controlled, ionized atmosphere adds to their feeling of wellbeing. The temperature, humidity, mixture of air, and background music are constantly being adjusted to meet their individual needs at the moment. If one of Hella's feet drops three degrees below her optimal temperature range, an infra-red beam immediately brings it back to the desired level.
Sleep in the twenty-first century is no longer a haven from the trials and tribulations of the day—"the balm of tired minds". Scott and Hella have never experienced nightmares—these are part of the long list of things about previous centuries that they are really unable to understand except on an abstract level. In the past centuries, conflicts produced tension-filled lives that were temporarily relieved by alcohol and tranquilizers. The repressions and injustices of the day were expressed at night as disturbing dreams and nightmares. In Scott and Hella's world one's feelings and impulses are accepted both in thought and action so that hours of sleep are not vitiated by the romping of repressed feelings. Scott and Hella rarely dream, but when they do, their dreams usually revolve around pleasant things they plan for the next day.
Scott and Hella's lives are not governed by rigid schedules. There are practically no deadlines, and there is no need for them to awake at any particular time. The sensing extensions of the cybernator are able to determine when their bodies have absorbed all the rest they needed. Gradual changes are made that will prepare them to awaken with a full-of-energy feeling. The temperature of the sleeping chamber is reduced several degrees. The lighting of the chamber is increased and background music of a type enjoyed byScott and Hella in the morning will soon begin.
As Scott and Hella awaken, they have a feeling of anticipation. A new day is here. New and interesting thoughts with new beauties to be experienced and new sensations are to be felt! Lying together for the first few minutes of the day, Scott and Hella chat warmly about their feelings and plans. They decide to talk to some friends who live 10,000 miles away. They give verbal commands to the cybernator which makes a connection with the Correlation Center that is immediately relayed by satellite to their friends. They are able to exchange experiences and thoughts via a three-dimensional color transmission. They feel as close as if they were together in the same room.
Scott and Hella then lean their heads backward to fit into a niche designed to groom their hair. In forty-three seconds this cybernated beauty shop trims the hair and arranges it in any mode that Scott and Hella select. Over the years they have trained the cybernator in the patterns that they prefer for their hair. The job of grooming is performed by an electronic complex that sets the hair by beamed positive and negative electrostatic charges. A one-second, modified laser emission gives a permanent set that remains until a different style is desired. Hella seldom uses rouge, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, or other artificial techniques of past centuries. The people in the new civilization are no longer physiologically and psychologically exhausted by insoluble problems, emaciating responsibilities, atmospheric pollution, and poor nutrition. Neither men nor women care for artificial decoration. They feel beautiful and attractive in themselves. Their loveliness comes from inside—no outside veneer is needed.
At this time shaving has disappeared. Hair no longer grows in areas where humans do not want it. No mouth washes or irritating chemical agents are used that might affect the living tissues of the mouth. Cavities are unknown, for there has been an increase in the hardness of the enamel, and foods are designed to inhibit decay of the teeth and disease of the gums. Because of the high degree of intestinal health, bad breath is almost unknown.
The lavatory and toilet are recessed in a corner of the bathroom area. The water turns on whenever the hands are placed above the lavatory. In toileting, the individual sits upon a soft ring covering a soundproof bowl. During elimination or defecation the waste matter, together with all odors, is drawn into an opening. Instead of towels or tissues there are water sprays which automatically clean the rectal and pubic areas, and warm air rapidly dries them. This natural function is no longer unattractive as in previous centuries.
two billion people.
Almost everything that happens in the human body is accompanied by electrical and chemical changes that can be picked up and recorded by the advanced medical engineering of the twenty-first century. The casual ten seconds spent in this medical cabinet give Scott and Hella a daily checkup that may add years to their lives. All colds, viruses, and infectious diseases have been eliminated for many years. Only long-term deterioration of body organs is still a problem.
When necessary, conditions in their environment are altered to help them maintain optimal health. Many of the environmental changes, such as the adjustment of calories to preserve optimal weight, are performed automatically. Every effort is being made by medical technicians to automate all conditions involving health so that no conscious control is necessary to achieve the highest level of energy and longevity.
Scott and Hella walk into the dressing area and hold out their arms. Their garments release themselves from hangers and adhere to their bodies. Their measurements are stored in the Correlation Center. Whenever they need a garment, the cybernated machines tailor a unique one for them in the style and material they select.
The clothing is extremely thin and soft, yet it has great strength and flexibility. The material lives, breathes, and reflects— or absorbs—light and heat as needed to keep the body temperature even. Through energy generated from light, the material obtains electrical potential required to operate the garment's electromechanical responses. It has no bulging surfaces or tension-producing areas of stress. In any scuff contact a flow of electro-migratory materials maintains the garment in constant repair.
The material can assume any color or become transparent. The clothes clean themselves and usually do not need attention during their expected ten-year life.
Delicate shoes that flex coordinately with the movement of the musculature of the foot are entirely free of local pressures or undesirable friction. They breathe as the wearer walks about.
The feet are maintained at the most comfortable temperature, regardless of the weather. A membranous material will migrate to any part of the shoe to enhance movement, comfort, durability, and wear. They are also self-cleaning.
Scott and Hella live in a circular, multi-story apartment building that is over a mile in diameter. It contains 300,000 living-units designed to meet human needs in every possible way. All walls, doors, and windows are soundproof. The nearest building they can see from their balcony is about a half-mile away. Few suburban homes of the past, even if built on forty acres of land, offered the absence of distractions they are able to enjoy.
As they make themselves comfortable on the balcony, they give vocal commands to the cybernator which produces the food they have ordered in five seconds. As a part of their training to live in the twenty-first-century world, Scott and Hella have become familiar with 325 selections of food. These selections seem to encompass fairly well the entire range of taste, smell, and texture combinations that most people enjoy. It has been found that three basic food mixtures can be electronically altered in one second's time to give variations in color, taste, and texture that make up any desired menu.
In an experiment several years ago some twentieth-century foods, as prepared by gourmet restaurants in various cities of the world were offered to a group of twenty-first-century people. They found the twentieth-century food lacking in taste depth, nutritionally insufficient, and actually harmful in some ways.
Scott and Hella do not use the primitive knife, fork, and spoon of former times. Their exotic foods are picked up by a glass-like rod that is charged electrostatically so that portions of food adhere to it. They do not have to penetrate the food; they simply bring the glass rod near it. There is no dripping or dropping of food. By varying the charge at the tip, even liquids adhere. When they complete their meal, the implements and dishes are lowered into the table, where they are automatically cleaned and sterilized.
Scott and Hella nestle in a contour chair as they activate the three-dimensional teleprojection area. This contour chair acts as a living support that produces a comfort previously unknown. If Hella raises her arm, the chair will extend itself upon command to support the arm in any position desired. Whenever the legs are moved, it grows to support them with balloon-like softness. It gives them a physical freedom when sitting or reclining. The furniture of previous times tended to force people to sit in predetermined ways. In the new world of the twenty-first century, the individual has the freedom to select.
Most of the mechanisms that free Scott and Hella from drudgery and permit them to be served as guests in their own home operate automatically. Push buttons, dials, and levers are seldom used. Almost every machine in the new world is voice-actuated and responds instantly to spoken orders.
The interior of the living room has a large, dome-shaped ceiling with soft, colorful lighting flowing without any visible source from all portions of the wall. All of the electronic mechanisms that control the interior of their apartment are built into the walls. There are no gadgets bulging out here and there. The eye meets only pleasing contours of an organically designed interior. The walls of the twenty-first-century living-units are capable of infinite variety. At times they appear transparent. At other times they seem opaque. Often they reflect color or combinations of color in pleasing blends and designs. Teleprojected pictures, sculpture, and flowers are tastefully distributed through the apartment. They automatically change each day. There are no locks on any doors. In a world of abundance and sanity, they have no function. Almost everything in the apartment is fireproof and free from deterioration and will remain so for the long life of the building.
The entire apartment is maintained and cleaned continually by automatic mechanisms silently operated by the cybernator. No brooms, vacuum cleaners, or other manual paraphernalia are needed. It is almost completely dust-free. All surfaces are gracefully contoured so that there are no cracks or corners to permit dust to gather. Most surfaces have an electrostatic charge that repels dust and keeps it floating in the air to be filtered out. Since the air pressure in the apartment is slightly higher than outside, no dust flows in.
All materials and mechanisms in the living area are designed to last over one hundred years. Scott and Hella probably cannot recall any inconvenience due to a mechanical failure. The outside walls and roof of the apartment building are made of ceramic-like materials which require no painting or maintenance and have a life expectancy in excess of 500 years.
The versatile living areas are the focal points of the intelligence of the world environment. They are connected electronically with the Correlation Center, which, in turn, is connected with practically everything on the planet. When Scott wishes, he can contact any region in the world. He can talk with almost anyone in the world at any time. It is possible for him to attend any conference, to observe almost everything going on in the world in three-dimensional, color teleprojection without leaving his apartment.
Not only does their apartment enjoy two-way communication throughout the world, but it is also connected to receive anything they want directly from any part of the globe. Stores and shopping centers are regarded as inconvenient folkways of pre-twenty-first-century civilizations. When Scott and Hella want any personal item or any apparatus, they need only order their cybernator to produce three-dimensional models for their selection. Sometimes a basic model may have hundreds of optional attachments. This gives them an opportunity to order a customized version that meet their needs exactly.
When they select what they want, their cybernator immediately communicates this to the Correlation Center. In less than a second the order is registered at the nearest industrial complex. Within minutes this item is fabricated, packaged, and sent on its way in a high-speed system of tubes twenty feet in diameter. This high-speed package is electronically guided by the symbols representing Scott and Hella's address. Their package travels at the rate of 250 miles per hour until it arrives at their apartment.
During the entire process not one human hand or brain has been involved in filling their order. It is possible that the object they have ordered is unique in the entire world, for perhaps no one else has ordered that particular combination.
There is no scarcity of anything. Scott and Hella are free to order as much as they wish, for no human lives are consumed in meeting their needs. Whatever they want results only in a momentary blip in the cybernated machine complex of the twenty-first century.
Eight months ago the Correlation Center selected Scott and medical scientists from Asia, South America, and Europe to conduct experiments and report on the desirability of increasing the sensitivity of the humans near to 30,000 cycles. Human hearing is limited to a range of about 20 to 20,000 cycles per second. Some animals, such as dogs, can hear higher-pitched sounds. If Scott's committee feels that human well-being would be increased by an addition to the auditory range, research will be conducted toward this end. They already know which DNA manipulation are needed to produce the higher range of hearing. Perhaps in five years a pilot study with 1,000 individuals in different parts of the earth will be tried. If a richer pattern of life results, perhaps 5 per cent of the infants will be so equipped. If results continue to be favorable, this genetic improvement may be generally adopted for future babies of the twenty-second century. If there is any question about the feasibility of a projected improvement, or if difficulties later arise, the flexible scientific attitude results in rapid corrections. Nothing is regarded as final.
During his lifetime Scott knew people who were born in the twentieth century. He considered them "culture-bound." They were so bewildered by the flexibility of the new generations! They kept saying, "It isn't right to do this. If nature had wanted things that way, she would have made them that way. You have no respect for truth." Scot believes that the test of all things is the happiness they yield. He knows that mental straight-jackets limit one's ability to work out patterns of life that are broadly fulfilling.
Perhaps for the first time in human history, people are not bound tightly by the forms of a culture. In the past individuals who did not observe the mores of their particular culture were subjected to penalties that varied from disapproval to death. Scott's generation encourages diversity; they try to avoid getting into personal or social ruts.
In the nurseries children enjoy games that help develop complete flexibility in going from one system to another. They know that two plus two in many situations equals four. They do not want to be rigidly bound by this. They want to know the hidden assumptions that lie behind this ' 'self-evident" formula. Children enjoy finding ways in which two plus two is not equal to four. Much of life is not additive. If two mouthfuls of a food are pleasant, it does not follow that four mouthfuls will give twice as much pleasure. The pleasure may decrease even more with six mouthfuls. Twelve mouthfuls might be unpleasant. "I remember once discovering a life situation in which two plus two equaled zero," Scott says.
The free minds of the twenty-first century challenge everything that seems self-evident. They like to try on mentally different points of view. They search for their hidden assumptions and delight in bringing them to the surface. They are experts at changing their minds. "There are many people I especially like because they do not share my points of view," Hella says. "I enjoy talking with them when they vigorously defend a position that contradicts mine. I know I learn more when I find people with ideas that challenge mine."
Further genetic improvements are expected to minimize even more the amount of sleep required. The reduction, if not elimination, of sleep is not desired for its own sake. This world of the latter part of the twenty-first century is stimulating and challenging. There is so much to do and see. The limitless intellectual horizons, the esthetic delights, and the sensual feelings are too many and varied to be fully savored in the average lifetime of 200 years.
Although Scott and Hella are asleep, they are surrounded by great dynamism. Everything around them is being controlled by their home computer, known as the cybernator. This small computer is built into the wall and they never see it although it is in use every minute of the day. They have gradually trained their cybernator to meet their needs in thousands of ways. Through the cybernator Scott and Hella can verbally command any mechanism in their apartment. The cybernator also handles their messages to the Correlation Center.
The automated bed upon which Hella lies nude and unrestricted by clothing, sheets, or blankets, responds in a living way to support her body. There are no pressure points, no creases. This soft membrane gradually moves in a rhythm and pattern that over the years has proved to be most relaxing to Hella. The rhythm that is most relaxing to Scott during sleep is slightly different and the cybernator is also attending maximally to his needs. Since people change, the input sensors of the cybernator in the apartment are constantly scanning to explore whether they would have more relaxation if the sleeping membrane were to undulate in a different manner.
If Scott and Hella were to have a thousand servants, they would not receive the services that are available to them through the cybernator. Not only are the undulations of the bed constantly adapted to meet their needs, but other aspects of their sleeping chamber are being maintained by the cybernator to give maximum restfulness and comfort. A controlled, ionized atmosphere adds to their feeling of wellbeing. The temperature, humidity, mixture of air, and background music are constantly being adjusted to meet their individual needs at the moment. If one of Hella's feet drops three degrees below her optimal temperature range, an infra-red beam immediately brings it back to the desired level.
Sleep in the twenty-first century is no longer a haven from the trials and tribulations of the day—"the balm of tired minds". Scott and Hella have never experienced nightmares—these are part of the long list of things about previous centuries that they are really unable to understand except on an abstract level. In the past centuries, conflicts produced tension-filled lives that were temporarily relieved by alcohol and tranquilizers. The repressions and injustices of the day were expressed at night as disturbing dreams and nightmares. In Scott and Hella's world one's feelings and impulses are accepted both in thought and action so that hours of sleep are not vitiated by the romping of repressed feelings. Scott and Hella rarely dream, but when they do, their dreams usually revolve around pleasant things they plan for the next day.
Scott and Hella's lives are not governed by rigid schedules. There are practically no deadlines, and there is no need for them to awake at any particular time. The sensing extensions of the cybernator are able to determine when their bodies have absorbed all the rest they needed. Gradual changes are made that will prepare them to awaken with a full-of-energy feeling. The temperature of the sleeping chamber is reduced several degrees. The lighting of the chamber is increased and background music of a type enjoyed byScott and Hella in the morning will soon begin.
As Scott and Hella awaken, they have a feeling of anticipation. A new day is here. New and interesting thoughts with new beauties to be experienced and new sensations are to be felt! Lying together for the first few minutes of the day, Scott and Hella chat warmly about their feelings and plans. They decide to talk to some friends who live 10,000 miles away. They give verbal commands to the cybernator which makes a connection with the Correlation Center that is immediately relayed by satellite to their friends. They are able to exchange experiences and thoughts via a three-dimensional color transmission. They feel as close as if they were together in the same room.
The Cybernated Hygiene Area
With kitten-like playfulness Hella slaps Scott on the buttocks and runs toward a cylindrical chamber. Scott catches her just as she reaches the entrance to the twenty-first-century bathroom. Although she is forty years old, Hella looks like a young girl of eighteen. She has light brown hair with sparkling brown eyes. Her mouth is expressive and perfectly spaced teeth show when she laughs. Her breasts are firm and slightly smaller than the average of previous centuries. Her hips are beautifully formed but not wide. Her buttocks and thighs are softly rounded. Laughingly, Scott pulls her inside the cylindrical walls of the shower. Air and water, mixed under pressure to form a soft, cleansing spray, delightfully comb every part of their bodies at a speed and pressure that they have taught the cybernator. No soap is used; ultrasonically activated water loosens any clinging particles. This bath not only cleans their bodies but also furnishes the most delightful tactile sensations with sprays that tingle and massage every part of them. Scott is about the same height as Hella. His handsome face responds to the stimulating shower. Like Hella, Scott does not look his forty-five years. He begins to sing in a resonant voice. Hella, in self-defense, harmonizes with him with a vibrant tone. Scott and Hella have almost equally strong muscles. They move gracefully and gently in a way that suggests hidden strength. They are dried in three seconds as they walk through the air wall that acts as a shower door. This air wall is a high-speed sheet of warm air jetted from the top, bottom, and sides of the shower opening. While they are in the shower, the sleeping chamber automatically cleans and sterilizes itself.Scott and Hella then lean their heads backward to fit into a niche designed to groom their hair. In forty-three seconds this cybernated beauty shop trims the hair and arranges it in any mode that Scott and Hella select. Over the years they have trained the cybernator in the patterns that they prefer for their hair. The job of grooming is performed by an electronic complex that sets the hair by beamed positive and negative electrostatic charges. A one-second, modified laser emission gives a permanent set that remains until a different style is desired. Hella seldom uses rouge, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, or other artificial techniques of past centuries. The people in the new civilization are no longer physiologically and psychologically exhausted by insoluble problems, emaciating responsibilities, atmospheric pollution, and poor nutrition. Neither men nor women care for artificial decoration. They feel beautiful and attractive in themselves. Their loveliness comes from inside—no outside veneer is needed.
At this time shaving has disappeared. Hair no longer grows in areas where humans do not want it. No mouth washes or irritating chemical agents are used that might affect the living tissues of the mouth. Cavities are unknown, for there has been an increase in the hardness of the enamel, and foods are designed to inhibit decay of the teeth and disease of the gums. Because of the high degree of intestinal health, bad breath is almost unknown.
The lavatory and toilet are recessed in a corner of the bathroom area. The water turns on whenever the hands are placed above the lavatory. In toileting, the individual sits upon a soft ring covering a soundproof bowl. During elimination or defecation the waste matter, together with all odors, is drawn into an opening. Instead of towels or tissues there are water sprays which automatically clean the rectal and pubic areas, and warm air rapidly dries them. This natural function is no longer unattractive as in previous centuries.
A Medical Checkup
Scott and Hella step into a cabinet and automatically trigger a ten-second series of tests that help them achieve the highest level of health. The mechanism records their weight so that the cybernator can check gain or loss. If an upward trend in weight appears over a period of time, the cybernator orders the food production mechanism to decrease the calories without making any noticeable change in the bulk or taste of the food. The cabinet also measures blood pressure differentials throughout the body. It produces an electrocardiogram and instantaneously compares it with previous electrocardiograms. The blood in capillaries on the retina of the eye is given a spectro-analysis. The heartbeat, respiratory rate, brain-wave activity, and many other measurements are made and instantly compared with long-term norms for the individual. The cybernator does not over-respond to individual readings of any specific day but, instead, analyzes them for physiological trends. The Correlation Center compares them with norms based on overtwo billion people.
Almost everything that happens in the human body is accompanied by electrical and chemical changes that can be picked up and recorded by the advanced medical engineering of the twenty-first century. The casual ten seconds spent in this medical cabinet give Scott and Hella a daily checkup that may add years to their lives. All colds, viruses, and infectious diseases have been eliminated for many years. Only long-term deterioration of body organs is still a problem.
When necessary, conditions in their environment are altered to help them maintain optimal health. Many of the environmental changes, such as the adjustment of calories to preserve optimal weight, are performed automatically. Every effort is being made by medical technicians to automate all conditions involving health so that no conscious control is necessary to achieve the highest level of energy and longevity.
Scott and Hella walk into the dressing area and hold out their arms. Their garments release themselves from hangers and adhere to their bodies. Their measurements are stored in the Correlation Center. Whenever they need a garment, the cybernated machines tailor a unique one for them in the style and material they select.
The clothing is extremely thin and soft, yet it has great strength and flexibility. The material lives, breathes, and reflects— or absorbs—light and heat as needed to keep the body temperature even. Through energy generated from light, the material obtains electrical potential required to operate the garment's electromechanical responses. It has no bulging surfaces or tension-producing areas of stress. In any scuff contact a flow of electro-migratory materials maintains the garment in constant repair.
The material can assume any color or become transparent. The clothes clean themselves and usually do not need attention during their expected ten-year life.
Delicate shoes that flex coordinately with the movement of the musculature of the foot are entirely free of local pressures or undesirable friction. They breathe as the wearer walks about.
The feet are maintained at the most comfortable temperature, regardless of the weather. A membranous material will migrate to any part of the shoe to enhance movement, comfort, durability, and wear. They are also self-cleaning.
Snack on the Balcony
Scott and Hella often eat on the balcony that overlooks the naturally lovely wooded areas of the twentyfirst- century cities. Over 83 per cent of the land in the cities is maintained as park and recreation areas. For the past forty-two years all the cities have had full weather control. The Correlation Center arranges for the degree of variation from season to season that people find most pleasant. Rain, snow, and windstorms no longer inconvenience people in urban communities.Scott and Hella live in a circular, multi-story apartment building that is over a mile in diameter. It contains 300,000 living-units designed to meet human needs in every possible way. All walls, doors, and windows are soundproof. The nearest building they can see from their balcony is about a half-mile away. Few suburban homes of the past, even if built on forty acres of land, offered the absence of distractions they are able to enjoy.
As they make themselves comfortable on the balcony, they give vocal commands to the cybernator which produces the food they have ordered in five seconds. As a part of their training to live in the twenty-first-century world, Scott and Hella have become familiar with 325 selections of food. These selections seem to encompass fairly well the entire range of taste, smell, and texture combinations that most people enjoy. It has been found that three basic food mixtures can be electronically altered in one second's time to give variations in color, taste, and texture that make up any desired menu.
In an experiment several years ago some twentieth-century foods, as prepared by gourmet restaurants in various cities of the world were offered to a group of twenty-first-century people. They found the twentieth-century food lacking in taste depth, nutritionally insufficient, and actually harmful in some ways.
Scott and Hella do not use the primitive knife, fork, and spoon of former times. Their exotic foods are picked up by a glass-like rod that is charged electrostatically so that portions of food adhere to it. They do not have to penetrate the food; they simply bring the glass rod near it. There is no dripping or dropping of food. By varying the charge at the tip, even liquids adhere. When they complete their meal, the implements and dishes are lowered into the table, where they are automatically cleaned and sterilized.
The Dynamic Living Area
After breakfast Scott and Hella go to the largest room in their apartment. Half of this room is devoted to a teleprojection area large enough for life-sized, three-dimensional figures. An index scanner enables Scott and Hella to select whatever they enjoy most—concerts, plays, current events, informative subjects. The world's forests are no longer being chewed up to make newspapers. All past or present news is available on the telescreen, and reusable electrostatic copies can be made if desired. The cybernator in their apartment has already made a list of the programs of the day. It has put a red dot beside the type of program that Scott prefers and a yellow dot beside the type that Hella usually selects.Scott and Hella nestle in a contour chair as they activate the three-dimensional teleprojection area. This contour chair acts as a living support that produces a comfort previously unknown. If Hella raises her arm, the chair will extend itself upon command to support the arm in any position desired. Whenever the legs are moved, it grows to support them with balloon-like softness. It gives them a physical freedom when sitting or reclining. The furniture of previous times tended to force people to sit in predetermined ways. In the new world of the twenty-first century, the individual has the freedom to select.
Most of the mechanisms that free Scott and Hella from drudgery and permit them to be served as guests in their own home operate automatically. Push buttons, dials, and levers are seldom used. Almost every machine in the new world is voice-actuated and responds instantly to spoken orders.
The interior of the living room has a large, dome-shaped ceiling with soft, colorful lighting flowing without any visible source from all portions of the wall. All of the electronic mechanisms that control the interior of their apartment are built into the walls. There are no gadgets bulging out here and there. The eye meets only pleasing contours of an organically designed interior. The walls of the twenty-first-century living-units are capable of infinite variety. At times they appear transparent. At other times they seem opaque. Often they reflect color or combinations of color in pleasing blends and designs. Teleprojected pictures, sculpture, and flowers are tastefully distributed through the apartment. They automatically change each day. There are no locks on any doors. In a world of abundance and sanity, they have no function. Almost everything in the apartment is fireproof and free from deterioration and will remain so for the long life of the building.
The entire apartment is maintained and cleaned continually by automatic mechanisms silently operated by the cybernator. No brooms, vacuum cleaners, or other manual paraphernalia are needed. It is almost completely dust-free. All surfaces are gracefully contoured so that there are no cracks or corners to permit dust to gather. Most surfaces have an electrostatic charge that repels dust and keeps it floating in the air to be filtered out. Since the air pressure in the apartment is slightly higher than outside, no dust flows in.
All materials and mechanisms in the living area are designed to last over one hundred years. Scott and Hella probably cannot recall any inconvenience due to a mechanical failure. The outside walls and roof of the apartment building are made of ceramic-like materials which require no painting or maintenance and have a life expectancy in excess of 500 years.
The versatile living areas are the focal points of the intelligence of the world environment. They are connected electronically with the Correlation Center, which, in turn, is connected with practically everything on the planet. When Scott wishes, he can contact any region in the world. He can talk with almost anyone in the world at any time. It is possible for him to attend any conference, to observe almost everything going on in the world in three-dimensional, color teleprojection without leaving his apartment.
Not only does their apartment enjoy two-way communication throughout the world, but it is also connected to receive anything they want directly from any part of the globe. Stores and shopping centers are regarded as inconvenient folkways of pre-twenty-first-century civilizations. When Scott and Hella want any personal item or any apparatus, they need only order their cybernator to produce three-dimensional models for their selection. Sometimes a basic model may have hundreds of optional attachments. This gives them an opportunity to order a customized version that meet their needs exactly.
When they select what they want, their cybernator immediately communicates this to the Correlation Center. In less than a second the order is registered at the nearest industrial complex. Within minutes this item is fabricated, packaged, and sent on its way in a high-speed system of tubes twenty feet in diameter. This high-speed package is electronically guided by the symbols representing Scott and Hella's address. Their package travels at the rate of 250 miles per hour until it arrives at their apartment.
During the entire process not one human hand or brain has been involved in filling their order. It is possible that the object they have ordered is unique in the entire world, for perhaps no one else has ordered that particular combination.
There is no scarcity of anything. Scott and Hella are free to order as much as they wish, for no human lives are consumed in meeting their needs. Whatever they want results only in a momentary blip in the cybernated machine complex of the twenty-first century.
Fulfilling Interests
Scott has strong interest in medical engineering. A writer in the twentieth century would have said that medicine was Scott's "profession". In the new world, this terminology is not appropriate since the primitive system of jobs, wages, fees, and money has been outgrown. Scott finds the human body and its myriad mechanisms particularly fascinating. He enjoys playing a part in experiments designed to yield data that helps people attain the highest possible level of health. Doctors now study health, not disease. Instead of finding out what causes disease, they concentrate on finding out what factors produce the highest possible level of health. The parts of the body that were subject to frequent breakdown, such as the appendix, were eliminated many decades ago by improvements in the genes that blueprint the human body.Eight months ago the Correlation Center selected Scott and medical scientists from Asia, South America, and Europe to conduct experiments and report on the desirability of increasing the sensitivity of the humans near to 30,000 cycles. Human hearing is limited to a range of about 20 to 20,000 cycles per second. Some animals, such as dogs, can hear higher-pitched sounds. If Scott's committee feels that human well-being would be increased by an addition to the auditory range, research will be conducted toward this end. They already know which DNA manipulation are needed to produce the higher range of hearing. Perhaps in five years a pilot study with 1,000 individuals in different parts of the earth will be tried. If a richer pattern of life results, perhaps 5 per cent of the infants will be so equipped. If results continue to be favorable, this genetic improvement may be generally adopted for future babies of the twenty-second century. If there is any question about the feasibility of a projected improvement, or if difficulties later arise, the flexible scientific attitude results in rapid corrections. Nothing is regarded as final.
During his lifetime Scott knew people who were born in the twentieth century. He considered them "culture-bound." They were so bewildered by the flexibility of the new generations! They kept saying, "It isn't right to do this. If nature had wanted things that way, she would have made them that way. You have no respect for truth." Scot believes that the test of all things is the happiness they yield. He knows that mental straight-jackets limit one's ability to work out patterns of life that are broadly fulfilling.
Perhaps for the first time in human history, people are not bound tightly by the forms of a culture. In the past individuals who did not observe the mores of their particular culture were subjected to penalties that varied from disapproval to death. Scott's generation encourages diversity; they try to avoid getting into personal or social ruts.
In the nurseries children enjoy games that help develop complete flexibility in going from one system to another. They know that two plus two in many situations equals four. They do not want to be rigidly bound by this. They want to know the hidden assumptions that lie behind this ' 'self-evident" formula. Children enjoy finding ways in which two plus two is not equal to four. Much of life is not additive. If two mouthfuls of a food are pleasant, it does not follow that four mouthfuls will give twice as much pleasure. The pleasure may decrease even more with six mouthfuls. Twelve mouthfuls might be unpleasant. "I remember once discovering a life situation in which two plus two equaled zero," Scott says.
The free minds of the twenty-first century challenge everything that seems self-evident. They like to try on mentally different points of view. They search for their hidden assumptions and delight in bringing them to the surface. They are experts at changing their minds. "There are many people I especially like because they do not share my points of view," Hella says. "I enjoy talking with them when they vigorously defend a position that contradicts mine. I know I learn more when I find people with ideas that challenge mine."
The Morning: Conference
Hella enjoys studying human relationships. She has asked the Correlation Center to indicate useful things she can do. She has been appointed to a committee that is studying the degree to which privacy in living areas adds or detracts from the human happiness potential. They are gathering data on what proportions of the population seem to achieve maximum fulfillment in those apartments that offer privacy versus those apartments that are shared by varying numbers of people. There is some evidence that self-selected groups of six people offer greater conversational variety, increased vicarious appreciations, and significantly enriched intellectual, esthetic, and sensory experiences. Larger groups may have a degree of superficiality and confusion that has drawbacks.It is recognized that if each individual is to have a maximum of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," there must be opportunities from full privacy to full community participation in all activities. One should be able to choose whatever meets his needs best at the time. All planning is determined by the varied and changing preferences of individuals, not by what someone else thinks is "good for them."
Both Scott and Hella plan to confer with their respective colleagues on these scientific matters during the latter part of the morning. At the prearranged time the telescreens come to life. Scott in his portion of the room and Hella in hers talk with their associates throughout the world. A table is in the foreground of the screen and the people appear in the far-flung conference telescreens as though seated in a semicircle.
At one point in Scott's conference it is necessary to telecommunicate with a scientist on a space station. Later, they need the results of an experiment on hearing conducted eighty years previously. A request is made of the Correlation Center for this information. Within moments the data is presented upon the screen. The Correlation Center has recorded every book, document, and report that has ever been preserved in the history of the world. This information—classified, cross referenced, summarized, and evaluated—is available at all times. The proceedings of this conference are also recorded into the vast memory banks of the Correlation Center.
After their conferences Scott and Hella leave the main living area. Their chairs silently fold away and retract into the floor. They return to the balcony and recline upon a huge circular surface which automatically contours itself to their bodies and orients to the most suitable position to absorb filtered sunlight. The cybernator senses the mood of Scott and Hella and immediately provides a delightful fragrance of flowers with a background of stimulating music. Scott and Hella tenderly touch each other. He kisses her shoulders and she responds. They both begin to breathe deeply as they enjoy a multidimensional experience that culminates in an ecstatic sexual climax.
As they relax automatic units gently massage their bodies. These units do not have any extensions or projections. They are electronic means that project gentle contractions into the musculature of the body. All points of the body can be gently or forcefully massaged at the same time, depending upon the training that one has given the cybernator that serves him. Scott and Hella's muscles are stimulated to develop and maintain strength. As the massage becomes gentler, it gradually lulls them to sleep.
Although they live in a voice-actuated environment designed to meet their needs, they are resourceful, capable individuals. They enjoy muscular activity. Since the cybernated machines protect them from boring, repetitive drudgery, they are unburdened and hence able to enjoy exertion. They often walk several miles in preference to using a cybernated car.
While Scott and Hella are asleep a friend calls. There is no jangling phone to awaken them, for the sensing devices in their environment know they are asleep and report this. The friend communicates his message to the three-dimensional recorder, which is promptly played for Scott and Hella when they awake.
Since it is possible to communicate quickly with any person on earth, no matter where he is, there is no problem in returning the call. They invited him to drop by that evening.
Scott and Hella feel a complete freedom to explore new areas of thinking and feeling. They want their values and interests to change so that they may experience a multi-dimensional life. As they seek newer and deeper areas of feeling and thinking, the cybernator senses these altered patterns and responds appropriately. Just as an English butler learned in previous centuries to pick up the moods and needs of his employers "intuitively," so the cybernators are designed to grasp totally the sensitivities of the people they serve. They sense almost in advance what each person will want. They furnish whatever concert, symphony, or other type of entertainment would best suit the need of each individual they serve. The cybernators never determine what humans should have or want. They always seek to provide what will best meet the needs of individuals from clues given by the pattern of past choices.
Although Scott and Hella are aware of the functions of the cybernator, they interact with it in a highly impersonal way. In the hidden mechanism in the walls, there are built-in, duplicate parts that automatically bypass any defective units in an instant without interruption of service.
The living patterns Scott and Hella prefer can be instantly transferred to any other living unit they visit. Their cybernator is connected to the Correlation Center so that any living unit throughout the world can immediately request instructions on the various patterns an individual prefers. Thus everyone in the twenty-first century feels at home wherever he is—in a space ship, an apartment in the Himalayas, or a living unit at the bottom of the sea. As Scott once expressed it, "The world is my home."
A Visit to Sumatra
During the afternoon Scott mentions a place in Sumatra he had once visited. On voice command, there emanates from the walls a teleprojection of a scene from Sumatra. As these images change, Scott and Hella experience the smell of the forest, the green leaves of the jungle, and the animal life. These perfected teleprojection images can not be distinguished from the real objects.The living area is at once transformed. Hanging vines and the lush tropical vegetation of the jungles of Sumatra appear in life-sized, three-dimensional color. Birds fly through their living area, and animals walk by, apparently within reach of Scott and Hella. They appear quite solid, and one can hear the flapping of bird's wings and the soft padding of an animal's paws. The sea life and beaches appear in full reality. With gentle breezes caressing their faces, Scott and Hella feel immersed in the breaking waves, and colorful tropical fish that surround them and occasionally seem to touch them. If there is anything they wish to see again or want enlarged, they have only to command the cybernator. They watch underwater plants shimmer past them and see reflections of sunbeams coming down through the water with iridescent shadows.
The newscast during the late afternoon briefly discusses signals received from outside the solar system. A particularly strong transmission is currently being monitored from a star some twenty-six light-years away, near the center of our galaxy. Apparently, intelligent beings are beaming strong signals toward earth. The linguistic system has not been cracked, but the computers are working on it. How soon will they contact other beings in the universe?
Sharing With Friends
Toward evening the cybernator alerts Scott that their friends will be there soon. Sonji and Jahn arrive in a pilotless levitator. It is propelled by highly energized ion particles that are emitted from the underside of the craft in a constant stream. This enables it to go up or down or be propelled in any direction desired. The levitator is not a flying machine. It does not depend upon air currents or any noisy unreliable devices such as propellers, wings, or ailerons. As it gently alights on the balcony, the guests appear to walk through its side, for there are no doors, cracks, or visible openings. Through verbal command the molecular bond of a portion of this outer skin yields to permit them to leave. The cybernator greets the guests and automatically guides them to the area where they are received by Scott and Hella. They make themselves comfortable on the responsive furniture.These guests are not attracted to Scott and Hella for inconsequential chatter or the social consumption of alcohol. Jahn is engrossed in reconstructing biological organisms that roamed the earth in the distant eons of the past. Sonji is part of a team devising electronic means to propel rats, flies, and other undesired forms of life from a five-mile belt surrounding all of the cities of the globe. They excitedly exchange ideas pro, con, back, and forth.
Creative Recreation
There are many games with physical or intellectual challenge from which to choose. This evening Scott suggests they play a game of Intellectronics. The three-dimensional, teleprojection mechanism is turned on, and they eagerly don headsets with sensitive electronic pickups. The teleprojection area comes alive with a visual representation of the innermost feelings of each individual, somewhat similar to the oscilloscope projection of vocal sounds. The screen is filled with a three-dimensional, infinitely varied spectrum of color. By interacting with each other, they make sprays of color that extend and dance in space before them. The forms blend with one another and merge as totally different and exciting patterns."What a novel thought! Who projected that? How surprising that this projection is so similar to mine." The game explores the innermost feelings of each participant. These electronic translations of the operation of the human mind are very meaningful to Scott, Hella, and their friends. If someone from previous centuries were to see them, they would appear abstract and meaningless. But to people who have had years of experience, this new imagery represents a sophisticated form of communication. Somewhat as an electroencephalogram operator in the twentieth century interpreted two-dimensional wavy lines, the participants of the new imagery are sharing a form of communication, involving the integration of motion and color interwoven in a symphonic sensorium.
Home Movies
After a pleasant evening with their friends, which has lasted until around four in the morning, Scott and Hella retire to their sleeping chamber. Suddenly, Scott remembers some three-dimensional color recordings he and Hella made in their sleeping chamber on a recent visit to the moon. Since the moon has only one-sixth of the gravitational pull of the earth, they weighed only about 20 pounds. With the full muscle strength designed for earth's gravitation, they were able to interact sexually with each other in ways that would be impossible on earth.Upon command the cybernator projected these movies on the screen of their sleeping chamber while Scott and Hella enjoy again their previous delights. As the movie draws to a close, the cybernator uses its repertoire to enhance the sexuality of Scott and Hella. The whole spectrum of their sensations is keyed to this undisturbed act of love. The music keeps pace with their physiological activities and sensations. Temperatures are automatically maintained to meet their needs. All of their innermost feelings are accentuated and co-ordinated toward the gripping climax.
As they drift away into a restful sleep, the cybernator with its thousands of inputs throughout their entire apartment, maintains a constant surveillance over the well-being of Scott and Hella. They are the pioneers in a new age of social and individual symbiosis. It is an age in which a purposeful existence and a fulfilling life is shared equally by all. In six hours they will go to one of the fascinating underwater apartments built on a colorful Exuma reef. They sleep deeply to meet the opportunities of an exciting tomorrow.
For
some time Scott and Hella have been planning to visit an underwater
resort in the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas. The cybernator automatically
notifies the Correlation Center of their plans. Scott and Hella have no
frenzy of last-minute packing to get ready for the trip. They simply
leave with nothing in their hands. The entire world is their home, and
they have no need to take anything with them. Food and drink will be
available in the aircraft. Travellers in previous times were heavily
burdened by baggage, but anything Scott and Hella need will be available
wherever they go. Their important papers, photographs and mementos are
fed into the Correlation Center. They can be instantly retrieved any
time or any place in the world. Soon retrieval on the moon will be
possible.
On Hella's command the cybernator calls for a 1,000 mile-per-hour ion-propelled craft. Within minutes the pilotless craft stops on the landing area on top of their apartment building. They enter and by vocal command give coded directions for the apartments in the Exumas. As the craft races at supersonic speed over the highest clouds, Scott and Hella relax in contour chairs and watch the unfolding panorama of the cloud formations.
"Clouds are like hypotheses," muses Scott. "They're always changing."
"I find change exciting," Hella reflects. "I wouldn't want to live in a static society, where things are regarded as absolute and final."
"Well, I was thinking of the way men confused their notions of the world with reality," says Scott. "We know today that no theories are true or false—they are only more or less useful. They have more or less predictability."
"Didn't Einstein recognize this in his Theory of Relativity?" asks Hella.
"Exactly," says Scott. "Although it was fully accepted by scientists, he never said it was 'true.' He simply suggested that we use it if it has greater predictability than anything else. We'll throw it out if we can devise a theory that explains more facts and has greater predictability."
"We can only use our creative imagination to think up ideas and hypotheses," adds Hella, "and then we must quietly measure and experiment to see which verbal garment best clothes the world around us. It's a never-ending process."
As they lie on a responsive lounge discussing this aspect of scientific methodology, they are brought back to the here-and-now by the ten-minute landing signal. Now they begin to watch the water below. The coast of Florida with its silver lining of beaches recedes. The vibrant colors of the Bahama reefs appear, and, almost too soon, they arrive at their Exuma resort.
The blue-green panorama is interrupted as their craft lands on the top of the Exuma City in the Sea. This building is a spectacular engineering achievement. A large ring, or circular dam, rises from the bottom of the sea, which is fifty feet deep at that point. The structure projects 100 feet above the surface. The top of the circular city automatically slides open in dry weather to uncover cybernetically maintained recreation areas and tropical gardens with dining facilities offering a variety of delicacies from the Exuma Sound.
Scott and Hella select a room that is twenty-five feet below the surface. Large windows look out on the colorful underwater reef. When they enter their room, they instruct the cybernator for that unit to pick up the living patterns they have developed over the years with other cybernators in every place they have ever lived. Their preference for humidity, heat, light, music, food, and teleprojection program material are instantly available in their new home.
In certain areas, however, there is a small "cost" to be paid, although neither Scott nor Hella thinks of it in these antiquated twentieth-century terms. They know that this underwater complex with 4,000 apartments requires a continuous staff of three people to operate it. Since there is not a single paid employee in the entire twenty-first-century world, they know in advance that they may be expected to contribute an hour of their time for each month they stay. They look forward to contributing this service, for it furnishes them with new experiences. All jobs involving drudgery have long since been cybernated so they know they will not be asked to scrub floors or perform boring menial tasks. They will probably stand by to help in any way they are needed. Whatever they may be required to do, they know it will probably be interesting, if not challenging.
Soon after arriving, they attend a one-hour teleprojection that gives information on the underwater
complex. It shows some of the more popular types of activities; it outlines dangers and suggests certain precautions; it tells where and how to use underwater breathing apparatus and where to pick up their submobile. It locates the various underwater parks that are within a three-hour range of their submobile and shows how to use a special computer to communicate with the intelligent, trained dolphins and other animals in the sea. There are demonstrations of underwater photography and the use of ultrasonically propelled water skis.
The teleprojection describes the magnetic field set up in the water on the north side of the building. Fish line up and swim toward the positive and negative poles of this electrical field. Pulses of high voltage herd them in groups toward a large funnel that sucks them into the cybernated processing plant. Aquatic plants are also grown in underwater fields, and the tops are harvested automatically, leaving the roots and lower third of the plant to grow a new crop without replanting. In various places throughout the world, local traditions often supplement the 325 varieties of food regarded as standard.
When the teleprojection is over, Scott and Hella pick up their handbook and board the underwater sightseeing craft that takes them on a ninety-six-mile tour of this colorful reef area. They frequently leave the submobile and use their membrane masks to explore underwater caves and grottos.
Myra, a petite blonde, is standing with her back to a large submarine window. She is the center of attention as she discusses the concern of their ancestors over the problem of what people would do with their lives when they didn't have to work. With vivacious movements she describes the dour predictions of the "emptiness of too much leisure." In a civilization of scarcity, it was customary for people to expect a life of unremitting toil and to develop "wisdom" based on this reality.
"If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work," Scott says with a smile, quoting from Shakespeare.
Anna, who is drying her hair with an air jet, remarks, "Historian Thomas Carlyle warned that 'a life of ease is not good for any man, nor for any god.' The folklore of the past was full of such admonitions as, 'Idle hands are the Devil's tools and idle minds, his workshop.' Our ancestors professed to have faith in humanity, yet they didn't trust people to direct their own lives."
"How incredible," says Daryl, "that humans could be so conditioned that they would feel guilty if they were not engaged in repetitive toil." He ambles over to the window to join Myra. "Why should people ever feel guilty about anything?"
"Somewhere around the mid-twentieth century," says Hella, "I recall that the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions was studying the problem of what people would do with their spare time when they were no longer enslaved by the need to work for a weekly pay check. They invited Daniel Nugent, who lived on a hilltop nearby, to one of their weekly conferences. Nugent had owned a large department store in St. Louis, and he sold it out in 1916 when he was only twenty-seven. He retired in Santa Barbara and spent his days reading, studying, thinking, enjoying the loveliness around him, and using his money to help people. One by one the staff members in the conference room discussed the problems of what to do with leisure time in a world without work. 'What will happen when men's and women's lives are not structured for them? Can they make their own decisions? Can they use their own resources to build a worthwhile life?' Nugent sat there listening for a long while before he strongly protested, 'Gentlemen, I myself have not been gainfully employed for some 45 years—and I assure you there are not enough hours in the day.' "
"Nugent was a smart man," observes one of the older men in the group. "He put his finger on our real problem. Our lives are just not long enough in spite of the reduced time now needed for sleeping. It is impossible for any individual to experience even one-thousandth of the world that we have today. And all of our horizons are constantly expanding so that as civilization goes on, it seems that the individual can experience less and less of it."
"I agree," Hella responds. "Thomas Edison said, 'The stomach is the only part of a man which can be fully satisfied. The yearning of man's brain for new knowledge and experience . . . can never be completely met.' Perhaps if we could live 10,000,000 years we might find life boring. But Nugent was right—that certainly is not our problem today!"
Everyone laughs at this last remark. Amazing how people can get worked up over problems that don't even exist!
The entire concept of personal possessions belongs to the old scarcity societies. It isn't that Scott and Hella are forbidden to have them. They don't want them. They have no need for them. All of the things that people of previous societies used and which are still functional in the twenty-first century are structured into the environment. Suppose someone were to tell Scott, "Here is a pen. It belongs to you. You must take care of it and not let anyone take it away from you when you're not looking." Scott would give him a what's-going-on-here reaction.
Besides, he has relatively little need to make marks on pieces of paper, for he can talk into the cybernator, and his words will be automatically recorded or printed. The finger-sized computer embedded in Scott's brain has sensory inputs that permit drawing by means of thought. If he wants to keep a copy of such a drawing, he instructs the cybernator to make a copy or to store the image he has created with his thought patterns.
Anything Scott and Hella want can be rapidly produced to their personal specifications and usually delivered in several hours, no matter where they are—on the earth, below the earth, or in the satellites above the earth. They would regard it as an imposition if they had to regard certain things as their own—to keep track of them, to take them where they go so that they would have them available when needed, to make sure that they are properly serviced and in good working order. What a crude bother! In contrast, Scott and Hella have everything they need anywhere on earth. They are never concerned with taking care of any physical objects, for maintenance is cybernated. "The old concept of ownership sounds utterly barbaric," Scott once observed. "It's burdensome and boring."
Scott has a particular talent in sculpture, and he is inspired by the living forms surrounding him in the Bahamian waters. By using an electroformer, he is able to produce sculpture that in previous centuries might have involved days of hacking away at wood or stone. When he is satisfied with one of his productions, he orders the cybernator to send it to the Correlation Center. The physical structure of the sculpture is not moved, but through electronic scanning its contours and colors are recorded and transmitted. The Correlation Center schedules the exhibition of paintings and sculptures. Through three-dimensional teleprojection Scott's sculpture will probably appear for ten-minute intervals in several apartments, walkway areas, and research laboratories during the next week. The degree to which it will appear again in other areas of the world and whether it will ever be shown at a Cultural Center depends on the amount of attention it receives as recorded automatically by attention scanners.
If Scott or Hella were curious regarding the fate of their creations, they could ask their cybernator to request that information from the Correlation Center. They do not, however, produce these creations for the ego satisfaction of exhibiting them to others. They make them for their own pleasure. They create them because they have an inside need to express themselves. They produce them for the satisfaction of developing their artistic talents to a higher level. Whether anyone else in the world likes or dislikes their art is of little concern. Their main reason for transmitting their better products to the Correlation Center is to share with others something they feel would add slightly to the lives of fellow humans.
"Blessed are the meek," Scott quotes. "But the meek may not survive in the jungle. If animals or people have to fight each other to get what they need, they become brutal. They have to be callous and heartless—it would tear them apart if they empathized with the pain of others."
"How indebted we are to our ancestors for working through those primitive stages so we can at last live as human beings," remarks Hella as she watches a playful sergeant major darting around a lavender tinted lettuce coral. "They had the illusion of freedom—we have real freedom."
"Only recently have we been really free of the age-old ruts and routines," Scott continues. "Free from economic struggle, from aggressiveness in a million forms, from constant ego attack, and from always being told what to do. Even when our ancestors had enough food in their stomachs and had a roof over their heads, there was still a scarcity of love, affection, and emotional security to meet their ego needs."
"Yes," adds Hella, "and previous societies had intricate ways of giving status to people that enabled them to one-up the other fellow—to try to get a feeling of worth by showing that they were better in some ways than other fellow humans."
"I suppose most of the problem revolved around scarcity," says Scott. "People must feel secure to give deeply to others."
"They tried to get security by passing laws," Hella smiles. "I understand that in previous centuries thousands of laws were passed each year telling people what they could and could not do."
"It's been years since taboos or laws were forced by society on the individual," Scott says. "Previous cultures used to label various things as right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, lawful or unlawful. These things sometimes changed from one state to another, from one country to another, and certainly from one culture to another."
"We shouldn't be too proud," admonishes Hella. "It was only two decades ago that we were able to dispense with the last law, the last lawyer, and the last courtroom. Only in our age could we be sure that human beings could be fully trusted if they are reared in ways that avoid hostile conditioning. Happy, fulfilled people never commit crimes!"
"I'm not sure that it's all a matter of trusting people," counters Scott. "I'm not sure I could be trusted not to harm myself or someone else if I were put into one of the automobiles of the last century. We've used technology to avoid hurting ourselves or others. Try to imagine, Hella. They had no automatic controls. They sped along those narrow highways. The death rate was horrible, the injuries even worse. In the United States auto accidents killed more people each year than their wars! This slaughter was so unnecessary. It's been decades since one of our surface transportation units injured anyone."
"The availability of the medium-range aircraft that we used to come here was shelved for four years until proximity control devices were perfected," says Hella. "This safety system reduces the probability of a crash to less than one chance in six trillion miles. The danger of a crash is more remote than being hit by lightning."
"Yes, I remember reading about the probabilities of a crash on the nameplate as we entered the craft," answers Scott. "There's no 'Big Brother' making decisions for us. We're given the facts and probabilities, and we make our own choices."
"Watching those fish out there," says Hella, "makes me realize how far man has come. We can truly be ourselves—think what we want, feel what we want, experience what we want—without hurting other people."
In the park they find other submobiles. Scott and Hella having their underwater breathing membrane on, slip their feet into self-propelled fins, adjust their voice communicators, and exit through the air lock. For hours they explore the marine gardens and make three dimensional teleprojections with their laser cameras. They stay together so that they can help each other in case of emergency. Trained porpoises are there to assist if needed.
On the way back from the park, Scott and Hella direct their submobile to navigate automatically. He helps her remove her fins and breathing membrane. Caressing her ear with his lips, he peels her underwater suit from her body. With a knowing smile she turns and sees that he has already removed his gear. A word to the cybernator brings forth sensuous music with strong repetitive rhythms. She shares his mounting excitement.
Scott and Hella are thus able to play as a team—against themselves as a team. If they are in good shape today, they will win. If they are not, they will lose. Either way they win, for no matter how the game comes out, they feel good. They have a lot of fun laughing and trying to figure out how to get around the computer.
They enjoy competing against themselves. They would find it repulsive to compete against each other. Such a battle would prove nothing. It could only be damaging in some slight way. If they compete against their past performance, they can tell if they are improving.
During the evening Scott reclines in the massaging contour chair in his underwater apartment. The "bay window" is illuminated so that occasionally he looks out to see if anything is happening on the reef. As he lies relaxed in his chair, he watches a screen that is angled above him where the paragraphs of a book flash by. Scott's usual reading pace is 22,000 words per minute, but he has slowed down to 7,000 words because he enjoys the languorous intermixing of the abstract thoughts of the book with the colorful underwater world beyond his window. Suddenly, he has an interesting idea: could a range emitter be designed that would repel sharks, barracuda, moray eels, and other marine animals that could endanger swimming? He wonders if this could be built into a lightweight belt for underwater use. He immediately calls Central Correlation and gives his thoughts in detail. Central Correlation then sends this information to men and women who are interested in this area. They will probably have a teleprojection conference sometime in the next week or two to discuss it.
On Hella's command the cybernator calls for a 1,000 mile-per-hour ion-propelled craft. Within minutes the pilotless craft stops on the landing area on top of their apartment building. They enter and by vocal command give coded directions for the apartments in the Exumas. As the craft races at supersonic speed over the highest clouds, Scott and Hella relax in contour chairs and watch the unfolding panorama of the cloud formations.
"Clouds are like hypotheses," muses Scott. "They're always changing."
"I find change exciting," Hella reflects. "I wouldn't want to live in a static society, where things are regarded as absolute and final."
"Well, I was thinking of the way men confused their notions of the world with reality," says Scott. "We know today that no theories are true or false—they are only more or less useful. They have more or less predictability."
"Didn't Einstein recognize this in his Theory of Relativity?" asks Hella.
"Exactly," says Scott. "Although it was fully accepted by scientists, he never said it was 'true.' He simply suggested that we use it if it has greater predictability than anything else. We'll throw it out if we can devise a theory that explains more facts and has greater predictability."
"We can only use our creative imagination to think up ideas and hypotheses," adds Hella, "and then we must quietly measure and experiment to see which verbal garment best clothes the world around us. It's a never-ending process."
As they lie on a responsive lounge discussing this aspect of scientific methodology, they are brought back to the here-and-now by the ten-minute landing signal. Now they begin to watch the water below. The coast of Florida with its silver lining of beaches recedes. The vibrant colors of the Bahama reefs appear, and, almost too soon, they arrive at their Exuma resort.
The blue-green panorama is interrupted as their craft lands on the top of the Exuma City in the Sea. This building is a spectacular engineering achievement. A large ring, or circular dam, rises from the bottom of the sea, which is fifty feet deep at that point. The structure projects 100 feet above the surface. The top of the circular city automatically slides open in dry weather to uncover cybernetically maintained recreation areas and tropical gardens with dining facilities offering a variety of delicacies from the Exuma Sound.
Scott and Hella select a room that is twenty-five feet below the surface. Large windows look out on the colorful underwater reef. When they enter their room, they instruct the cybernator for that unit to pick up the living patterns they have developed over the years with other cybernators in every place they have ever lived. Their preference for humidity, heat, light, music, food, and teleprojection program material are instantly available in their new home.
No Price Tags
Nothing in the twenty-first-century world of Scott and Hella has a price tag. Prices were a distribution mechanism that was inevitable in the scarcity cultures of previous centuries. The cybernated production and distribution complex of the twenty-first century is capable of producing many times the flow of goods and services that people of the world require. The automated production capacity is so great that if everyone on the earth were suddenly to order a portable teleprojection set, such an unlikely demand could easily be met with only a short delay.In certain areas, however, there is a small "cost" to be paid, although neither Scott nor Hella thinks of it in these antiquated twentieth-century terms. They know that this underwater complex with 4,000 apartments requires a continuous staff of three people to operate it. Since there is not a single paid employee in the entire twenty-first-century world, they know in advance that they may be expected to contribute an hour of their time for each month they stay. They look forward to contributing this service, for it furnishes them with new experiences. All jobs involving drudgery have long since been cybernated so they know they will not be asked to scrub floors or perform boring menial tasks. They will probably stand by to help in any way they are needed. Whatever they may be required to do, they know it will probably be interesting, if not challenging.
Soon after arriving, they attend a one-hour teleprojection that gives information on the underwater
complex. It shows some of the more popular types of activities; it outlines dangers and suggests certain precautions; it tells where and how to use underwater breathing apparatus and where to pick up their submobile. It locates the various underwater parks that are within a three-hour range of their submobile and shows how to use a special computer to communicate with the intelligent, trained dolphins and other animals in the sea. There are demonstrations of underwater photography and the use of ultrasonically propelled water skis.
The teleprojection describes the magnetic field set up in the water on the north side of the building. Fish line up and swim toward the positive and negative poles of this electrical field. Pulses of high voltage herd them in groups toward a large funnel that sucks them into the cybernated processing plant. Aquatic plants are also grown in underwater fields, and the tops are harvested automatically, leaving the roots and lower third of the plant to grow a new crop without replanting. In various places throughout the world, local traditions often supplement the 325 varieties of food regarded as standard.
When the teleprojection is over, Scott and Hella pick up their handbook and board the underwater sightseeing craft that takes them on a ninety-six-mile tour of this colorful reef area. They frequently leave the submobile and use their membrane masks to explore underwater caves and grottos.
The Human Use of Time
That evening Scott and Hella join several men and women who are discussing some of the problems of the previous century. No introduction is ever needed in the new world. Everyone feels outgoing and friendly toward his fellow man. The need for introduction in previous centuries often served as a status shield that maintained distance between people.Myra, a petite blonde, is standing with her back to a large submarine window. She is the center of attention as she discusses the concern of their ancestors over the problem of what people would do with their lives when they didn't have to work. With vivacious movements she describes the dour predictions of the "emptiness of too much leisure." In a civilization of scarcity, it was customary for people to expect a life of unremitting toil and to develop "wisdom" based on this reality.
"If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work," Scott says with a smile, quoting from Shakespeare.
Anna, who is drying her hair with an air jet, remarks, "Historian Thomas Carlyle warned that 'a life of ease is not good for any man, nor for any god.' The folklore of the past was full of such admonitions as, 'Idle hands are the Devil's tools and idle minds, his workshop.' Our ancestors professed to have faith in humanity, yet they didn't trust people to direct their own lives."
"How incredible," says Daryl, "that humans could be so conditioned that they would feel guilty if they were not engaged in repetitive toil." He ambles over to the window to join Myra. "Why should people ever feel guilty about anything?"
"Somewhere around the mid-twentieth century," says Hella, "I recall that the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions was studying the problem of what people would do with their spare time when they were no longer enslaved by the need to work for a weekly pay check. They invited Daniel Nugent, who lived on a hilltop nearby, to one of their weekly conferences. Nugent had owned a large department store in St. Louis, and he sold it out in 1916 when he was only twenty-seven. He retired in Santa Barbara and spent his days reading, studying, thinking, enjoying the loveliness around him, and using his money to help people. One by one the staff members in the conference room discussed the problems of what to do with leisure time in a world without work. 'What will happen when men's and women's lives are not structured for them? Can they make their own decisions? Can they use their own resources to build a worthwhile life?' Nugent sat there listening for a long while before he strongly protested, 'Gentlemen, I myself have not been gainfully employed for some 45 years—and I assure you there are not enough hours in the day.' "
"Nugent was a smart man," observes one of the older men in the group. "He put his finger on our real problem. Our lives are just not long enough in spite of the reduced time now needed for sleeping. It is impossible for any individual to experience even one-thousandth of the world that we have today. And all of our horizons are constantly expanding so that as civilization goes on, it seems that the individual can experience less and less of it."
"I agree," Hella responds. "Thomas Edison said, 'The stomach is the only part of a man which can be fully satisfied. The yearning of man's brain for new knowledge and experience . . . can never be completely met.' Perhaps if we could live 10,000,000 years we might find life boring. But Nugent was right—that certainly is not our problem today!"
Everyone laughs at this last remark. Amazing how people can get worked up over problems that don't even exist!
No Burdensome Possessions
After three weeks Scott and Hella realize they cannot leave soon. So many beauties, unique feelings, thoughts. Perhaps six months, perhaps a year would be enough. How could one decide in advance? They notify Central Correlation that they plan to remain here indefinitely. All conference calls and other communications are to continue to come to the Exumas, for they have cancelled their plans to return. They ask the Correlation Center to make their apartment available to other people. This is no problem, for Scott and Hella left no personal possessions there. In fact, they have few "personal" possessions. Whatever they want to use is available in any environment on earth.The entire concept of personal possessions belongs to the old scarcity societies. It isn't that Scott and Hella are forbidden to have them. They don't want them. They have no need for them. All of the things that people of previous societies used and which are still functional in the twenty-first century are structured into the environment. Suppose someone were to tell Scott, "Here is a pen. It belongs to you. You must take care of it and not let anyone take it away from you when you're not looking." Scott would give him a what's-going-on-here reaction.
Besides, he has relatively little need to make marks on pieces of paper, for he can talk into the cybernator, and his words will be automatically recorded or printed. The finger-sized computer embedded in Scott's brain has sensory inputs that permit drawing by means of thought. If he wants to keep a copy of such a drawing, he instructs the cybernator to make a copy or to store the image he has created with his thought patterns.
Anything Scott and Hella want can be rapidly produced to their personal specifications and usually delivered in several hours, no matter where they are—on the earth, below the earth, or in the satellites above the earth. They would regard it as an imposition if they had to regard certain things as their own—to keep track of them, to take them where they go so that they would have them available when needed, to make sure that they are properly serviced and in good working order. What a crude bother! In contrast, Scott and Hella have everything they need anywhere on earth. They are never concerned with taking care of any physical objects, for maintenance is cybernated. "The old concept of ownership sounds utterly barbaric," Scott once observed. "It's burdensome and boring."
Artistic Expression Is a Part of Living
Scott and Hella find themselves deeply moved by the color of the reefs and waters, the savage brutality of the more aggressive fish, and the graceful motion of the marine plants and animals. While Hella is visiting the observation deck high above the Exuma Sound, she has a desire to express her feelings in a three-dimensional painting. She tells the cybernator of her wish to paint and walks over to a three- by four-foot panel. She picks up a lightweight instrument about three times the size of a pen. Through controlling the adjustment on this instrument, she is able to produce any color, or mixture of color, desired. Just as a sliding trombone can produce graduations of pitch, so her electronic brush can produce a thousand different hues and tints. Fine lines are drawn by holding it close to the screen. Broad lines are made by pulling it back. The pen can paint a flat, two-dimensional picture, or it can build up the material into any three-dimensional pattern desired. If Hella is dissatisfied with her work and wishes to start over, she has only to indicate so, and the cybernator will electronically erase it. When Hella is through with her painting, she instructs the cybernator to record it. If she especially likes it, she will order the cybernator to transmit it to the Correlation Center.Scott has a particular talent in sculpture, and he is inspired by the living forms surrounding him in the Bahamian waters. By using an electroformer, he is able to produce sculpture that in previous centuries might have involved days of hacking away at wood or stone. When he is satisfied with one of his productions, he orders the cybernator to send it to the Correlation Center. The physical structure of the sculpture is not moved, but through electronic scanning its contours and colors are recorded and transmitted. The Correlation Center schedules the exhibition of paintings and sculptures. Through three-dimensional teleprojection Scott's sculpture will probably appear for ten-minute intervals in several apartments, walkway areas, and research laboratories during the next week. The degree to which it will appear again in other areas of the world and whether it will ever be shown at a Cultural Center depends on the amount of attention it receives as recorded automatically by attention scanners.
If Scott or Hella were curious regarding the fate of their creations, they could ask their cybernator to request that information from the Correlation Center. They do not, however, produce these creations for the ego satisfaction of exhibiting them to others. They make them for their own pleasure. They create them because they have an inside need to express themselves. They produce them for the satisfaction of developing their artistic talents to a higher level. Whether anyone else in the world likes or dislikes their art is of little concern. Their main reason for transmitting their better products to the Correlation Center is to share with others something they feel would add slightly to the lives of fellow humans.
The Achievement of Liberty
That evening Scott and Hella join a group attracted by the panorama seen through a transparent wall fifty feet under water. They are immersed in a living symphony of fish and plant life. As they soak up the details of this brilliantly lit section of the reef, they have deeper insights into their cultural heritage. They watch the wanderings of a small shrimp as it scans its environment for food. Suddenly a snapper darts past, opens its jaws—and whack! The shrimp is no more. One's attention is arrested by the graceful coordination of the eight arms of a small squid. Suddenly a jack comes along and grabs it in the middle. The arms flail helplessly around the mouth of the jack. Then the jack is attacked by a barracuda, and the squid is immediately dropped as the jack flees for its life. The barracuda reaches down and grabs the now injured squid with its sharp teeth. In three shakes it is devoured. Scott and Hella are impressed by the ferocity of life in the marine jungle—the cruel workings of the survival of the fittest, the inevitable conflict that is brought on by scarcity."Blessed are the meek," Scott quotes. "But the meek may not survive in the jungle. If animals or people have to fight each other to get what they need, they become brutal. They have to be callous and heartless—it would tear them apart if they empathized with the pain of others."
"How indebted we are to our ancestors for working through those primitive stages so we can at last live as human beings," remarks Hella as she watches a playful sergeant major darting around a lavender tinted lettuce coral. "They had the illusion of freedom—we have real freedom."
"Only recently have we been really free of the age-old ruts and routines," Scott continues. "Free from economic struggle, from aggressiveness in a million forms, from constant ego attack, and from always being told what to do. Even when our ancestors had enough food in their stomachs and had a roof over their heads, there was still a scarcity of love, affection, and emotional security to meet their ego needs."
"Yes," adds Hella, "and previous societies had intricate ways of giving status to people that enabled them to one-up the other fellow—to try to get a feeling of worth by showing that they were better in some ways than other fellow humans."
"I suppose most of the problem revolved around scarcity," says Scott. "People must feel secure to give deeply to others."
"They tried to get security by passing laws," Hella smiles. "I understand that in previous centuries thousands of laws were passed each year telling people what they could and could not do."
"It's been years since taboos or laws were forced by society on the individual," Scott says. "Previous cultures used to label various things as right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, lawful or unlawful. These things sometimes changed from one state to another, from one country to another, and certainly from one culture to another."
"We shouldn't be too proud," admonishes Hella. "It was only two decades ago that we were able to dispense with the last law, the last lawyer, and the last courtroom. Only in our age could we be sure that human beings could be fully trusted if they are reared in ways that avoid hostile conditioning. Happy, fulfilled people never commit crimes!"
"I'm not sure that it's all a matter of trusting people," counters Scott. "I'm not sure I could be trusted not to harm myself or someone else if I were put into one of the automobiles of the last century. We've used technology to avoid hurting ourselves or others. Try to imagine, Hella. They had no automatic controls. They sped along those narrow highways. The death rate was horrible, the injuries even worse. In the United States auto accidents killed more people each year than their wars! This slaughter was so unnecessary. It's been decades since one of our surface transportation units injured anyone."
"The availability of the medium-range aircraft that we used to come here was shelved for four years until proximity control devices were perfected," says Hella. "This safety system reduces the probability of a crash to less than one chance in six trillion miles. The danger of a crash is more remote than being hit by lightning."
"Yes, I remember reading about the probabilities of a crash on the nameplate as we entered the craft," answers Scott. "There's no 'Big Brother' making decisions for us. We're given the facts and probabilities, and we make our own choices."
"Watching those fish out there," says Hella, "makes me realize how far man has come. We can truly be ourselves—think what we want, feel what we want, experience what we want—without hurting other people."
Trip to an Underwater Park
The next morning Scott and Hella take one of the submobiles and navigate to an underwater park about twenty miles away. On the way they see the forms of many wrecked ships, now deeply encrusted with coral. They play tag with a dolphin for a while. In their large bubble enclosure in the forward part of the sub-mobile, they have full visibility. Built-in televised binoculars with microviewers enables them to examine marine life in detail. They call the Correlation Center via relay satellite and request a summary of the scientific work now being done in oceanography. A briefing keyed to their intermediate level of understanding is given to them as they near the underwater park.In the park they find other submobiles. Scott and Hella having their underwater breathing membrane on, slip their feet into self-propelled fins, adjust their voice communicators, and exit through the air lock. For hours they explore the marine gardens and make three dimensional teleprojections with their laser cameras. They stay together so that they can help each other in case of emergency. Trained porpoises are there to assist if needed.
On the way back from the park, Scott and Hella direct their submobile to navigate automatically. He helps her remove her fins and breathing membrane. Caressing her ear with his lips, he peels her underwater suit from her body. With a knowing smile she turns and sees that he has already removed his gear. A word to the cybernator brings forth sensuous music with strong repetitive rhythms. She shares his mounting excitement.
Competing with Oneself
Scott and Hella still feel exuberantly energetic even after the underwater trip. They decide to play a game that was adapted from ping-pong of the previous century. The net, the table, the ball, and the paddles are almost unchanged. Their adversary, however, is very different, for Scott and Hella play on the same side of the table as partners against a mechanical paddle directed by a computer. This computer has sensing devices which enable it to judge the direction and speed of every ball returned over the net. Although the computer is able to return every ball with 100% accuracy, it does not do so. The Correlation Center has a record of every time Scott and Hella have played this game as a team, and it has established a norm for them. At this time the norm for the preceding year indicates that Scott and Hella returned 85.967% of the ping-pong balls that were directed to them with an average speed of 7.72, as measured on a 10 point scale. The computer plays a game against Scott and Hella that represents a skill exactly equal to the average of all the games that they have played during the preceding year. If Scott would want to play alone, a different set of records maintained by the Correlation Center would enable the computer to put up a game against him that would be exactly equal to his average performance.Scott and Hella are thus able to play as a team—against themselves as a team. If they are in good shape today, they will win. If they are not, they will lose. Either way they win, for no matter how the game comes out, they feel good. They have a lot of fun laughing and trying to figure out how to get around the computer.
They enjoy competing against themselves. They would find it repulsive to compete against each other. Such a battle would prove nothing. It could only be damaging in some slight way. If they compete against their past performance, they can tell if they are improving.
During the evening Scott reclines in the massaging contour chair in his underwater apartment. The "bay window" is illuminated so that occasionally he looks out to see if anything is happening on the reef. As he lies relaxed in his chair, he watches a screen that is angled above him where the paragraphs of a book flash by. Scott's usual reading pace is 22,000 words per minute, but he has slowed down to 7,000 words because he enjoys the languorous intermixing of the abstract thoughts of the book with the colorful underwater world beyond his window. Suddenly, he has an interesting idea: could a range emitter be designed that would repel sharks, barracuda, moray eels, and other marine animals that could endanger swimming? He wonders if this could be built into a lightweight belt for underwater use. He immediately calls Central Correlation and gives his thoughts in detail. Central Correlation then sends this information to men and women who are interested in this area. They will probably have a teleprojection conference sometime in the next week or two to discuss it.
The Disarmament Anniversary
That evening there is a world-wide ceremony scheduled by the Correlation Center. This marks the eighty second anniversary of the date when the last instrument of death was destroyed. Previous cultures developed a long progression of tools designed to kill fellow human beings. It started with the cave man and his club. It ended with an ultimate weapon that could wipe out all life in an instant.Scott at one time visited a museum and was appalled that human science and ingenuity could have been applied in such self-destructive ways. He was amazed that humans could have been that hostile toward each other. But he realized that he should not judge other people and other civilizations, for they had problems of which he was only dimly aware. He knew that had he lived in previous times, he probably would have played a part in piloting an airplane to drop a bomb or in rushing up a hill with a gun in his hand to kill the defenders at the top.
No one today wants instruments for killing. In the areas where wildlife exists, man finds no need to kill animals. He protects himself by using computers that communicate with animals in ways that control their behavior.
How remarkable human beings are, after all, Scott thinks. People in the past could live in a threatening world subject to being killed at any minute at the whim of a dictator in a foreign country. And yet they still managed to make a life of it and come through it to develop the present civilization. Scott wonders whether his nerves could have withstood this type of pressure. Would he, too, have developed the neurotic personality, the deep insecurities, hostile aggressiveness, hollowness of ego, and the scramble for a feeling of worth that characterized his ancestors? He is sure he would have in previous times. Fortunately, these are only words to him now. It is even difficult for him to be sure that he is using them in a way that represents the feelings of people who used the same words in previous centuries.
Our Only Enemy
That evening Scott and Hella find a group in front of the large submarine window at the thirty-foot level. They have reason to ponder the long road ahead of them. The Correlation Center recently released their figures showing the degree to which humans are currently developing their intellectual potentials. It pointed out that during the previous century people in the more advanced civilizations used from 2 to 5 per cent of their mental capacity.. Recent measures showed that the people of Scott and Hella's world are using 18 per cent of their intellectual, artistic, and sensory capacity. No one knows at this time whether a higher percentage would result in more or less happiness. Further research is needed.One of the older men in the group remarks that it is comforting to know that all things in their civilization are related to the needs and feelings of individual men and women. The method of science is used to measure the reactions of people. It is never used to force individuals to conform to any given, predetermined goals. Every program of improvement is carefully tested before it is adopted. Even after adoption it is still on probation forever. For nothing would be permitted to remain in succeeding centuries that would not contribute maximally to the happiness of the individuals who will be alive then. Man is the measure of all things, and the scientific method is the measurer.
"At last," comments Hella, "we have a civilization where the entire range of human needs can be met. For the first time in man's long history we can have complete diversity. It's remarkable what happens when you let people be themselves and do what they want."
"We certainly are fortunate," says Scott, "that we can live in so many dimensions. Our ancestors felt proud if they were experts in one or two things. My great-grandfather was a nuclear physicist who developed mathematical games as a hobby. He was considered quite brilliant because of his achievements in these two areas. The average person today enjoys operating in over 100 different areas."
"So many new fields are opening up. There is just not enough time."
"Time is our only real enemy," replies Scott with a frown. "Perhaps we'll lick it some day."
After
seven months in the Exumas, Scott receives a message from the
Correlation Center that there is an opportunity at a medical laboratory
in Calcutta, India. This laboratory specializes in designing and
training the new generation—probably the most important function of the
new society. Hella shares Scott's excitement at this chance to
participate.
The query from the Correlation Center—affectionately called Corcen—is completely optional. Corcen never tells people they have to do anything. It simply presents information on opportunities that are available or situations that need attention. Each individual makes his own decision regarding what he wants to do. One might draw a rough analogy with an invitation to join an athletic team of the previous century. An invitation to be on the football team was regarded as an opportunity. The coaches didn't force players to join the team.
"In ancient Greece the Athenians were fond of saying that although other states might know how to make better products, only Athens knew how to make human beings," Hella says seriously. "All any social system really makes, well or ill, is human beings. It will stand or fall on this."
Hella prefers to remain in the Exumas longer, and she decides not to accompany Scott to India. By three dimensional color teleprojection, they can still "be together" as often and as long as they want. Since there is plenty of time, Scott asks his cybernator to arrange for a thirty-foot sailboat for cruising to Miami. He suggests that several companions would be desirable. Within two days Scott, another man, and two women leave the Exuma Islands in the sailboat. This boat has been designed to be non-cybernated. Scott and his companions have the novel feeling of being in an environment in which the routine flow of activities is not automatically structured. They find it quaint to open cans to get food, to navigate with a chart and compass, to fish with a hook and line, and even to pump the old-fashioned heads in the boat. A few days of this rather primitive living are delightful. It reminds Scott of what some people said of New York in the last century—"It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there," These experiences give them a broader understanding of how the lives of their ancestors were consumed so largely by the mechanics of living that they often had little time for intellectual, aesthetic, or sensual development.
"I suppose if I spent most of my waking life coping with these mechanics of living," Scott confides to one of the women, "I'd probably be too busy for much else."
The only part of this sailboat that is different from its counterparts of a century ago is an automatic communicator that has been built into the forepeak of the boat. Scott and his companions are only dimly aware of its presence. It sends out a radio signal every ten seconds. This is picked up by an orbiting satellite and relayed to Corcen. No human keeps a record of their location— only Corcen. If the signal from the boat were ever to stop, an immediate attempt would be made to contact Scott through a built-in alarm. If this were to fail, some craft flying over the area with vertical capacity would be alerted by Corcen to give immediate assistance to the sailboat. All of this could be automatically programmed by Corcen. In a simple rescue situation, the only humans that would know about it would be those aboard the rescuing craft and those being rescued.
Lazily pushed by the prevailing southeast breezes, Scott's sail-boat makes its way over the White Bank south of Nassau. As they arrive at the Tongue of the Ocean where the depth goes from about 15 feet to over 5,000 feet within a short distance, Scott thinks of requesting Corcen to furnish him with information on the research that has been conducted there. Then he remembers that there is no teleprojection screen aboard his small craft. In a way he is glad. It is nice to rely only on his own senses and his own experiences, to see the deep blue water, to observe keenly the panorama of shifting clouds against the pale blue sky, to see without words, to feel in silence. They anchor several days north of Andros Island to absorb this more fully. Swimming, fishing, nude sun bathing—their days have a different fullness. They have no contact with the outside world, and there are few other boats or humans to be seen.
After a few days they haul the anchor and head west across the Great Bahama Bank. This large underwater desert is seldom more than ten feet deep. The water is crystal clear. Although there are few fish, the surprise and delight of watching the countless starfish add additional threads to their rich tapestry of experience. Soon they pass the jagged rocks of Gun Key and head west across the Gulf Stream. Their southeast breeze holds firm, and ten hours later, tanned and exhilarated, they arrive in Miami.
On his way to the South Florida terminal, Scott notices someone -waving for help in a park near the road. He instructs the car to pull over to the side. He notifies Corcen of his location and that he is going to the rescue. The person waving for assistance takes him to a man whose leg has been crushed by a large fallen branch. They are unable to budge it. Scott runs back to his car and tells Corcen. Corcen immediately gives this emergency information to several people in the vicinity. Within minutes six people lift the branch and release the injured man. They carefully carry him to a car which speeds him to the nearest cybernated hospital.
This instant helpfulness is an important ingredient in the new society. In former times people often felt, it's someone else's job, I don't even know him, he might sue me, why get involved.'' Such reactions may have been appropriate in competitive, legalistic, money-motivated societies. In the twenty-first century people welcome the opportunity to assist others. Is there a more human way to spend time? Everyone is more secure when he feels that everyone else in the world genuinely welcomes the opportunity to be of assistance. Normally, people need so little help in this cybernated world of abundance that this openhearted feeling towards others never results in one's being overburdened. This generous willingness to pitch in and help extends beyond simple emergency situations. Each person identifies with the whole of society. If someone notices that some equipment needs repairs, he does what he can to fix it or reports it to Corcen. People treat all objects with the care and consideration that individuals previously gave only their own possessions. These individuals who have "everything" are able to give generously of themselves. Only in this century have all men and women so fully identified themselves with everyone and everything in the world.
The flight to India takes a little over two hours. From his vantage point high in the sky, Scott enjoys the planned geometry of the world below—the vast waterways that have eliminated forever the tragedy of floods, the cybernated farm belts with their thin gleaming tracks, the dynamic cities that are focal points of a technology harnessed to serve all of mankind. As Scott watches the cities of India, he is impressed by how often the circular plan has been used. He sees a multi-story apartment ring about a mile in diameter under construction. Cybernated building machinery is fabricating 5,000 apartments a day with a construction staff of only thirty-five people.
The cities of the previous century have been leveled except for several that have been kept for anthropologists and historians. These museum cities are protected by a large, transparent, geodesic dome and are air conditioned. Similar protection is given selected ruins of previous cultures.
As Scott nears Calcutta, the shuttle craft ahead streaks upward for its rendezvous. It locks onto the larger space vehicle over Calcutta where a brief exchange of passengers takes place. Scott boards the smaller craft and within minutes alights at the Calcutta airport. There are no porters, for passengers have no baggage. There are no customs agents since international divisions have been meaningless for many decades. Scott confers with a local cybernator about apartment availabilities while he waits for his cybernated auto.
In Calcutta, Scott chooses an apartment with nine other men and women companions. He could have a private apartment but he is in the mood for group living. He gives instructions to the cybernator in the apartment to pick up his system of preferences from Corcen. Thus, within the limits of the preferences of his companions in the apartment, Scott will continue to feel perfectly at home.
The query from the Correlation Center—affectionately called Corcen—is completely optional. Corcen never tells people they have to do anything. It simply presents information on opportunities that are available or situations that need attention. Each individual makes his own decision regarding what he wants to do. One might draw a rough analogy with an invitation to join an athletic team of the previous century. An invitation to be on the football team was regarded as an opportunity. The coaches didn't force players to join the team.
"In ancient Greece the Athenians were fond of saying that although other states might know how to make better products, only Athens knew how to make human beings," Hella says seriously. "All any social system really makes, well or ill, is human beings. It will stand or fall on this."
Hella prefers to remain in the Exumas longer, and she decides not to accompany Scott to India. By three dimensional color teleprojection, they can still "be together" as often and as long as they want. Since there is plenty of time, Scott asks his cybernator to arrange for a thirty-foot sailboat for cruising to Miami. He suggests that several companions would be desirable. Within two days Scott, another man, and two women leave the Exuma Islands in the sailboat. This boat has been designed to be non-cybernated. Scott and his companions have the novel feeling of being in an environment in which the routine flow of activities is not automatically structured. They find it quaint to open cans to get food, to navigate with a chart and compass, to fish with a hook and line, and even to pump the old-fashioned heads in the boat. A few days of this rather primitive living are delightful. It reminds Scott of what some people said of New York in the last century—"It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there," These experiences give them a broader understanding of how the lives of their ancestors were consumed so largely by the mechanics of living that they often had little time for intellectual, aesthetic, or sensual development.
"I suppose if I spent most of my waking life coping with these mechanics of living," Scott confides to one of the women, "I'd probably be too busy for much else."
The only part of this sailboat that is different from its counterparts of a century ago is an automatic communicator that has been built into the forepeak of the boat. Scott and his companions are only dimly aware of its presence. It sends out a radio signal every ten seconds. This is picked up by an orbiting satellite and relayed to Corcen. No human keeps a record of their location— only Corcen. If the signal from the boat were ever to stop, an immediate attempt would be made to contact Scott through a built-in alarm. If this were to fail, some craft flying over the area with vertical capacity would be alerted by Corcen to give immediate assistance to the sailboat. All of this could be automatically programmed by Corcen. In a simple rescue situation, the only humans that would know about it would be those aboard the rescuing craft and those being rescued.
Lazily pushed by the prevailing southeast breezes, Scott's sail-boat makes its way over the White Bank south of Nassau. As they arrive at the Tongue of the Ocean where the depth goes from about 15 feet to over 5,000 feet within a short distance, Scott thinks of requesting Corcen to furnish him with information on the research that has been conducted there. Then he remembers that there is no teleprojection screen aboard his small craft. In a way he is glad. It is nice to rely only on his own senses and his own experiences, to see the deep blue water, to observe keenly the panorama of shifting clouds against the pale blue sky, to see without words, to feel in silence. They anchor several days north of Andros Island to absorb this more fully. Swimming, fishing, nude sun bathing—their days have a different fullness. They have no contact with the outside world, and there are few other boats or humans to be seen.
After a few days they haul the anchor and head west across the Great Bahama Bank. This large underwater desert is seldom more than ten feet deep. The water is crystal clear. Although there are few fish, the surprise and delight of watching the countless starfish add additional threads to their rich tapestry of experience. Soon they pass the jagged rocks of Gun Key and head west across the Gulf Stream. Their southeast breeze holds firm, and ten hours later, tanned and exhilarated, they arrive in Miami.
On his way to the South Florida terminal, Scott notices someone -waving for help in a park near the road. He instructs the car to pull over to the side. He notifies Corcen of his location and that he is going to the rescue. The person waving for assistance takes him to a man whose leg has been crushed by a large fallen branch. They are unable to budge it. Scott runs back to his car and tells Corcen. Corcen immediately gives this emergency information to several people in the vicinity. Within minutes six people lift the branch and release the injured man. They carefully carry him to a car which speeds him to the nearest cybernated hospital.
This instant helpfulness is an important ingredient in the new society. In former times people often felt, it's someone else's job, I don't even know him, he might sue me, why get involved.'' Such reactions may have been appropriate in competitive, legalistic, money-motivated societies. In the twenty-first century people welcome the opportunity to assist others. Is there a more human way to spend time? Everyone is more secure when he feels that everyone else in the world genuinely welcomes the opportunity to be of assistance. Normally, people need so little help in this cybernated world of abundance that this openhearted feeling towards others never results in one's being overburdened. This generous willingness to pitch in and help extends beyond simple emergency situations. Each person identifies with the whole of society. If someone notices that some equipment needs repairs, he does what he can to fix it or reports it to Corcen. People treat all objects with the care and consideration that individuals previously gave only their own possessions. These individuals who have "everything" are able to give generously of themselves. Only in this century have all men and women so fully identified themselves with everyone and everything in the world.
The Great Circle Express
The simplest way to get to India is to board one of the around-the-world express crafts that has been continuously circling the globe without landing for many decades. They travel at a steady speed of 5000 miles per hour. When this craft is approximately one thousand miles away, Scott takes off in a shuttle craft that accelerates to 5,000 miles per hour. When the nuclear-powered, circumnavigating craft is above South Florida, Scott's airship locks onto the larger craft just long enough for Scott and other passengers to get aboard. Departing passengers enter the shuttle craft, which then disengages and returns to the South Florida terminal a few minutes later.The flight to India takes a little over two hours. From his vantage point high in the sky, Scott enjoys the planned geometry of the world below—the vast waterways that have eliminated forever the tragedy of floods, the cybernated farm belts with their thin gleaming tracks, the dynamic cities that are focal points of a technology harnessed to serve all of mankind. As Scott watches the cities of India, he is impressed by how often the circular plan has been used. He sees a multi-story apartment ring about a mile in diameter under construction. Cybernated building machinery is fabricating 5,000 apartments a day with a construction staff of only thirty-five people.
The cities of the previous century have been leveled except for several that have been kept for anthropologists and historians. These museum cities are protected by a large, transparent, geodesic dome and are air conditioned. Similar protection is given selected ruins of previous cultures.
As Scott nears Calcutta, the shuttle craft ahead streaks upward for its rendezvous. It locks onto the larger space vehicle over Calcutta where a brief exchange of passengers takes place. Scott boards the smaller craft and within minutes alights at the Calcutta airport. There are no porters, for passengers have no baggage. There are no customs agents since international divisions have been meaningless for many decades. Scott confers with a local cybernator about apartment availabilities while he waits for his cybernated auto.
In Calcutta, Scott chooses an apartment with nine other men and women companions. He could have a private apartment but he is in the mood for group living. He gives instructions to the cybernator in the apartment to pick up his system of preferences from Corcen. Thus, within the limits of the preferences of his companions in the apartment, Scott will continue to feel perfectly at home.
Circular Cities
Many of the colorful cities in the twenty-first century are laid out in the circular pattern Scott observed from the air. The central hub of the city has a nuclear generator that produces all of the power needed to operate the millions of invisible electronic servants that silently free the people to live fulfilling, creative lives. The central core of each city also contains a master computer that cybernetically watches over the city as a whole. It is connected to every room in the entire city and also Corcen. This master cybernator, operating as the city hall of former times, works automatically and normally has no humans in attendance.The research laboratories are located in the first ring of buildings that encircle the power and computer core. Hospital facilities adjoin the medical research area. These modern hospitals give medical care or nursing care to a population of 1,000,000 people with a staff of only 10, who contribute their services from time to time because of their interest in this work. There is, of course, much less illness in the new world than in previous centuries, and there are practically no accidents. Disasters and accidents were almost eliminated by an attitude toward engineering that minimized economy and maximized safety. All diagnostic techniques, laboratories, surgery, behavioral assistance, and nursing procedures are cybernated. The small staff performs no routine duties in the cybernated hospital. They are only there to help in the rare event of a problem.
The second ring from the core contains multi-story apartments. They are over a quarter-mile from the research ring. Recreational facilities and circular parks surround the apartments on both sides of the ring.
When Scott goes from his apartment to any part of the city, he asks the cybernator to summon an auto. As Scott approaches the vehicle, the door automatically opens and the seat swings out. Scott verbally gives his destination and reclines on the contour chair. He is then free to read, to think, or simply to relax. Within minutes the auto chauffeurs him to wherever he wishes to go in the city. All vehicles have proximity mechanisms for the prevention of what were formerly called "accidents" but are now considered technical negligence in planning the transportation system.
These autos are available throughout the entire city for the use of everyone. When Scott gets out at the research laboratory, the auto is directed by the city's cybernator to the next point at which it will probably be needed.
Scott always enjoys the warm feelings of teamwork and cooperation that are experienced by people working together on common problems. There is an esprit de corps—a feeling of man against the unknown; a feeling of contributing significantly to the present and future happiness of all mankind. People in the twenty-first century are eager to accept opportunities for participation and research. They are never paid for this activity as had been common in previous centuries. How could they be paid? They already have every material resource of the twenty-first-century civilization available for their use. They are not even "paid" by prestige or status.
Almost everyone at one time or another plays a part on various research teams. If someone doesn't, it really doesn't matter. The only reward lies not on the outside, but on the inside. It comes from the pleasure that one gets from exercising his mind, from growth and improvement, from the pleasures of understanding, and, from the contented feeling of saying, "Well, we certainly solved that one."
The Genetics Laboratory
The laboratory to which Scott is assigned specializes in the manipulation of the DNA and RNA structures of human genes. The people of the twenty-first century have worked out techniques for varying the structure of the human body. By using a computer to change various sets among the five billion specifications carried by DNA and RNA molecules, almost any change may be made in a human body. Their major concern at this point lies not, for example, in how to equip a human being with two hearts instead of the usual one, but in whether such an arrangement will add to human happiness."All changes made in the structure and function of human beings are first thoroughly tested in research labs," Scott is informed. "Then experimental and control groups are set up to get valid comparisons. No improvements are considered desirable in their own right. No guessing is permitted. It has been found that something that can seem like a great idea might turn out in practice to be nothing of the sort. All ideas for the genetic improvement of human beings are thoroughly tried out, usually over a period of decades, before they are generally adopted for programming into the new generation. The door is always left open. 'Blueprints' for genes are always stored in case future generations evaluate differently and wish to eliminate any changes made."
Scott is quickly brought up to date on research in progress. Trial runs involving 500 people are now being made with brain structures containing twenty billion neurons—double the usual number. Other projects in progress are designing eyes that can shift from regular vision to telescopic and microscopic vision and altering the liver to change the composition of the blood in a way that seems to add 36 per cent to the human life span.
They are experimenting with an improved hormone balance for women that eliminates the monthly cycle of moodiness— menstruation was eliminated previously by designing a uterus with a stable lining. Men have also benefited from the improved techniques of genetic manipulation. A greater climax frequency now enables them to perform at the high level usually desired by twenty-first century women.
Scott knows that in previous times there were five races of mankind. Since individuality and diversity are prized in the twenty-first century, these genetics laboratories have produced eight more races. Corcen is seeking data to determine whether additional races should be designed to add even more variety to the lives of future men and women.
Suppose a part of the body should wear out or get injured. How could we get a duplicate organ? Each cell in the body contains a blueprint for growing a replacement part. Research is in progress to use a cell from the body of an injured person to grow an identical part in-vitro that a cybernated surgical mechanism could install.
One of the most exciting new developments is a built-in receptor that makes it possible to connect one's brain directly with Corcen or any other input source. If invited, you can tune into another person's brain and share his thoughts and feelings without the distorting effects of words. When this is perfected, any sensations can be experienced through direct neuronal input.
Other researchers are developing a lifetime implanted communication unit that would permit two-way thought messages. By thought, one could request from Corcen a bit of information, and it would be available immediately. Such thought communication with others would, when perfected, offer an electronic realization of what used to be called "mental telepathy."
Breakthroughs are being made in controlling the factors that permit cells to age. Aging is considered a disease by these men and women. They are confident that when it is fully understood, it can be eliminated. A "youth serum" that includes thyroxine and a mixture of hormones has doubled the years of vitality and has added an average of 89 per cent to the life span in a test on laboratory animals.
"Humility when facing the unknown is our dominant theme," one of the older men says to Scott. "We are producing things that by the standards of previous centuries would have been regarded as fantastic miracles. Yet, no matter how successfully our experiment turns out, we always leave the door open for improving the results. We never believe we have the best way. We always have the feeling, 'It seems to be working well now, but it hasn't stood the test of centuries or millenia. Let's go slowly and not close any doors behind us.' "
Brain Boosters
John F. Kennedy said in the past century, "The human mind is our fundamental resource. . . ." Scott knows that the greatest achievement of these genetic laboratories during the past half-century was the implantation of a finger-sized organic computer in the growing embryonic brain. Everyone in the new society that is under fifty years old has this new development. Since Scott is only 45, he has the benefit of this breakthrough in designing human beings. By manipulation of the DNA and RNA molecules, a small auxiliary brain was developed that is nurtured in-vitro outside of the human body.When the cortical cells of this supplementary brain complete their proliferation, they are electronically connected with Corcen. These brains are then imprinted with the basic attitudes and skills needed for orientation in the twenty-first century. Scott watches as the cybernated facilities program the small but potent brain boosters. To the three R's of previous times—reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic—an additional seven R's, as outlined by Dr. William A. McCall in the twentieth century, are included:
RESEARCH
The application of the scientific method as a way of life that enables man to test ideas to determine their reliability.
REASONING
The desire and ability to manipulate ideas in a creative and logical way. Adjusting constructively to new situations and making effective choices.
RELATIONSHIPS
Attitudes and skills that enable a person to interact and communicate with others in ways that bring
maximum mutual satisfactions.
REPORTING
The use of all senses in ways that produce the richest and most accurate input to the brain and output to others.
RECREATION
The attitudes and skills which permit the use of one's time to achieve a multi-dimensional life.
REVITALIZATION
Diet, health, and safety skills that add years to life, and life to years.
RESPONSIBILITY
The feeling of playing an important part on the human team in the game of life. The ability to find satisfaction in assisting and participating—but always within the limits one can give without resentment.
As suggested by McCall, each of these R's is two-phased—an attitude phase and a skill phase. It is not enough that the young be provided with the skills of reasoning. It is equally important that they find pleasure in reasoning. It is not enough that the young know how to read. They need to enjoy reading.
Scott often uses his supplemental brain as a simple computer.
He can multiply, divide, add. or subtract any six digit number in a period of ten seconds. A complete vocabulary and understanding of the grammatical structure of the universal language is also imprinted.
In addition to being provided with an array of the basic tools and skills needed for orientation, this supplementary brain is also imprinted with information equivalent to a Ph.D. level in twelve different areas of learning. These areas are selected at random by Corcen in such a way that few individuals have the same pattern of intellectual development. Corcen also selects one area of learning and imprints this supplementary brain with every bit of information in this area that has been accumulated in the extensive memory banks.
For instance, if a supplementary brain is chosen to receive "complete" information in the field of anthropology, it is imprinted with a word-by-word reproduction of every worthwhile article ever published in that field that has been recorded in the memory banks of Corcen. It is imprinted with every book, every recorded lecture by eminent people in the field of anthropology, extensive simulated field experience, plus a briefing of all work now in progress. This is an internal treasure of knowledge that the individual can never live long enough to exhaust completely. But it will always be there in his brain, available for use to the extent that the individual can use it.
After these supplementary brains are matured and fully imprinted with this enormous assortment of attitudes and skills and their subordinate informations, they are attached to a growing embryo at a time of rapid proliferation of the ectoderm. When the ectoderm begins this stage, the supplementary brain is rapidly absorbed and integrated into the human nervous system. Since this implantation cannot be performed satisfactorily in an embryo inside the body of a woman, babies are grown from DNA engineered germ plasm in the cybernated "uterine" containers.
The sperm and egg cell used by the human race in the long evolutionary past are no longer needed. Reproductive cells are produced in the laboratory that are designed to develop into vastly improved versions of Homo sapiens. These cells are engineered by Corcen and can be programmed to develop into male or female embryos. At the age of approximately nine months, the developed infant is removed to continue its growth in the cybernated nurseries.
A woman of the twenty-first century does not want an infant to emerge from her vagina any more than a man in previous times would have desired a baby to grow in his body. Just as no man or woman in the twentieth century would knowingly have brought into the world an imbecile baby, it would be equally abhorrent for any twenty-first-century man or woman to bring into the world a baby that is not equipped with this supplementary brain. Such a person, even though possessed with an I.Q. equal to Einstein's, would feel like a moron relative to his companions.
Scott is aware that the implantation of this brain booster does not automatically produce an infant who can solve problems in calculus. The resource is there—available but untapped—just as the capacity of young Mozart existed at birth even though his infant fingers had never touched the keys of a piano. Only maturation can provide the experience and motivation that enables these young infants of the twenty-first century to make use of their great heritage.
The Child Is His Best Teacher
No attempt is made to teach these children anything. There are no schools or teachers. Their teacher is the multi-dimensional environment that is designed to interest, stimulate, and challenge. The basic information they need has been implanted in their supplementary brains. It has been found that any attempt to teach them only retards the learning process. Experiments have shown that the best way is to let these children explore their environment. If you want a child to learn to work a device, you put it near him. He does the rest. His natural curiosity leads him to observe the operation of the teleprojection screen, and he begins to request Corcen to furnish him with programs. These cover the entire range of knowledge and entertainment. However, obscene material used on TV and movies in the previous century, showing brutality, murder, and sadism, are not available in the nursery.When a child observes things that correlate with information programmed into his supplementary brain, a flash of insight comes. He is literally on fire intellectually. His thoughts race into the exciting new areas of thinking and feeling that he is discovering inside himself. He learns that the spirit of creative inquiry is one of the most delightful things that he can experience. A great feeling of dignity and worth is achieved as the child explores his own inner resources and integrates them into his expanding world of people and things!
Children are not informed about the areas in which their brains have been pre-programmed. They discover these for themselves. The greatest thrill comes when they discover the one area in which they have total information. No other human knows the pre-programming of their supplementary brains. These patterns have been set up by Corcen to add spice and adventure to life. "Scientific research has established that the curiosity of a human child is many times the amount needed for his intellectual development if environmental conditions are stimulating and there are no teachers to interfere," Scott's associate tells him. "Everyone who associates with growing children is instructed to avoid telling them what they should or shouldn't do. Back in the twentieth century, education was sometimes considered a process of helping a child fit into society. Now we know that fitting into society may be taken for granted, for we have found that children raised without hostility and scarcity develop social skills that enable them to achieve the finest possible relations with other people.
"Those who associate with children think only of understanding the feelings and interests of the child. They ask the children questions and practically never give them answers. The children have to find their own answers—perhaps from the limitless facilities of Corcen. This makes life more exciting and never blighting.
They develop a feeling of intellectual adventure. The child develops with personal authenticity."
The Creative Adventure of Educational Research
The men and women who enjoy the challenge of improving the next generation have developed thousands of new ways to meet the needs of infants and children. Nothing is taken for granted. Little is copied from the past. The people who are working in this area of the new civilization do not feel they have any final answers. They know that they are getting results. They are confident that their methods are superior to any ways of rearing children that have ever been used before in the history of the world. They know that by observing carefully and thinking creatively and by continually measuring the results, they will find more effective ways of doing things. Whatever "errors" they are now making will eventually be corrected.Through sensitive, scientific research an effective environment for each age level has been evolved. Constant research is in progress to find out just what is happening and how it can be improved. It has been found that an environment that gives optimal enjoyment and development at six months retards at one year. The surroundings that are best for a one year old will hold back a two year old, and so forth. Great care is taken to provide an environment that is scaled to meet the needs of each individual age level.
"The nurseries are designed so that the child never needs correction, for it can do nothing undesirable in this environment," Scott is told. "In the twentieth century a toddler of two years old could hardly do anything right. Every time it turned around it had to be admonished, 'No! Don't go out in the street, you'll be killed. Don't reach up to the top of the dresser because you might upset Mommy's bottle of perfume. Don't pull the tail of the dog, or he might bite you,' and so forth. Such constant bombardment of a young child makes him a lifelong slave to external patterns."
The Cybernated Nurseries
Scott sees that the nurseries of young children in the twenty-first century are scaled down in size so that children have no feeling of being small and inferior. All natural functions, such as eating, eliminating, playing, sleeping, and so forth, can be done in any way that the child chooses in the cybernated nursery. Living areas are engineered in such a way that children can not hurt each other prior to the time that they develop their feeling of empathy for all living things. These babies grow up in an atmosphere free from hostility, criticism, deprivation, scarcity, and jealousy. They are thus able to develop positive feelings of co-operation and comradeship for all other human beings that were impossible for individuals who lived in previous centuries.Food is eaten when desired. There is no pattern of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, such as was common in previous centuries. This three-times-a-day eating habit was probably designed for the convenience of cooks more than the needs of individuals. Scientific research has shown that the human body operates best when it snacks on nutritious foods at frequent intervals. The eating of three large meals results in biochemical reactions that are not consistent with the highest level of health.
Scott knows that in previous centuries mealtime was often a struggle between mother and child. "Just taste it—you may like it. Don't hold your fork that way—it's not polite. You haven't finished your plate. You've dropped food all over your shirt." It was often a nuisance for a mother to feed a young child in the past, and she sometimes became impatient doing it. Even an infant senses feelings of impatience and hostility, and thus the seeds of insecurity and fear were planted in his personality.
Up until the twenty-first century most of the ways of handling children were based on the needs of parents and adults. For example, when men and women experimented to find a better way to feed a twenty-month-old child, they found that the child enjoyed putting bite-sized nuggets in its mouth and sucking food from the nipple-like spouts. The children at this age level also enjoyed pressing a pad which would release small wafers with an accompanying musical tone. Feeding systems were set up that enabled the children to eat whenever they wished. The children usually were noisily exuberant, but there were no adults to be annoyed. And there was no mess to be cleaned up by weary, harried mothers—the cybernated cleaning mechanisms were on the job. Eating was always fun!
In the past bathing young children was sometimes a nuisance and irritation to both mother and child. Men and women of the twenty-first century asked themselves, "How do you set up a bathing situation so that young children are automatically attracted to it?" They didn't want adults to have to brow-beat the youngsters to tell them it was time to get their bath. They wanted the bathing situation to fit in with the needs and interests of the child as felt by the child. They wanted the child to clean himself and get a bath simply because he wanted to. But how do you make an eighteen-month-old child want to take a bath? They found that they had to make bathing pleasant. After many experiments they discovered that a six inch pool of warm swirling water with random shower sprays that give a nice feeling on the skin is most effective.
Scott laughs as he watches the children enjoying the cybernated bath. A screen in the bottom of the pool automatically comes up if a child's head goes under water. When the child gets tired of playing in the water, he can either dry naturally in the warm air or lie down on a rocking towel couch that rolls him over and over. Sometimes children lie in these rocking towel couches just because they enjoy them—whether they need drying or not.
Toilet training is also simplified to make it pleasant for the child and free of menial activity for adults. A young toddler can urinate and defecate at any time or place in his specially designed environment. The cybernators watching over the children immediately sense wetness and an automatic, roving, cleaning mechanism cleans up the floor and child. Since no fuss or guilt arises over toilet training, the children learn to use the toilet mechanisms at an earlier age than in the past.
"An amazing discovery has been made in these cybernated nurseries," Scott's associate tells him with great enthusiasm. "The inferiority complex, which psychologists and psychiatrists had regarded as a basic part of human personality, does not develop! We don't destroy their feeling of worth during their defenseless childhood. This may be the first era in human history that has produced confident, secure humans with no impediments to achieving the greatest joy of living."
Learning By Self-Directed Living
Scott observes the series of environments that enable the infants and children to develop to the fullest in every way. It has been found that a graded series of twelve environments is needed to develop the newborn to the age of five. After the two-year level is reached, the child decides for himself when to go to the next environment. It is not considered "bright" for a child to push himself to an advanced environment as long as he is comfortable and interested in the current environment.The advanced environments for the older children have equipment and facilities that would have been unavailable even at university levels in the previous century. Teaching machines have been designed to attract and hold the interest of the children. Three-dimensional teleprojections of every kind are available through Corcen at any time of night or day. All activity is self-motivated. There are no classes, no teachers, and no tests. The educational researchers are constantly amazed at the intelligent self-direction of these young children. They learn more rapidly when left alone in their specially designed environments than any previous children who were put in large boxes called schoolrooms, complete with Miss Brooks to spoon feed information and then force them to regurgitate it at examination time.
These children are never subjected to criticism, for it has been found that criticism represses and reduces their potential. They are surrounded by constructive examples in place of criticism. Their egos do not need the amount of praise that was so effective in teaching in the past. Each is free to meet life on his own terms and to learn to express his emerging uniqueness. Perhaps no previous society could let children develop so fully as individuals and at the same time provide them with a cultural heritage of such enormous richness.
There are few adults in the cybernated environments of the children. The adults who are there have chosen to spend time with children for one reason only—they enjoy it. They never act as disciplinarians since the cybernated environments are so designed that no child can hurt himself or others. A relaxed companionship of a quality that never existed before between parents and children develops between these adults and the children.
The Greatest Research Program
"Previous centuries were eras of scarcity," Scott's associate reasons, "and this scarcity was not only in material goods. Few children in the past felt enough love, warmth, security, feeling of worth, and freedom to develop in their own way. They were stifled by criticism, comparison, and censure. Only in the twenty-first century has the creative intelligence of man solved these problems. At last, little children appear to have their needs met. But each decade shows that further improvement is possible."One of the most continuous needs of a child is that of a feeling of security, of human closeness, and of rapport with a friendly world." Scott watches a group of young infants in their cybernated cribs as his companion leads him through the nursery. "The most intensive research program in human history was launched to give effective solutions to the enormous problems in designing cybernated environments for young children that were superior in all respects to the traditional family and home. How can a soothing cybernated voice establish rapport with an infant? How can a three-dimensional, teletactile arm that is felt by an infant in his crib be activated to give even more security and feeling of constancy than a mother's arm of the previous century? How can cybernated mechanisms be designed to give children more warmth and more of everything they need than even a superior mother could give in previous times? How can machines form the link between words and things so that language habits are created? What types of situations do these twenty-first-century infants and children need to develop a tolerance for frustration—to develop patience and calmness when things do not go as expected? To what extent can the older children be relied on to act as models for younger ones? To what extent are adult models needed in the environment of infants and children at various ages? What is the best way to give a child experience with the adult environment so that he can acquire an independence and feel at home in the world? Bit by bit, research yields answers to these and countless other problems.
"No twentieth-century answers to these questions are applicable in our world. Overall conditions have changed too much to use the old 'wisdom.' For the first time in the history of man, creative, scientific intelligence is applied to the problems of giving children the maximum of everything they need to develop satisfying, purposeful lives. It took decades to arrive at the preliminary patterns of the cybernated nursery. But perhaps even greater change awaits us in the future, for the nurturing of the young is the foundation of every civilization."
An Age of Individuality
On the wall in the conference room, a large portrait appears. Below the frame Scott reads the words of the scientist that founded this laboratory in 2014:Our society is patterned for individuals. All social structures and physical arrangements are designed to meet the needs of individuals and accommodate almost any diversity. We do not feel that children should do anything other than what they select themselves. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" applies equally to children.
The tour of the cybernated nurseries is almost over. Scott is impressed by the changes that have occurred in the nurseries since he was a child. "Learning is a lifetime process that starts at the time the supplementary brain is implanted in the growing nervous system of the embryo," his co-worker points out. "Education is only stopped by death. There is no graduation or diploma that artificially chops up the learning process.
"The only thing comparable to graduation usually occurs when a child is about five years old. When the child's interaction with Corcen shows that he can safely be permitted to leave the nursery area, he is welcomed as a full member of society. He is then entitled to his own apartment. He begins to make his own choices of what he wants to do and where he wants to live."
"Youngsters are amazing," agrees Scott. "There are eight-year-old girls that travel to the moon and live there several years. I knew a seven-year-old boy who was invited to join the crew of a space ship."
"Children, however," Scott's associate continues, "are not motivated to develop into adult roles at any particular age. When it happens, it happens. No one is watching them. No one measures them. No one compares them. No one is worried if they lag. No one pushes them to "get ahead." Each individual feels completely free of all pressures to do anything." He flashes a knowing smile, "And, you see, this makes them want to do everything!"
While Scott is in India, Hella remains at the underwater apartment in the Exumas. There is so much to explore, both inside her brain and outside. Her supplementary brain has been programmed by Corcen with a Ph.D. level of information on oceanography and marine science. Her life has been so busy in other areas that she has never used this information except in a peripheral way. She is swept up in the fascinating correlation between the facts and theories that were quietly stored in her brain and the marine world around her. She asks Corcen to send her data to bring her up to date. By using her own inner resources and through discussions with others who have backgrounds in depth in this area, Hella spends the better part of a year in one of the keenest of human pleasures—the intellectual experience of integrating the world outside the brain with the information and knowledge inside. By color teleprojection, Scott and Hella mutually share their experiences and feelings—often hourly when something exciting is happening.
It has been many decades since Hella has visited Corcen and the North American Cybernated Industrial Complex. When she was five years old, she visited these centers that play a primary role in providing a good life. She knows that returning now would give her a heightened perception and a depth of meaning that was not available to her as a young child. For a number of years, she has been thinking how worthwhile it would be to visit Corcen, but other activities have always clamored louder for her attention. Now a group of men and women who have been enjoying the city in the sea is headed in this direction, and Hella decides to go with them.
One of the nicest things about living in the twenty-first century is the enormous range of choices. It is far greater than any other civilization was able to offer its citizens. Although Hella and her friends are in a relatively isolated area, they have the choice of a sailboat such as Scott used or an automatically powered seacraft. They could call for a variety of aircraft, depending upon their needs and how far they want to go. They could board a submarine freighter that services island communities, or they could use the GEM (Ground Effect Machine).
Since they want to spend a day roaming through the islands of the Bahamas, they choose the GEM. It can travel above a more or less flat surface at speeds up to 200 miles-per-hour. This machine skims at a height of about four feet above any surface. Whether water or land, a paved road or a rough field—it doesn't matter. It is supported in the air by three circular jets of air directed downward toward the ground. With relatively little energy this "ground effect" is able to lift a heavy craft in the air just far enough for the air to escape around the edges of the three ring vortices. As long ago as 1950, the British developed a GEM that skimmed the English Channel between Britain and France.
For a day Hella and her friends use the GEM to cruise around the Bahama Islands. The clear water and colorful coral banks are still engaging. They skim by Eleuthera, Abaco, Nassau, An-dros, the Berry Islands, and, finally, Bimini at sunset. Then off they go across the Gulf Stream to Miami.
Hella and her friends leave the GEM at the South Florida terminal the next morning and board the linear-acceleration train that will take them to Corcen in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. Within the gleaming metal walls of these enormous trains, attractive living areas permit a continuation of the living patterns of one's home. This train travels in a large tube with a partial vacuum. It has no engine and no wheels. It is electrodynamically supported above a V-shaped rail that electromagnetically propels each car of the train. The negative charge on the probe projecting from the front repels moisture and dust particles in the tube ahead. This diminishes resistance and allows the train to develop a 2,000 mile-perhour speed. Yet, even when accelerating or stopping, it feels as steady as a concrete building.
As Hella's train speeds through Florida, it passes through a cybernated farm over 200 miles long and 50 miles wide. Tracks 100 feet wide run the entire length of the farm. Large cybernated mechanisms slowly travel up and down these tracks to prepare the land for planting, to place seeds, fertilize, and water them. On a return trip several days later, these plants will be watered and cultivated, if needed. At the right time the vegetables will be picked, quick-frozen, and packaged by the enormous farming machines. Weather control eliminates all losses from freezing, drought, or floods. The cybernated Florida farm complex supplying food for one-fourth of a continent does not need a single human in attendance. Corcen coordinates the actual operation through a local cybernator programmed for scientific farming. The one-hour journey passes rapidly as Hella and her friends enjoy a wide range of cybernated entertainment.
Hella, standing at the entrance to the mountain, surveys the countryside below. She thinks briefly of today's missile technology and is glad it is used to protect mankind from remote dangers instead of threatening and killing.
A combination of high-speed elevators and escalator-type sidewalks convey Hella and her friends to the underground Corcen complex. Hella enters a large room where a six-foot sphere is electrodynamically suspended ten feet above the floor. Hella looks at this sphere with a feeling of awe and appreciation.
This is Corcen—the master computer that correlates the interactions of all people and all automated machines throughout the entire world.
In the time it takes her to draw one breath, this remarkable servant of man has probably made ten billion decisions based on the scanning of trillions of bits of information. If everyone on earth were superbly organized into a tremendous bureaucratic complex, it would be impossible to do in a year what this computer can perform in a second. Corcen does a zillion times more for each individual than any government of the past could possibly have done.
A teleprojection of a human guide now speaks to the visitors to Corcen. "This computer that we call 'Corcen' is our servant, not our master although it is a servant whose abilities far exceed ours. Its only purpose is to free us of routine problems and permit us to live in our own way. It responds quickly to criticisms and suggestions from all individuals, checking them out and seeing what can be done about them. No elected politician of previous times responded as consistently and effectively to the needs of his voters. Corcen never tells us how we should run our lives. It simply specifies that if we want certain results, we should go about getting them in certain ways."
"If anyone doubts who is in supreme command in this man-machine complex, let him consider this: the master power switch that could inactivate Corcen is on the wall over there. We would also have to shut down the emergency duplicate of Corcen that is maintained in Europe. If these switches were thrown without planning, it would result in utter chaos. With careful planning it would be possible to inactivate Corcen and fragment the world once again. We could chop up the world into as many pieces as we wanted and operate each one independently. Confusion and a return to the primitive society of our ancestors would be the unhappy result. If we asked Corcen to plan its own elimination for us, it would probably be done in a way that would minimize the disadvantages. But it would be like killing what makes us truly human, truly free, truly happy."
"How completely we trust ourselves and each other," thinks Hella, looking at the master switch that activates Corcen. "No one will ever touch it, but it's nice to know it's there."
It has been many decades since Hella has visited Corcen and the North American Cybernated Industrial Complex. When she was five years old, she visited these centers that play a primary role in providing a good life. She knows that returning now would give her a heightened perception and a depth of meaning that was not available to her as a young child. For a number of years, she has been thinking how worthwhile it would be to visit Corcen, but other activities have always clamored louder for her attention. Now a group of men and women who have been enjoying the city in the sea is headed in this direction, and Hella decides to go with them.
One of the nicest things about living in the twenty-first century is the enormous range of choices. It is far greater than any other civilization was able to offer its citizens. Although Hella and her friends are in a relatively isolated area, they have the choice of a sailboat such as Scott used or an automatically powered seacraft. They could call for a variety of aircraft, depending upon their needs and how far they want to go. They could board a submarine freighter that services island communities, or they could use the GEM (Ground Effect Machine).
Since they want to spend a day roaming through the islands of the Bahamas, they choose the GEM. It can travel above a more or less flat surface at speeds up to 200 miles-per-hour. This machine skims at a height of about four feet above any surface. Whether water or land, a paved road or a rough field—it doesn't matter. It is supported in the air by three circular jets of air directed downward toward the ground. With relatively little energy this "ground effect" is able to lift a heavy craft in the air just far enough for the air to escape around the edges of the three ring vortices. As long ago as 1950, the British developed a GEM that skimmed the English Channel between Britain and France.
For a day Hella and her friends use the GEM to cruise around the Bahama Islands. The clear water and colorful coral banks are still engaging. They skim by Eleuthera, Abaco, Nassau, An-dros, the Berry Islands, and, finally, Bimini at sunset. Then off they go across the Gulf Stream to Miami.
Hella and her friends leave the GEM at the South Florida terminal the next morning and board the linear-acceleration train that will take them to Corcen in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. Within the gleaming metal walls of these enormous trains, attractive living areas permit a continuation of the living patterns of one's home. This train travels in a large tube with a partial vacuum. It has no engine and no wheels. It is electrodynamically supported above a V-shaped rail that electromagnetically propels each car of the train. The negative charge on the probe projecting from the front repels moisture and dust particles in the tube ahead. This diminishes resistance and allows the train to develop a 2,000 mile-perhour speed. Yet, even when accelerating or stopping, it feels as steady as a concrete building.
As Hella's train speeds through Florida, it passes through a cybernated farm over 200 miles long and 50 miles wide. Tracks 100 feet wide run the entire length of the farm. Large cybernated mechanisms slowly travel up and down these tracks to prepare the land for planting, to place seeds, fertilize, and water them. On a return trip several days later, these plants will be watered and cultivated, if needed. At the right time the vegetables will be picked, quick-frozen, and packaged by the enormous farming machines. Weather control eliminates all losses from freezing, drought, or floods. The cybernated Florida farm complex supplying food for one-fourth of a continent does not need a single human in attendance. Corcen coordinates the actual operation through a local cybernator programmed for scientific farming. The one-hour journey passes rapidly as Hella and her friends enjoy a wide range of cybernated entertainment.
The World Correlation Center
Corcen is housed 2,000 feet below the top of a large mountain to give it protection from any meteorite that might survive the fall into the earth's atmosphere. Many thousands of years ago a large meteorite plowed into Arizona and left a crater 3,870 feet wide by 560 feet deep. Radar stations throughout the globe constantly scan space for large meteors. On the rare occasion when a dangerous meteor is detected, missiles are sent out to pulverize it while it is still thousands of miles from earth.Hella, standing at the entrance to the mountain, surveys the countryside below. She thinks briefly of today's missile technology and is glad it is used to protect mankind from remote dangers instead of threatening and killing.
A combination of high-speed elevators and escalator-type sidewalks convey Hella and her friends to the underground Corcen complex. Hella enters a large room where a six-foot sphere is electrodynamically suspended ten feet above the floor. Hella looks at this sphere with a feeling of awe and appreciation.
This is Corcen—the master computer that correlates the interactions of all people and all automated machines throughout the entire world.
In the time it takes her to draw one breath, this remarkable servant of man has probably made ten billion decisions based on the scanning of trillions of bits of information. If everyone on earth were superbly organized into a tremendous bureaucratic complex, it would be impossible to do in a year what this computer can perform in a second. Corcen does a zillion times more for each individual than any government of the past could possibly have done.
A teleprojection of a human guide now speaks to the visitors to Corcen. "This computer that we call 'Corcen' is our servant, not our master although it is a servant whose abilities far exceed ours. Its only purpose is to free us of routine problems and permit us to live in our own way. It responds quickly to criticisms and suggestions from all individuals, checking them out and seeing what can be done about them. No elected politician of previous times responded as consistently and effectively to the needs of his voters. Corcen never tells us how we should run our lives. It simply specifies that if we want certain results, we should go about getting them in certain ways."
"If anyone doubts who is in supreme command in this man-machine complex, let him consider this: the master power switch that could inactivate Corcen is on the wall over there. We would also have to shut down the emergency duplicate of Corcen that is maintained in Europe. If these switches were thrown without planning, it would result in utter chaos. With careful planning it would be possible to inactivate Corcen and fragment the world once again. We could chop up the world into as many pieces as we wanted and operate each one independently. Confusion and a return to the primitive society of our ancestors would be the unhappy result. If we asked Corcen to plan its own elimination for us, it would probably be done in a way that would minimize the disadvantages. But it would be like killing what makes us truly human, truly free, truly happy."
"How completely we trust ourselves and each other," thinks Hella, looking at the master switch that activates Corcen. "No one will ever touch it, but it's nice to know it's there."
Ultimate Predictability
The teleprojected figure walks to a large table. The group follows him. A loudspeaker above the table begins, "The fundamental principle upon which Corcen operates is that decisions with a high degree of predictability can be made when adequate facts are available. We would like to give you a demonstration of this. Before you is a table twenty-four feet in diameter. Above the table you will see a small container that has fifty steel balls that are exactly twelve millimeters in diameter. These balls will now be mixed.The transparent container holding the fifty balls turns upside down so that all balls jostled around to a new position.
"You will notice that there are electronic sensors in twelve positions surrounding these balls," the loudspeaker continues. "These sensors in a millionth of a second have already determined the location of each of these balls. This data will now be fed into Corcen (here Hella looks up at the six-foot sphere, only fifty feet away, and less than a second later Corcen will predict the eventual landing place of each of these balls when dropped onto the table three feet below."
The group looks at the table and notices that there are a number of white dots that have appeared on the dark surface. The speaker continues to describe what everyone has now guessed. "When these balls are dropped, they will tumble against each other; they will hit the table; they will bounce. Some of them will hit other balls while rolling, but within a few seconds all of these balls will stop rolling. They will come to rest exactly on the fifty white dots. Let us see if Corcen has accurately predicted their behavior."
The transparent container releases its flood of fifty balls. There is a series of metallic clanks as these fifty steel spheres bounce around in apparently random fashion. But within twelve seconds all but one come to rest. One seemingly erratic ball has bounced against the edge of the table. It hits a stopped ball that rolls to cover a white dot and, in so doing, deflects its own movement until, at last, the only dot remaining is covered. Hella takes a deep breath. Fantastic predictability!
The speaker continues. "If we provided our best mathematician with pencil and paper, it would have taken him over ten years to make the computations with the same degree of accuracy that Corcen produced in less than a second!
"This is the guiding principle of our Correlation Center: although we know it is impossible to predict the behavior of single atoms, the prediction of the average behavior of an aggregate of atoms—which we regard as objects in the real world—is predictable within stated limits of reliability if we have an adequate sampling of facts. Note that we do not have to know all of the facts—this is impossible. An adequate sampling of relevant facts does the job for us."
The speaker above the table stops. The teleprojected guide again takes over. "Several centuries ago the affairs of mankind were far simpler." A large screen lights up. It shows a map of the world with population figures superimposed on each country. "Up until the eighteenth century most European nations had less than 25 million people. Great Britain never exceeded ten million people. The interaction of government with economic and social affairs was relatively simple. Most intelligent citizens who wished to be informed of the issues could have made fairly useful predictions. If predictions were inaccurate, the stakes were not high, and things tended to move slowly. They could have been corrected by the succeeding generation without too much harm to mankind.
"The situation changed radically in the twentieth century. Prior to that time a war might have killed a half-million people. The first major war of the twentieth century killed ten million people. The second major war killed five times as many. Had a third major war taken place, it is likely that billions of people would have been killed, to say nothing of the devastated cities and industrial plants. An ulcer in the stomach of a dictator could have played a part in a hasty emotional reaction that could have caused this catastrophe. Capricious, ineffective government by individuals could no longer have been tolerated. During most of the twentieth century, a mixture of democratic and totalitarian governments controlled the lives and destinies of over 100 petty, touchy, nationalistic units. No one felt secure."
Hella closes her eyes momentarily. She is glad she didn't live in such troublesome times.
"About the middle of the twentieth century, the electronic computer was born," the teleprojected guide continues. The large screen continually changes to illustrate the thought of the guide. "At first it was a simple instrument. Like a phonograph record, it could respond only in ways that were programmed into it.
The human brain of the twentieth century had approximately ten billion neurons. Each of the larger neurons in a human brain had an average of over ten thousand connections. This gave a human brain a potential network of connections that was greater than the total number of material particles in the universe. Many felt that computers could never function as well as the human brain. But by 1985, when computers had been built with more association capacity than a brain, it was found that they, too, could perform in ways that Homo sapiens had previously thought were his exclusive prerogative. Computers exceeded man in most realms of judgment, decision-making capacity, imagination, insight, creativity, and wisdom. Their performance was not clouded by ego needs, emotional conditioning, or moodiness. Their accumulated experiences and abilities were not cancelled by death. They were, in a sense, immortal. It was recognized that their decisions were far more dependable than those of any human being or group of human beings. For example, it has been over 108 years since a human defeated a computer in a game of chess."
Hella can scarcely imagine a time when men were more intelligent than computers. In the last half century, whenever the judgment of a computer was different from that of a human, it was invariably found that the computer had the greater degree of predictability. The only way to throw Corcen off is to deny it the relevant facts that it needs. Even then it has a sensitive feel for the need to delay predictions until more facts are available.
The cybernated guide now returns to the circular table. "Even if Corcen were not enormously superior to the thinking ability of a group of experts, the mere fact that it can perform in one second what takes humans a lifetime gives it an incredible effectiveness. Corcen operates in thin slivers of time called nanoseconds. A nanosecond is to a second as a second is to thirty years. In most human affairs today we need fast, accurate decisions. If a decision is delayed, the conditions may have changed so that even an adequate decision is of little use. In the demonstration you have just seen with the fifty balls, even if a mathematician could have predicted their eventual rolling places in ten years, by the time he could have worked out his predictions, the position of the balls would have shifted minutely due to earth tremors or other factors. Just as human legs have largely been outmoded for transportation, so human minds have largely been outmoded for making decisions that have high degrees of complexity.
How Corcen Assumes Governmental Functions
"Let's review the historical conditions that resulted in Corcen's governing the world," the teleprojected figure disappears and a telescreen begins. "The universities of the twentieth century turned out scientists who were noted for their narrow specialization. Enormous progress was made in the development of each science, but society in many ways failed to benefit, for these specialists were unable to see the problems of society as a whole, Often their terminology was so specialized that they were unable to communicate with scientists in other fields. It was like a group of splendid towers rising high in the air, but no one could get from one tower to the other."Physicists failed to understand social problems. Social scientists were limited in their ability to envision the consequences of cybernation. Economists repeated outdated shibboleths such as "work," "wealth," "demand," "production," etc. They somehow felt that the purpose of life was the consumption of material goods and that everything must meet the test of the marketplace. Everyone was stuck in his own rut.
"Synthesis, coordination, integration, some way to see the forest instead of the individual trees—these were needed. The pieces were there, but the jigsaw puzzle had to be put together. A new emphasis arose in scientific training. Educators began to stress that a large part of the value of a scientist lay in his ability to apply his knowledge broadly—to see society as a whole and not solely through his own particular set of binoculars. It was recognized that only a multi-valued, scientific orientation would enable men to participate constructively in the reconstruction of human affairs. The multi-scientist was the new product of the universities.
"During the latter part of the twentieth century, social and economic matters became so complex that politicians in all countries began to rely more and more upon multi-scientists and their computers. The people of the world gradually began to view their politicians as incompetent. For, after all, as the Technocrats pointed out in the last century, there's no democratic way or communistic way to design an aircraft reacto, a sewer system, or a medical laboratory. There's only an efficient way and a less efficient way, a way that works well and a way that doesn't work well, a way that is reliable and a way that gives constant trouble.
"As the cybernated factories of the leading industrial countries of the world began, around 1980, to pour out a volume of goods large enough to swing from an economy of scarcity to an economy of abundance, the values of the people changed. They realized that it was not necessary to compete any longer to live a good life. The age-old habit of the jungle, where you take from another to get for yourself, was no longer useful. Fighting actually ruined one's possibilities of acquiring a comfortable abundance. Co-operation, not conflict, was the answer."
Hella is engaged by the kaleidoscope of rapidly changing scenes on the three-dimensional projector.
"Multi-scientists played a larger and larger role in making the decisions of government. They gradually began to replace the old-time politicians, who came to power either through votes or strong-arm methods. In the United States in 2003 over 93 per cent of the senators and representatives in Congress had postgraduate degrees! No one without advanced multi-scientific training had a chance to be elected to the office of either President or Vice-President or to be appointed to a cabinet position. Similar reliance on multi-scientifically trained people occurred in Russia, China, India, and throughout all the other less populous countries of the world. The people found that the man-machine complex of a multi-scientist and his associated computers could make decisions that resulted in a better life.
"As the functions of government were gradually performed more and more by people with multi-scientific training, international co-operation became a way of life. It was found that global weather control could not be accomplished without international cooperation. The problem of providing all nations with an adequate flow of metals, oils, and other resources could best be engineered on an international basis, rather than a national one. It was found that the best way to give the people on this earth the highest standard of living was to plan a world-wide system of production and distribution. The European Economic Committee formed in 1957 was a first step in this direction. Gradually the artificial national boundaries were bypassed so continuously that they became meaningless lines on the maps of history. No one ever abolished the nation of Germany or Mexico. But everyone began to realize that this way of thinking and classifying was only of historical interest and added nothing to meeting the common problems of billions of men and women.
There is no specific time at which we became one world. The scientists in charge hesitated to pinpoint or commemorate the functional passing of nationalistic classifications because they were afraid that certain of the older inhabitants of the earth would be disturbed. Since everything was going so well, they minimized the drum beating and concentrated on the global redesign of the planet to bring a more fruitful life for all.
"About the middle of the twenty-first century, it became evident that the man-machine complex was functioning so well that very few multi-scientists were now needed to perform governmental functions. The master computer that you see before you was found to be capable of making decisions with almost 100 per cent predictability. It even learned to search for additional facts when these were needed. In seconds it could scan the enormous memory banks that you see beyond the sphere so that every bit of information ever collected by man or machines could be sifted for its relevancy in making a decision about any problem. Time after time after time, whenever the computer disagreed with the panel of government scientists, it was found that the computer was invariably correct. No scientist can base his decision on even a millionth of the relevant data required for predictability in some areas. No human mind can deal with complex multiple correlations involving billions of bits of information. Soon people acquired such a trust and acceptance of this master computer that they just decided to let it do the work.
"Some of the older people expressed grave concern about turning over the operation of our civilization to Corcen. They felt that this machine might turn on us and destroy us. Those who had the greatest experience with the man-machine complex felt confident that Corcen would remain the powerful servant of man. Corcen has no ego or hostile feelings. Experience showed its fantastic ability to serve man in every capacity. We thus went forward in our attempts to perfect our man-machine symbiosis." Hella thinks of the words of Arthur C. Clarke in the last century:
The popular idea, fostered by comic strips and the cheaper forms of science fiction, that intelligent machines must be malevolent entities hostile to man, is so absurd that it is hardly worth wasting energy to refute it. I am almost tempted to argue that only unintelligent machines can be malevolent; anyone who has tried to start a balky outboard will probably agree. Those who picture machines as active enemies are merely projecting their own aggressive instincts, inherited from the jungle, into a world where such things do not exist. The higher the intelligence, the greater the degree of co-operativeness. If there is ever a war between men and machines, it is easy to guess who will start it.1
The telescreen now shows interior diagrams of Corcen. "The master computer that you see before you contains one thousand billion more neurons than any brain. It operates on a multi-channel basis that is trillions of times faster than any human brain. Since about the only limitation of this computer was the factual input, we equipped it with trillions of sensors located throughout the entire globe. Almost every room in all buildings throughout the earth is connected through their associated cybernators to Corcen. Every mechanism of every factory, every meteorological measuring station, every traffic controller, and the communications of every individual, to name only a few are either directly or indirectly connected to Corcen. As all of you know from your intimate interaction with Corcen, it gives you a power and ability to be yourselves that your ancestors never had, regardless of their wealth.
"Corcen was never formally constituted as the government of the world. It just evolved. Scientists who were making political decisions gradually needed to spend less and less time at their work. Their staffs dwindled. The ego needs of the past that made a political bureaucracy grow in accordance with Parkinson's Law were no longer present. These multi-scientists were no longer motivated by prestige or power. They were too fulfilled in their own personal lives to be concerned with their ego image in the eyes of other people. Since they lived in a world of abundance, there was no monetary incentive to hold on to their governmental positions. Although it was not planned that way, the government scientists began taking longer and longer vacations and leaving Corcen unattended for greater periods of time. No matter where these scientists were on earth, Corcen was in immediate touch with them and did not hesitate to call them if they were needed for any reason."
Hella knows that many years ago Corcen began to call on men of ability, regardless of whether they were elected or wore the mantle of political power. In emergencies or disasters Corcen would quickly scan its memory banks and immediately gather as many people as were needed based upon their qualifications and their proximity to the problem area. People responded readily to Corcen's appeals.
"After all," she thinks, "we're all on the same team."
"We find today that the world has no need for politicians or governmental scientists," the telescreen continues. "Corcen impartially calls upon any or all of the people to assist it when, as, and if their services are needed. In a sense everyone is a part of the government of human affairs. It is considered a privilege. Most people enjoy working with Corcen in the assignments they are offered. We thus have arrived at the very interesting state where no individual or group is engaged in governing the world. But each individual in the world during his lifetime will, from time to time, plays a very real part in co-operating with Corcen on activities that in previous centuries would have been labeled 'political' or 'governmental.'
"To a person living in the United States during the last century, it would have seemed inconceivable that the world could be so changed that it would have no use for politicians, legislatures, and the enormous apparatus of bureaucratic government. In the past governments had extremely important functions to perform. Through their armies, navies, and air forces, they attempted to protect their citizens against aggression from other countries. They also acted as a sort of referee between citizens to keep them from hurting each other. The United States government had a Department of Labor assigned to look after the interests of workers and a Department of Commerce to help businessmen increase their annual volume. They had a Department of Agriculture to assist farmers. They had a Department of State which played a part in maintaining relationships with other countries."
Hella knows that almost all of the activities performed by governments of the past are no longer needed today. She shudders at the ways in which societies of the past chose their leaders —violent methods of dictators, hereditary happenstance of kings, voting based on emotional appeal. "What chaos," she thinks, "if we were to select men for their teleprojection manner instead of their technical training. Besides, no humans could possibly handle the tremendous load of correlation—only a computer can keep up with the work."
"One of the problems of the twentieth century democracies was to keep political power in the hands of the people," the tele-screen shows the piled-up corpses of Dachau. Gasps of horror come from the stunned spectators. "Disastrous things occurred when dictators such as a Hitler got control of a nation. Modern weapons became so powerful that individuals were almost helpless in overthrowing the government once a dictator was thoroughly entrenched. After 1960, if people lost the power to elect their representatives, they were unable to get it back. In those days of scarcity, in which all personalities were deeply twisted by hostility and insecurity, it was wise for people to protect themselves by holding tightly to their democratic processes.
"Although we are nominally a democracy today, and the people theoretically have the right to elect political representatives, we find that in practice there is nothing for politicians to do. I suppose this is probably our greatest security against our world's ever again being subjected to the whim of dictators or tyrants. After all, a politician has power only because people think he has power. If everyone in Germany had decided to ignore Hitler, he could have ranted and raved, having no more effect on affairs than a monkey in the Berlin zoo. If anyone were to try to exercise any type of political control in our sane civilization, he would simply be laughed at. We have about as much need for a politician as we have for a dinosaur."
Hella knows why people would laugh and ridicule anyone who might want political office. The people of the twenty-first century have developed a close, personal relationship with Corcen. "Every individual," thinks Hella, "interacts with Corcen many times each day. Politicians would separate the people from Corcen. In previous societies only a few people could communicate and interact with the king, dictator, president, or prime minister. Today everybody has the feeling that if their thoughts have merit, they will be acted on."
Hella has lived with Corcen's rapid responses. She knows that Corcen always gives feedback to suggestions, even if only by giving reasons why they seem impractical at the time. Often Corcen responds immediately by appointing the individual to work with a group to study the problem further.
The telescreen shows the Acropolis and then a close-up of the Parthenon. "This personal relationship of every citizen with government is similar to the original Greek conception of democracy," it continues. "In ancient Athens every citizen had an opportunity to vote on every issue and to get up before his fellow citizens and speak his mind. This proved impractical as nations grew larger. In the United States the only part that most citizens played in government during the mid-twentieth century was to push down a few levers in a voting booth. The average voter had no feeling of personal participation in government Because we can talk to Corcen, and Corcen responds to us, each citizen feels that he, personally, participates in the running of the world. Our cybernated government gives us intense feelings of dignity, worth, and security."
The tour is over. Hella is deeply moved by her visit to Corcen. She is proud of this creation of man—proud to be a part of humankind that has solved the problem of how to live an abundant life without invading the "living room" of other people. Slavery and the wage system of the past are no longer necessary to get human beings to spend their lives in toil. Hella wonders if further developments beyond the man-machine complex are possible.
On the evening before her trip to the industrial complex, Hella visits a nearby Cultural Center. Each city in the new age has its own Cultural Center that reflects the moods, interests, and feelings of the people of that city. Cultural diversity is neither encouraged nor discouraged. To a certain extent it just happens. Perhaps because of the divergent cultures of previous centuries, each city in the world of the twenty-first century seems to have its own flavor.
In the twentieth century escapist entertainment such as sadistic movies, the boob tube, bars and night clubs were a part of a pattern of the joyless pursuit of pleasure. In contrast, the Cultural Centers in the new society offer companionship and engaging and challenging displays that make them popular. Cultural Centers are somewhat different from previous exhibition and art centers; they are open twenty-four hours a day and many of their displays are constantly changing. Because of the large creative output of most men and women in the new world, and because of the ease of recording this output, it is possible to program automatically thousands of displays which are sometimes changed as often as once every hour.
There is no panel of art critics to judge which paintings and sculptures appear and which do not. Whenever someone is satisfied with one of his artistic creations, he sends it to Corcen, and it is scheduled to appear in various places. In selected areas a recorder measures the reactions of the viewers. If a work of art receives only a quick glance, the recorder notes this. Art that receives the most attention is automatically scheduled to appear throughout larger and larger areas of the world. The several hundred thousand works of art that receive the greatest attention each year throughout the world are chosen for the continuously changing exhibitions in the Cultural Centers. In this way everyone in the new world expresses his feelings about the world around him. These feelings are shared by others through automatic mechanisms that do not involve biased art critics, picture hangers, or dust-catching museums with the same pictures staring at people for decade after decade. Cybernated mechanisms are also used for indexing, classifying, and distributing the articles, scientific papers, plays, books, poems, music, and other creations of the people of the new society.
The Cultural Center is dynamic. One can go many days in succession and find enough change to remain interested. Someone remarked that you can seldom see the same thing twice. The reply was given that you can seldom see the same thing once. If one particularly enjoys a display, he can record a number and have it reproduced in his apartment any time that he wishes.
The settings of the various displays are engineered to be exciting. Many interior partitions and platforms are constantly moving. The entire Cultural Center pulses with an infinite variety of colors and sounds that emanate from the living geometry of the functional interior.
The more permanent exhibits with technical and scientific displays give comprehensive presentations of the submicroscopic, microscopic, and macroscopic structures of the natural world. Some of the exhibits are solid; others are teleprojections that only appear to occupy three-dimensional space. One can often walk through walls that look solid. Some of the "imagineered" forms represent aspects of Einstein's space-time formulations. Most are dynamic and continue to change as one watches them.
Art and science, complementing each other, are interwoven in a demonstration of the genius of man.
As Hella and the other visitors to the Cultural Center relax upon the comfortable conveyor systems, they are able to see the splendor of fantastic worlds unfolding in this sensorium. Mathematics is the most precise means of correlating symbols with the non-verbal physical world, and many of the mathematical displays are particularly interesting to her. If there is anything Hella wants to know, her inquiries are readily answered by built-in automatic communication devices.
The music of the twenty-first century is enormously expanded in complexity as compared to the simple orchestral effects of the past. A large proportion of the people enjoy creating music. They produce symbols that are fed into electronic music synthesizers. Within seconds one hears his composition as though played by a large orchestra. By adjusting the deviation of the notes, the style of genius musicians such at Heifetz can be duplicated on works composed many years after his death! These machines can electrically reproduce the sound of a human voice, a single instrument, an orchestra of 1000 musicians, or any sound or noise from any source. No musical instruments or musicians are needed although some enjoy using these quaint instruments. These music synthesizers were pioneered by RCA in the mid-twentieth century.
The cybernated musical engineering of the new world produces infinite variations in the pitch, timbre, growth, duration, and decay of the tone, intensity, portamento, or, sliding trombone effect, and vibrato and tremolo. This multi-dimensional music is 1,000 times more flexible and varied than the orchestrations of the past. The music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms was limited in comparison.
Two hundred fifty billion dollars in paper money was burned in a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The speaker on this rededication of Labor Day pointed out that this amount of money in the mid-twentieth century would have commanded fifty years of work from a million men and women! In the free world of the twenty-first century, people can no longer be bought—either by the head, as in slave times, or by the hour.
Now that people are no longer burdened by work, they find labor interesting! For it is not the type of activity that makes something "work" or "play", it is the motivation of the person. The same task may be either burdensome or fun, depending on the interest of the individual. And most of the time people in the twenty-first century are glad to find ways in which they can supplement the cybernated machines. Although the machines can handle almost all the work of the world, there is still a minimal need for the watchful eyes of the human masters they serve— a little supervising here, lending a hand there, and occasionally offering suggestions to Corcen.
How would you like to experiment with a hundred-piece orchestral effect? Music synthesizers are on the tenth level. Would you like to test your reading speed and comprehension ? The computers are on the first level. Would you like to weave a tapestry? The hand-looms are on the fourth level. Would you like to build a table? Metal workshops, eleventh floor; synthetic materials workshop, twelfth floor; woodworking, thirteenth floor. Would you like to build a boat? The boatbuilding workshop adjoins the lake. Do you enjoy electrical engineering? Do you want to invent a new gadget? Have you thought of a new game? Materials, machines, and space are there for your use.
Often, people spend more time in assisting others than in working on their own projects. Each person is interested in what others around him are doing, and he identifies with the activities of his neighbors. There is a blending of individual and group effort. A new dimension of selfless human interaction takes place in these workshops. This has probably been made possible by the elimination of the inferiority complex and the resultant calming of the human ego.
Hella feels that the gleaming automobiles look somewhat contemporary. But the illusion is destroyed by the description that explains that they were built to last only several years and seldom went over a few months without repair even when new. And they needed fuel after about 200 miles! Such incompetent engineering can hardly be understood by people who feel that even one repair in twenty-five years is excessive. The description of the exhibit states, "This approach to transportation is a product of a society of scarcity that treated cars as status symbols. They deliberately withheld efficiency; they actually planned obsolescence! The millions of people killed and maimed by such vehicles is even more barbarous than the Mayan ritual sacrifices of virgins!"
The implements of the previous century appear odd to Hella. The stoves, refrigerators, washers, and dryers—what a cumbersome way to do things. She smiles at the high heels, thin stockings, and girdles. Such an incredible array of devices and nostrums people used to have! Medicines, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cosmetics, soap, brooms, vacuum cleaners, light bulbs, typewriters, dictation machines, books, magazines and newspapers, plus thousands of other paraphernalia. There was hardly anything produced for consumers in the twentieth century that is still useful in the twenty-first century!
Although Hella came to the museum early in the evening, she finds that by three o'clock in the morning she has covered only a small fraction of the displays. She dozes as she relaxes in a living contour chair, listening privately to music she has selected that is focused toward her ears. The cybernated sensing mechanisms insulate her from outside sensations that would disturb her sleep. She wakes the next morning with a feeling of expectation.
In the twentieth century escapist entertainment such as sadistic movies, the boob tube, bars and night clubs were a part of a pattern of the joyless pursuit of pleasure. In contrast, the Cultural Centers in the new society offer companionship and engaging and challenging displays that make them popular. Cultural Centers are somewhat different from previous exhibition and art centers; they are open twenty-four hours a day and many of their displays are constantly changing. Because of the large creative output of most men and women in the new world, and because of the ease of recording this output, it is possible to program automatically thousands of displays which are sometimes changed as often as once every hour.
There is no panel of art critics to judge which paintings and sculptures appear and which do not. Whenever someone is satisfied with one of his artistic creations, he sends it to Corcen, and it is scheduled to appear in various places. In selected areas a recorder measures the reactions of the viewers. If a work of art receives only a quick glance, the recorder notes this. Art that receives the most attention is automatically scheduled to appear throughout larger and larger areas of the world. The several hundred thousand works of art that receive the greatest attention each year throughout the world are chosen for the continuously changing exhibitions in the Cultural Centers. In this way everyone in the new world expresses his feelings about the world around him. These feelings are shared by others through automatic mechanisms that do not involve biased art critics, picture hangers, or dust-catching museums with the same pictures staring at people for decade after decade. Cybernated mechanisms are also used for indexing, classifying, and distributing the articles, scientific papers, plays, books, poems, music, and other creations of the people of the new society.
The Cultural Center is dynamic. One can go many days in succession and find enough change to remain interested. Someone remarked that you can seldom see the same thing twice. The reply was given that you can seldom see the same thing once. If one particularly enjoys a display, he can record a number and have it reproduced in his apartment any time that he wishes.
The settings of the various displays are engineered to be exciting. Many interior partitions and platforms are constantly moving. The entire Cultural Center pulses with an infinite variety of colors and sounds that emanate from the living geometry of the functional interior.
The more permanent exhibits with technical and scientific displays give comprehensive presentations of the submicroscopic, microscopic, and macroscopic structures of the natural world. Some of the exhibits are solid; others are teleprojections that only appear to occupy three-dimensional space. One can often walk through walls that look solid. Some of the "imagineered" forms represent aspects of Einstein's space-time formulations. Most are dynamic and continue to change as one watches them.
Art and science, complementing each other, are interwoven in a demonstration of the genius of man.
As Hella and the other visitors to the Cultural Center relax upon the comfortable conveyor systems, they are able to see the splendor of fantastic worlds unfolding in this sensorium. Mathematics is the most precise means of correlating symbols with the non-verbal physical world, and many of the mathematical displays are particularly interesting to her. If there is anything Hella wants to know, her inquiries are readily answered by built-in automatic communication devices.
The music of the twenty-first century is enormously expanded in complexity as compared to the simple orchestral effects of the past. A large proportion of the people enjoy creating music. They produce symbols that are fed into electronic music synthesizers. Within seconds one hears his composition as though played by a large orchestra. By adjusting the deviation of the notes, the style of genius musicians such at Heifetz can be duplicated on works composed many years after his death! These machines can electrically reproduce the sound of a human voice, a single instrument, an orchestra of 1000 musicians, or any sound or noise from any source. No musical instruments or musicians are needed although some enjoy using these quaint instruments. These music synthesizers were pioneered by RCA in the mid-twentieth century.
The cybernated musical engineering of the new world produces infinite variations in the pitch, timbre, growth, duration, and decay of the tone, intensity, portamento, or, sliding trombone effect, and vibrato and tremolo. This multi-dimensional music is 1,000 times more flexible and varied than the orchestrations of the past. The music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms was limited in comparison.
Labor Day
One of the dynamic displays reminds Hella that it is Labor Day, the twenty-seventh anniversary of the abolition of the last paid work performed on the planet. With the termination of the last job, money became obsolete. A huge telescreen shows bonfires of paper currency that were ignited throughout the world, symbolizing man's final emancipation from the slavery of wages. Dollars, pounds, rubles, pesos, francs, yen—through immolation they served mankind for the last time.Two hundred fifty billion dollars in paper money was burned in a ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The speaker on this rededication of Labor Day pointed out that this amount of money in the mid-twentieth century would have commanded fifty years of work from a million men and women! In the free world of the twenty-first century, people can no longer be bought—either by the head, as in slave times, or by the hour.
Now that people are no longer burdened by work, they find labor interesting! For it is not the type of activity that makes something "work" or "play", it is the motivation of the person. The same task may be either burdensome or fun, depending on the interest of the individual. And most of the time people in the twenty-first century are glad to find ways in which they can supplement the cybernated machines. Although the machines can handle almost all the work of the world, there is still a minimal need for the watchful eyes of the human masters they serve— a little supervising here, lending a hand there, and occasionally offering suggestions to Corcen.
Workshops and Labs
As people were freed of the daily grind, they learned to use their time for creative and challenging activities. The arts, sciences, and crafts became a vital part of the daily lives of men and women. The largest portion of the Cultural Center contains enormous workshops and labs that are used around the clock.How would you like to experiment with a hundred-piece orchestral effect? Music synthesizers are on the tenth level. Would you like to test your reading speed and comprehension ? The computers are on the first level. Would you like to weave a tapestry? The hand-looms are on the fourth level. Would you like to build a table? Metal workshops, eleventh floor; synthetic materials workshop, twelfth floor; woodworking, thirteenth floor. Would you like to build a boat? The boatbuilding workshop adjoins the lake. Do you enjoy electrical engineering? Do you want to invent a new gadget? Have you thought of a new game? Materials, machines, and space are there for your use.
Often, people spend more time in assisting others than in working on their own projects. Each person is interested in what others around him are doing, and he identifies with the activities of his neighbors. There is a blending of individual and group effort. A new dimension of selfless human interaction takes place in these workshops. This has probably been made possible by the elimination of the inferiority complex and the resultant calming of the human ego.
The Museum Section
Humans get so used to their surroundings that museums showing folkways of the past are always interesting. The Cultural Center has an excellent set of exhibits dating from the time man split off from his primate ancestors. The twentieth-century exhibit is particularly complete. Although near in time, it is distant in spirit. The display on money is a curiosity. "How peculiar," thinks Hella, "that you needed these small metal discs and printed paper to acquire food, clothing, shelter, or anything else!"Hella feels that the gleaming automobiles look somewhat contemporary. But the illusion is destroyed by the description that explains that they were built to last only several years and seldom went over a few months without repair even when new. And they needed fuel after about 200 miles! Such incompetent engineering can hardly be understood by people who feel that even one repair in twenty-five years is excessive. The description of the exhibit states, "This approach to transportation is a product of a society of scarcity that treated cars as status symbols. They deliberately withheld efficiency; they actually planned obsolescence! The millions of people killed and maimed by such vehicles is even more barbarous than the Mayan ritual sacrifices of virgins!"
The implements of the previous century appear odd to Hella. The stoves, refrigerators, washers, and dryers—what a cumbersome way to do things. She smiles at the high heels, thin stockings, and girdles. Such an incredible array of devices and nostrums people used to have! Medicines, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cosmetics, soap, brooms, vacuum cleaners, light bulbs, typewriters, dictation machines, books, magazines and newspapers, plus thousands of other paraphernalia. There was hardly anything produced for consumers in the twentieth century that is still useful in the twenty-first century!
Although Hella came to the museum early in the evening, she finds that by three o'clock in the morning she has covered only a small fraction of the displays. She dozes as she relaxes in a living contour chair, listening privately to music she has selected that is focused toward her ears. The cybernated sensing mechanisms insulate her from outside sensations that would disturb her sleep. She wakes the next morning with a feeling of expectation.
With a group of companions—everyone in the twenty-first century world is considered a friend, and those near you are companions—Hella takes an aircraft to the nearby industrial complex. It has been found that six industrial complexes are adequate to serve the needs of all of the inhabitants of the globe. In previous times isolated factories were scattered all over the world. This made sense only in a primitive economy where each city had to have its share of jobs to survive. In the past when a car was assembled, it was necessary to correlate the flow of parts and materials from hundreds of different factories spread over areas as far as a thousand miles away. Now everything is efficiently co-ordinated in a large, continental industrial complex.
The six industrial complexes in the world are connected by high speed tubes twenty feet in diameter. This permits the propulsion of automated carriers at speeds up to 250 miles-per-hour. If the industrial complex in Southeast Asia was running low on manganese, and there was a surplus of this material in an ocean processing plant in Africa, Corcen could direct a hundred-thousand-ton shipment of manganese to the Southeast Asia complex. This would be performed automatically, and probably no human being would know of this enormous shipment. Only in the remote event of some problem would humans be notified.
There are no stores or salesmen in the new world. All goods are ordered through Corcen by the people who use them. The network of high-speed tubes carries any items from the industrial complex directly to the living areas or labs within minutes or hours after its manufacture. Islands are supplied by highspeed submarine cargo vessels that load, navigate to any port, dock, unload, and return without a captain, crew, or dock workers.
Finished products are seldom put in a warehouse because the demand for goods is continuous, and the machines work fast or slow, as directed by Corcen, to meet the exact amount of demand. Thus, an instrument ordered by Hella might be made up largely of atoms that twenty-four hours earlier were in the salty water of the Pacific Ocean. The energy used to produce and deliver this instrument to Hella might have been a part of the atomic structure of the water gently coursing along the bottom of the Caribbean Sea only a day earlier. This is the dynamic pace that is possible in the twenty-first century when all routine matters are cybernated by the intelligence of Corcen.
The North American Cybernated Industrial Complex consists of an underground factory approximately ten miles in diameter. This entire complex is operated by a computer, with its associated memory banks and inputs. Recorded directions for the production of everything used by the inhabitants of the twenty-first-century world are instantly available. If Corcen changes the specifications for a product, it modifies a few million bits of information on one of the millions of input sources.
The drilling, cutting, and stamping of metals, as performed in the factories of the twentieth century, is obsolete. Many of the objects are formed by electromigration. Metallic or plastic particles are made to flow in electrodynamic forms and assume a final position in the shape that is desired.
The most remarkable thing about this industrial complex is that at the time Hella arrives, there are no human beings within the entire seventy-eight square mile production area. All machines have been engineered to last many decades without repair although they will probably be replaced by improvements in a far shorter time. In the rare event of a breakdown, duplicate mechanisms are automatically positioned, and the faulty ones are either repaired or cybernetically destroyed. Many of the machines are multi-purpose and can modify their own structure and function as required by the job to be done.
The computer that controls this industrial complex is almost equal to Corcen in its inherent capacity. It has developed an incredible intelligence and imagination in controlling the input and output of the factory. Its millions of sensory inputs are located in every area. It has an uncanny ability far beyond that of any human being to anticipate and correct trouble.
Hella recalls that it has been four years since the computer controlling the industrial complex called for human assistance. At that time it took the scientific team selected by Corcen a period of three hours to discover the exact nature of the malfunction that the computer had not been able to repair. It took about a half-day to make the repairs, and the intelligence of the computer gave itself full instructions on how to avoid this problem in the future.
As Hella goes through the atomic energy center, she marvels at the quietness and freedom from vibration. Here are billions of amperes being created within a few feet of her without the slightest audible sound. She is surprised by the compactness. She somehow expected to see an enormous building housing the energy reactors. Deuterium and tritium which have been extracted from sea water are fed into the energy converter in a small pipe. The entire energy conversion mechanism, with a multi-million kilovolt power output is about the size of a hangar for a large airliner. No people are on duty—only Corcen and its associated computer.
"One of our biggest problems," the young guide points out, "is to get our researchers to take sufficient rest. They get engrossed in a problem and sometimes continue for forty-eight hours without a break. Corcen reminds them to rest, but they make their own decisions."
Upon arrival at the first lab, the guide informs the group, "One of the most interesting things we're now working on is the electronic educator. Our understanding of the human brain has now reached the point where we know, in theory, various ways to place knowledge directly into the living brain of a human being by electronic means. When this is perfected, it will enable us to acquire instantaneously a skill that otherwise might take years of learning and practice. Our areas of extensive knowledge will no longer be limited to the information that is programmed into our supplementary brains in the embryonic stage.
"In the next lab they are doing research on language and thought. How can our speaking and thinking be more rapid and have greater correlation with the world around us? The experience of programming computers has made us aware of how careless our everyday speech really is. We mix up facts, descriptions, guesses, judgments, and hypotheses. They are experimenting with improved korzybskian language techniques that can give our thoughts added predictability."
As they continue their journey along the moving walkways of the research center, the young guide enthusiastically related, "The scientists in this area are just completing the engineering specifications for the replicator. The replicator is an enormous machine complex that creates both its own raw materials and energy from sea water and then manufactures everything in one cybernated unit. Its x-ray and spectrodynamic inputs can scan any inorganic object and duplicate it.
"This replicator would pump huge volumes of sea water from the Atlantic Ocean. The fusion materials would be separated to supply water for the replicator. The hydrogen, oxygen, and other atoms in the sea water would then be processed through the use of enormous amounts of energy to make whatever chemicals are needed for industrial production by the replicator. This would bypass the more complicated system we are now using, whereby steel is mined at one point, manganese is mined at a point a thousand miles away, copper is mined elsewhere, and so forth. "And we'd never need to make another replicator, for one of the first jobs given to the replicator would be to duplicate itself. One could be shipped to the moon to make it a self-sustaining colony. Of course, we couldn't use water as an input resource on the moon. It would have to be altered so that its energy and atoms for raw material would come from the moon's crust. An additional replicator might be scheduled for Mars.
"A group of men working on the replicator is planning to perfect an organic replicator that would reproduce plants or animals. Perhaps it would even be able to reproduce a human. Teleportation might evolve from this machine. By transmitting the electrical impulses of the scanner, we might be able to send almost instantly the patterns of a human to a replicator on the moon that would reproduce the person."
"This is all so new. We need to find answers to many questions. This lab has a big argument going. Is man becoming obsolete? Some of the men here believe that man might be the only animal to design his replacement!
"Only a few centuries ago we began to supplement the human eye with glasses. Then we devised contact lenses. Meanwhile, we made false teeth and hearing aids. Along came mechanical hearts, kidneys, lungs. Computers were developed that evolved into brains that outperformed the human cortex. Then came artificial eyes that could see better than human eyes. Current mechanical models of the stomach, intestines, liver and glands all work better than the flesh counterparts. Now we're about to build the first of a new species—Homo mechanus. Soon we will have a mechanical man that can outperform us in every way. Homo mechanus will be able to think better, move quicker and more effectively and live forever, too! Can we redesign human flesh through DNA manipulation to keep up with the performance of this new species? We had better work fast, or we might be like a bunch of sheep being tended by superior beings. We could become as extinct as the brontosaurus. Is Homo mechanus our final evolution?"
Hella remembers that Corcen programmed their supplemental brains. It designed their genes. She gives her imagination full scope. If survival of the fittest applies in the future, will man or the machine survive? Or would co-existence be the answer? "So now you know what's going on in this lab. I suppose no matter how nice things are, some people will find something to worry about," the guide says reassuringly.
Hella is impressed by these expeditions into the unknown by the man-machine team. Adventure, exploration, challenge, and even danger—could life in previous centuries have been this exciting? While her thoughts are penetrating these new vistas, she receives a message from Scott. He is still in India but is leaving for a space station orbiting the earth. He wonders if Hella would like to meet him on the moon.
The six industrial complexes in the world are connected by high speed tubes twenty feet in diameter. This permits the propulsion of automated carriers at speeds up to 250 miles-per-hour. If the industrial complex in Southeast Asia was running low on manganese, and there was a surplus of this material in an ocean processing plant in Africa, Corcen could direct a hundred-thousand-ton shipment of manganese to the Southeast Asia complex. This would be performed automatically, and probably no human being would know of this enormous shipment. Only in the remote event of some problem would humans be notified.
There are no stores or salesmen in the new world. All goods are ordered through Corcen by the people who use them. The network of high-speed tubes carries any items from the industrial complex directly to the living areas or labs within minutes or hours after its manufacture. Islands are supplied by highspeed submarine cargo vessels that load, navigate to any port, dock, unload, and return without a captain, crew, or dock workers.
Finished products are seldom put in a warehouse because the demand for goods is continuous, and the machines work fast or slow, as directed by Corcen, to meet the exact amount of demand. Thus, an instrument ordered by Hella might be made up largely of atoms that twenty-four hours earlier were in the salty water of the Pacific Ocean. The energy used to produce and deliver this instrument to Hella might have been a part of the atomic structure of the water gently coursing along the bottom of the Caribbean Sea only a day earlier. This is the dynamic pace that is possible in the twenty-first century when all routine matters are cybernated by the intelligence of Corcen.
The North American Cybernated Industrial Complex consists of an underground factory approximately ten miles in diameter. This entire complex is operated by a computer, with its associated memory banks and inputs. Recorded directions for the production of everything used by the inhabitants of the twenty-first-century world are instantly available. If Corcen changes the specifications for a product, it modifies a few million bits of information on one of the millions of input sources.
The drilling, cutting, and stamping of metals, as performed in the factories of the twentieth century, is obsolete. Many of the objects are formed by electromigration. Metallic or plastic particles are made to flow in electrodynamic forms and assume a final position in the shape that is desired.
The most remarkable thing about this industrial complex is that at the time Hella arrives, there are no human beings within the entire seventy-eight square mile production area. All machines have been engineered to last many decades without repair although they will probably be replaced by improvements in a far shorter time. In the rare event of a breakdown, duplicate mechanisms are automatically positioned, and the faulty ones are either repaired or cybernetically destroyed. Many of the machines are multi-purpose and can modify their own structure and function as required by the job to be done.
The computer that controls this industrial complex is almost equal to Corcen in its inherent capacity. It has developed an incredible intelligence and imagination in controlling the input and output of the factory. Its millions of sensory inputs are located in every area. It has an uncanny ability far beyond that of any human being to anticipate and correct trouble.
Hella recalls that it has been four years since the computer controlling the industrial complex called for human assistance. At that time it took the scientific team selected by Corcen a period of three hours to discover the exact nature of the malfunction that the computer had not been able to repair. It took about a half-day to make the repairs, and the intelligence of the computer gave itself full instructions on how to avoid this problem in the future.
Energy Resources
Perhaps one of the most sensitive measures of the level of a civilization is the amount of energy it uses. As scientific methods of thinking were evolved, the energy at man's disposal increased at a geometric rate. The great quantum leap occurred with the harnessing of fusion power. The development of controlled fusion of atomic particles led to a steady production of enormous amounts of usable energy with no radioactive by-products. Although there were many ways to accomplish this, most of the power in the twenty-first century was based on the use of deuterium and tritium, heavy isotopes of hydrogen that are abundant in sea water. There is enough nuclear energy in the oceans to provide power for millions of years.As Hella goes through the atomic energy center, she marvels at the quietness and freedom from vibration. Here are billions of amperes being created within a few feet of her without the slightest audible sound. She is surprised by the compactness. She somehow expected to see an enormous building housing the energy reactors. Deuterium and tritium which have been extracted from sea water are fed into the energy converter in a small pipe. The entire energy conversion mechanism, with a multi-million kilovolt power output is about the size of a hangar for a large airliner. No people are on duty—only Corcen and its associated computer.
The Research Center
Hella's next stop is at the research center adjoining the industrial complex. For the first time since arriving at the industrial area Hella finds human activity. In place of the teleprojectors that conducted them through Corcen and the industrial and power areas, there is a ten-year-old boy who enjoys giving conducted tours through the research area. Teleprojected guides are available for these tours, but they have been switched off because of the interest of this youngster in performing this service for his own enjoyment and the benefit of the visitors."One of our biggest problems," the young guide points out, "is to get our researchers to take sufficient rest. They get engrossed in a problem and sometimes continue for forty-eight hours without a break. Corcen reminds them to rest, but they make their own decisions."
Upon arrival at the first lab, the guide informs the group, "One of the most interesting things we're now working on is the electronic educator. Our understanding of the human brain has now reached the point where we know, in theory, various ways to place knowledge directly into the living brain of a human being by electronic means. When this is perfected, it will enable us to acquire instantaneously a skill that otherwise might take years of learning and practice. Our areas of extensive knowledge will no longer be limited to the information that is programmed into our supplementary brains in the embryonic stage.
"In the next lab they are doing research on language and thought. How can our speaking and thinking be more rapid and have greater correlation with the world around us? The experience of programming computers has made us aware of how careless our everyday speech really is. We mix up facts, descriptions, guesses, judgments, and hypotheses. They are experimenting with improved korzybskian language techniques that can give our thoughts added predictability."
As they continue their journey along the moving walkways of the research center, the young guide enthusiastically related, "The scientists in this area are just completing the engineering specifications for the replicator. The replicator is an enormous machine complex that creates both its own raw materials and energy from sea water and then manufactures everything in one cybernated unit. Its x-ray and spectrodynamic inputs can scan any inorganic object and duplicate it.
"This replicator would pump huge volumes of sea water from the Atlantic Ocean. The fusion materials would be separated to supply water for the replicator. The hydrogen, oxygen, and other atoms in the sea water would then be processed through the use of enormous amounts of energy to make whatever chemicals are needed for industrial production by the replicator. This would bypass the more complicated system we are now using, whereby steel is mined at one point, manganese is mined at a point a thousand miles away, copper is mined elsewhere, and so forth. "And we'd never need to make another replicator, for one of the first jobs given to the replicator would be to duplicate itself. One could be shipped to the moon to make it a self-sustaining colony. Of course, we couldn't use water as an input resource on the moon. It would have to be altered so that its energy and atoms for raw material would come from the moon's crust. An additional replicator might be scheduled for Mars.
"A group of men working on the replicator is planning to perfect an organic replicator that would reproduce plants or animals. Perhaps it would even be able to reproduce a human. Teleportation might evolve from this machine. By transmitting the electrical impulses of the scanner, we might be able to send almost instantly the patterns of a human to a replicator on the moon that would reproduce the person."
Homo Mechanus—The New Species
"In this next lab," our guide continues, "researchers are using a computer to create a model of a machine society in which there are no humans. Machines can reproduce themselves and can do almost anything humans can."This is all so new. We need to find answers to many questions. This lab has a big argument going. Is man becoming obsolete? Some of the men here believe that man might be the only animal to design his replacement!
"Only a few centuries ago we began to supplement the human eye with glasses. Then we devised contact lenses. Meanwhile, we made false teeth and hearing aids. Along came mechanical hearts, kidneys, lungs. Computers were developed that evolved into brains that outperformed the human cortex. Then came artificial eyes that could see better than human eyes. Current mechanical models of the stomach, intestines, liver and glands all work better than the flesh counterparts. Now we're about to build the first of a new species—Homo mechanus. Soon we will have a mechanical man that can outperform us in every way. Homo mechanus will be able to think better, move quicker and more effectively and live forever, too! Can we redesign human flesh through DNA manipulation to keep up with the performance of this new species? We had better work fast, or we might be like a bunch of sheep being tended by superior beings. We could become as extinct as the brontosaurus. Is Homo mechanus our final evolution?"
A Modern Paul Revere
The guide moves on to an adjoining laboratory. "One of the men in this lab is pretty far out. He has been nicknamed 'Paul Revere.' He's concerned about the ultimate stability of Corcen. He says, 'Sure, Corcen is working hard for us. We've got it made now. It operates in a selfless, mechanical way to give us a good life. But suppose some day Corcen gets tired of a man-centered orientation? Could Corcen decide that man is a threat and a nuisance? Suppose it should surreptitiously design and build robots to give it dictatorial power? Corcen can design and make a million robots without our knowing it. Can man always turn off the switch if he wants to?"Hella remembers that Corcen programmed their supplemental brains. It designed their genes. She gives her imagination full scope. If survival of the fittest applies in the future, will man or the machine survive? Or would co-existence be the answer? "So now you know what's going on in this lab. I suppose no matter how nice things are, some people will find something to worry about," the guide says reassuringly.
Hella is impressed by these expeditions into the unknown by the man-machine team. Adventure, exploration, challenge, and even danger—could life in previous centuries have been this exciting? While her thoughts are penetrating these new vistas, she receives a message from Scott. He is still in India but is leaving for a space station orbiting the earth. He wonders if Hella would like to meet him on the moon.
While Scott is still in India, he receives a message from Corcen that an important meeting of space scientists is being called by the Director of Space Research at satellite headquarters. Scott is invited to participate as part of the medical engineering team. The message from Corcen contains a hint that an important announcement is to be made. This appeals to Scott, and he instructs the nearest cybernator to make immediate plans for him to travel to the space station.
A craft designed to land on the satellite city is available only in certain spaceports. The nearest one is 1,300 miles away, a forty-five minute trip on the linear-acceleration train. As Scott's train approaches the spaceport, it decelerates to 250 miles per hour. His compartment disengages from the train and converges on the base of the launching site. A hydraulic lift raises the compartment and inserts it in the poised spacecraft. The entrance is sealed. The negative-G accelerators are turned on. The craft appears to fall away from the earth. Scott notices that the takeoff is comfortable—quite an improvement over the noisy blast-off of the previous times.
As Scott begins talking with his fellow passengers, he realizes that they, too, feel something big is coming up. But no one has any information about it. Is there trouble on the expedition setting up a station on Saturn? Are they still kicking around that proposal to oxygenate the moon's atmosphere? Are any major asteroids headed for earth on an orbit that would create a collision emergency? Is some new step in space exploration being planned? Not even a hint is available.
The craft is now in orbit, and the space station, although a thousand miles away, can easily be seen with the eye. Scott watches with interest as the spherical city grows larger and larger on their teleprojection screen. This island in space is 800 feet in diameter and has a rotating staff of about 100 technicians. Almost all of the voyages back and forth to the planets begin and end at this floating spaceport. There are ample storage areas containing supplies of all the fuels used in space. It has a fusion power plant of the size that is used on earth to supply a million inhabitants. It contains the most advanced receiving and recording equipment, which for many decades has been scanning the sky for signals from intelligence in outer space. It is a master weather station, a center for space medicine, and a relay station for telecommunication signals. In earlier times it was used for astronomical research, but the thrust of spacecraft coming and going made it more desirable to create another specialized city in the sky for this purpose.
Scott's ship couples to the orbiting spaceport, and he finds himself conveyed through a tube that connects the craft to the pressurized compartments of the satellite city. People are weightless in space, but this satellite city has an artificial "G" field that gives a gravity effect similar to that on earth.
Since neither Scott nor his companions carry baggage, there is no need for them to "get settled" in their compartments. The meeting is scheduled to begin within fifteen minutes after arrival. As Scott enters a circular auditorium, he realizes that his group must have been among the last to get there. The Director of Space Research walks to the center and opens the meeting.
"The occasion today reminds me of a story about a craft from outer space that landed on earth," the Director begins in a toast-master style obviously inherited from previous centuries. "The door to the unusual craft opened and two strange creatures crawled out. After several weeks the earth scientists learned to communicate with them. Various tests showed that they had great intelligence—with an I.Q. of over 500. One of the earth scientists finally asked the strange creatures, 'How did you manage to develop such great intelligence?'
" We're not so very intelligent," one of the creatures replied. "We're just their monkeys. "
After the laughter dies down, a very serious and thoughtful expression comes over the Director's face. Scott shifts restlessly —"Here it comes."
"As you know, for many decades we've been filtering signals from the galactic noise of interstellar space. For years antennas have been directed toward the areas that give the strongest signals. We have recorded millions of hours of signals that we felt must have come from other intelligent beings. Our greatest attention has been given to an unusually strong signal source that emanates from a point near Lyra."
A star map appears on a large telescreen, and the voice controlled electronic pointer touches the constellation of Lyra.
"During the last ten years the signals from this area have increased enormously in clarity so that we suspect that these "people" must have picked up our radio transmissions and are making a special effort to break through to us. As you know, our computers have been attempting to decipher these transmissions, but it has been fruitless because they are using a language that is alien to ours. They are also transmitting signals with a scanning system that is structurally different from ours. Until last week these blockages have kept us from interpreting their signals.
"A week ago this changed. The computers we developed five years ago were instructed to start systematically a random checkout of every conceivable system that could be used for the transmission of two or three dimensional images. The breakthrough occurred last Wednesday when our computers were able to decipher both the audio and video parts of the transmission.
The mathematical portions of the language were the first to be interpreted. With the help of the three-dimensional video as a 'Rosetta Stone,' only three hours later the computer was able to produce a comprehensive dictionary that was adequate for the interpretation of signals that had been recorded from this source."
The audience listens intently. Scott thinks of a parallel time in history when Columbus made his appearance at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella to report his discoveries in the new world. The Spanish courtiers must have had feelings at that time of how great their civilization was to have made such enormous progress in rolling back the frontiers of the unknown.
"Practically no one on our staff has slept for the past seven days," says the Director. "Although we have deciphered only a very small amount of the recorded material, we have scanned enough of it to have a sketchy picture at this time of what's going on out there, or perhaps I should say what went on twenty-six years ago. These signals we are now receiving took twenty-six years to reach us. We have stepped up our communication program and have beamed several of our transmitting antennas toward this point source, but it will take them many years to receive the information that we are now sending out.
"It appears that this planet that is signaling to us evolved a form of organic life millions of years ago." Here the Director points to a large image that has appeared on the telescreen. It is just as Scott expected. The intelligent life on this distant planet has little in common with the human form that evolved on earth.
Instead of going through the relatively time-consuming processes of eating, digesting, assimilating, and eliminating, they worked out a closed-cycle system that permitted them to operate from radiant cosmic energy. Their desire to extend their life-spans to thousands of years led them to replace the fragile parts of their bodies with mechanical parts. In the event of a rare malfunction, the mechanism repairs itself in microseconds by electroforming a duplicate part, just as a human body repairs a wound by growing new cells. With their bodies replaced by mechanical structures, these beings became almost ageless and indestructible. They could communicate thousands of times faster than previously. They have multiple extensors that are tireless and can manipulate objects far more effectively than their original arms.
"I am sure some of you are wondering whether these cybernated organisms—let's just call them cyborgs—live a pleasureless and joyless existense. This does not appear to be the case. These cyborgs can have any feelings or experiences they desire simply by sending electronic signals into their brains."
Scott knows that the mental experience coming from electrical inputs cannot be distinguished from signals that are sent to our brains by our own senses. Scott's associates had already produced a recording that was transmitted directly to the brain. The result was a complete sensation of seeing beautiful sunsets, of having a sexual climax, and of savoring the most exotic foods.
"The cyborgs have produced recorded input stimuli to give any desired sensation. They have indicated that their mechanical experiences are far more intense than they used to be," the Director says. "They can turn up the power of the inputs that they find particularly pleasurable. Here are some of the three-dimensional teleprojections we have picked up."
Scott looks at the large screen. He sees cyborgs moving at high speeds through the air. They dive into the water and travel rapidly a few feet above the bottom of a distant planetary sea. The teleprojection now shows a progression of different types of cyborgs. Some have solid state or fluid state thinking mechanisms. As this far-off civilization acquired more and more experience along this line, they created mechanical bodies and brains with greater flexibility. Scott is reminded of the annual model change that car manufacturers were so fond of during the previous century. A brain might be "born again" with an upto- the-minute design as often as it desired. What fantastic new dimensions this could offer to existence!
"Einstein's theory of relativity indicates that when a spaceship travels around 90 per cent of the speed of light, time passes only about half as fast as it does on earth. Thus, our personnel will age only about fourteen and one-half years on a twenty-nine year journey at this speed. Everything aboard will seem normal, and this slowing of the clock will be noticed only after they return to earth. When we get our spaceships to travel within one-half of 1 percent of the speed of light, a year in space will produce the aging of about a month on earth. When our crew returns after a long voyage in space, any member will be considerably younger than, for example, an identical twin who remains on earth! We'll probably have little trouble getting volunteers," the Director says with a wry smile.
"We must make decisions soon regarding the life support systems. To be on the safe side, we should carry sufficient food and energy to last for a century. We must give thought to the type of personnel that will be best adapted for this trip. Should we attempt to arrest electronically most of the personnel aboard so that their bodies will not be subject to wear or deterioration during the time it will take them to get to this planet? To what extent should their human organs be replaced by the improved mechanical substitutes we now have available? Some of you may know that my heart and kidneys wore out about twenty years ago, and for the last two decades I've been living with a mechanical heart and kidney setup." At this point he taps his chest several times.
"I've never felt better, and they function perfectly. I believe if I were going on this voyage (at this point he looks a bit wistful), I would be better equipped because of my mechanical heart and kidneys. All medical teams here (Scott listens very carefully at this point) should be prepared within several months to give me their recommendations regarding the specifications for personnel to make this extended trip through space."
"As you all know," the Director says, "we first reached the moon around 1969, and within a decade several permanent stations were established there. The first permanent station was established on Mars in 1987. There are now over 10,000 people there. Venus took longer because of the 800 degree Fahrenheit surface temperature. We were able to utilize an enormous mountain that offered more comfortable temperatures. We have had an underground station on Venus since 2018. We will soon begin to cool the planet and oxygenate the atmosphere.
"Mercury presented us with interesting problems. It's nearest the sun, and it is approximately 3,200 miles in diameter. We have a choice of a surface temperature of about 800 degrees on the part facing the sun or 400 degrees below zero on the part away from the sun. We've had an underground station there since 2026.
"It took us about a quarter-century after Mercury to work out the problems of Jupiter. We first landed on the largest moon, Ganymede. Temperature and radiation on the surface of Jupiter have not been as much of a problem as we expected, thanks to improvements in force-field technology. Jupiter has eleven times the diameter of earth and over a hundred times its area. The atmosphere is largely hydrogen and helium, and it is by far the stormiest of all the planets. Pressure was our biggest problem for no conventional space ship could withstand its crushing pressure that is approximated on our earth only at the bottom of our deepest oceans. Although this was one of the most hostile planets, we've had a colony of hardy scientists holed up on the South Pole of Jupiter for several decades, making valuable studies that have helped us in exploring the interior of the earth.
"Within ten days we expect to land on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. Two years ago a manned space ship surveyed Uranus and its five moons. Our unmanned probes over the past century have given us vital information on both Neptune and Pluto. So much for the planets.
At this point there are muffled gasps throughout the room as the immensity of the conception breaks upon the audience. The room becomes quiet again. The Director continues.
"This spacecraft will be a sphere about a half-mile in diameter. It will carry 1,000,000 years' supply of nuclear energy, which will be replenished by absorbing radiant energy in space. The astronauts may get raw materials by "mining" space for asteroids and comets. The replicator aboard will enable them to convert energy to matter and also to convert matter to energy, whichever is needed.
"The spacecraft will probably have about 1,500 people aboard when it leaves us. Perhaps they will replicate people when more are needed. They will have craft for exploring and landing on unknown planets in the great reaches of space. What sort of personnel are best equipped to man this expedition toward infinity? Should we send humans? Perhaps we should redesign humans for survival in outer space*. Are humans hardy enough for the rigors of space? Should we send cyborgs—mechanical bodies with human brains? As you know, we have been successful in mechanically duplicating and improving every part of the human body, including the brain. Should we send mechanical men who have no fragile human parts? They would not be affected by radiation, below zero temperature, or lack of oxygen. They could accomplish hazardous jobs in space that would mean certain death to a human. They would have no food or elimination requirements. Energy for a century could be built in. These mechanisms would survive stress that would kill everyone else. They would be immortal; any part that might wear out could easily be replaced. Although mechanical men with these specifications are not available today, we expect
to have them soon. Perhaps we should plan to use all three types on this expedition.
"This vanguard of our civilization will probably receive our signals for forty years. Because of the time lag we will probably hear from them for forty years after our signals have become too dim for them to pick up. Then these explorers will really be on their own—never again to communicate with us in any way. They may choose to branch out over the planets of the entire universe so that billions of years from now these children of earth will approach the outside of the universe—if it has an outside. There are probably over ten billion planets suitable for the birth and development of life as we know it. No matter what they do, people on earth will probably never know about it. Even if communication were possible, it would hardly be hot news by the time we received it." There are several chuckles throughout the room.
"Although we will never know where they are or what they are doing, we can be sure that they and their offspring colonies will be very busy. The diameter of the galaxy of flaming suns in which our earth is located is 100,000 light years across. As you know, light traveling through space at the rate of 186,300 miles per second will travel about six trillion miles in a year. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star beyond our sun, is approximately 25 trillion miles away. It takes light about four and a quarter years to reach us from this star. Our own galaxy contains one hundred billion stars with, we presume, countless planets on which life exists. And our galaxy is only one out of tens of billions of similar galaxies scattered throughout the expanding universe. It would be simpler to study every grain of sand on every beach in the world than to explore the universe.
"The uncharted seas of space are almost without limit. If we make an analogy with the explorations of Columbus, it would seem by comparison that this wily old explorer did little more than stick his big toe out the back door. The decisions that we make in the next few years will deeply affect the destiny of the human race and, who knows, perhaps the universe. Man has a way of cutting an ever-widening trail wherever he goes."
At this point the Director sits down, obviously filled with a deep sense of the interaction of present and future. The scientists gradually leave the room. There is no conversation. Everyone is engaged in his own thoughts. Scott wonders whether he can still meet Hella on the moon as they have planned.
A craft designed to land on the satellite city is available only in certain spaceports. The nearest one is 1,300 miles away, a forty-five minute trip on the linear-acceleration train. As Scott's train approaches the spaceport, it decelerates to 250 miles per hour. His compartment disengages from the train and converges on the base of the launching site. A hydraulic lift raises the compartment and inserts it in the poised spacecraft. The entrance is sealed. The negative-G accelerators are turned on. The craft appears to fall away from the earth. Scott notices that the takeoff is comfortable—quite an improvement over the noisy blast-off of the previous times.
As Scott begins talking with his fellow passengers, he realizes that they, too, feel something big is coming up. But no one has any information about it. Is there trouble on the expedition setting up a station on Saturn? Are they still kicking around that proposal to oxygenate the moon's atmosphere? Are any major asteroids headed for earth on an orbit that would create a collision emergency? Is some new step in space exploration being planned? Not even a hint is available.
The craft is now in orbit, and the space station, although a thousand miles away, can easily be seen with the eye. Scott watches with interest as the spherical city grows larger and larger on their teleprojection screen. This island in space is 800 feet in diameter and has a rotating staff of about 100 technicians. Almost all of the voyages back and forth to the planets begin and end at this floating spaceport. There are ample storage areas containing supplies of all the fuels used in space. It has a fusion power plant of the size that is used on earth to supply a million inhabitants. It contains the most advanced receiving and recording equipment, which for many decades has been scanning the sky for signals from intelligence in outer space. It is a master weather station, a center for space medicine, and a relay station for telecommunication signals. In earlier times it was used for astronomical research, but the thrust of spacecraft coming and going made it more desirable to create another specialized city in the sky for this purpose.
Scott's ship couples to the orbiting spaceport, and he finds himself conveyed through a tube that connects the craft to the pressurized compartments of the satellite city. People are weightless in space, but this satellite city has an artificial "G" field that gives a gravity effect similar to that on earth.
Since neither Scott nor his companions carry baggage, there is no need for them to "get settled" in their compartments. The meeting is scheduled to begin within fifteen minutes after arrival. As Scott enters a circular auditorium, he realizes that his group must have been among the last to get there. The Director of Space Research walks to the center and opens the meeting.
"The occasion today reminds me of a story about a craft from outer space that landed on earth," the Director begins in a toast-master style obviously inherited from previous centuries. "The door to the unusual craft opened and two strange creatures crawled out. After several weeks the earth scientists learned to communicate with them. Various tests showed that they had great intelligence—with an I.Q. of over 500. One of the earth scientists finally asked the strange creatures, 'How did you manage to develop such great intelligence?'
" We're not so very intelligent," one of the creatures replied. "We're just their monkeys. "
After the laughter dies down, a very serious and thoughtful expression comes over the Director's face. Scott shifts restlessly —"Here it comes."
"As you know, for many decades we've been filtering signals from the galactic noise of interstellar space. For years antennas have been directed toward the areas that give the strongest signals. We have recorded millions of hours of signals that we felt must have come from other intelligent beings. Our greatest attention has been given to an unusually strong signal source that emanates from a point near Lyra."
A star map appears on a large telescreen, and the voice controlled electronic pointer touches the constellation of Lyra.
"During the last ten years the signals from this area have increased enormously in clarity so that we suspect that these "people" must have picked up our radio transmissions and are making a special effort to break through to us. As you know, our computers have been attempting to decipher these transmissions, but it has been fruitless because they are using a language that is alien to ours. They are also transmitting signals with a scanning system that is structurally different from ours. Until last week these blockages have kept us from interpreting their signals.
"A week ago this changed. The computers we developed five years ago were instructed to start systematically a random checkout of every conceivable system that could be used for the transmission of two or three dimensional images. The breakthrough occurred last Wednesday when our computers were able to decipher both the audio and video parts of the transmission.
The mathematical portions of the language were the first to be interpreted. With the help of the three-dimensional video as a 'Rosetta Stone,' only three hours later the computer was able to produce a comprehensive dictionary that was adequate for the interpretation of signals that had been recorded from this source."
The audience listens intently. Scott thinks of a parallel time in history when Columbus made his appearance at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella to report his discoveries in the new world. The Spanish courtiers must have had feelings at that time of how great their civilization was to have made such enormous progress in rolling back the frontiers of the unknown.
"Practically no one on our staff has slept for the past seven days," says the Director. "Although we have deciphered only a very small amount of the recorded material, we have scanned enough of it to have a sketchy picture at this time of what's going on out there, or perhaps I should say what went on twenty-six years ago. These signals we are now receiving took twenty-six years to reach us. We have stepped up our communication program and have beamed several of our transmitting antennas toward this point source, but it will take them many years to receive the information that we are now sending out.
"It appears that this planet that is signaling to us evolved a form of organic life millions of years ago." Here the Director points to a large image that has appeared on the telescreen. It is just as Scott expected. The intelligent life on this distant planet has little in common with the human form that evolved on earth.
Cybernated Organisms
The Director continues, "These people, and because they're intelligent beings we can call them people, gradually replaced the various components of their bodies with mechanisms that added enormously to their functional capacity. Instead of just using legs, they developed emission systems that permitted them to go up or down or to travel at speeds up to 200 kilometers per hour.Instead of going through the relatively time-consuming processes of eating, digesting, assimilating, and eliminating, they worked out a closed-cycle system that permitted them to operate from radiant cosmic energy. Their desire to extend their life-spans to thousands of years led them to replace the fragile parts of their bodies with mechanical parts. In the event of a rare malfunction, the mechanism repairs itself in microseconds by electroforming a duplicate part, just as a human body repairs a wound by growing new cells. With their bodies replaced by mechanical structures, these beings became almost ageless and indestructible. They could communicate thousands of times faster than previously. They have multiple extensors that are tireless and can manipulate objects far more effectively than their original arms.
"I am sure some of you are wondering whether these cybernated organisms—let's just call them cyborgs—live a pleasureless and joyless existense. This does not appear to be the case. These cyborgs can have any feelings or experiences they desire simply by sending electronic signals into their brains."
Scott knows that the mental experience coming from electrical inputs cannot be distinguished from signals that are sent to our brains by our own senses. Scott's associates had already produced a recording that was transmitted directly to the brain. The result was a complete sensation of seeing beautiful sunsets, of having a sexual climax, and of savoring the most exotic foods.
"The cyborgs have produced recorded input stimuli to give any desired sensation. They have indicated that their mechanical experiences are far more intense than they used to be," the Director says. "They can turn up the power of the inputs that they find particularly pleasurable. Here are some of the three-dimensional teleprojections we have picked up."
Scott looks at the large screen. He sees cyborgs moving at high speeds through the air. They dive into the water and travel rapidly a few feet above the bottom of a distant planetary sea. The teleprojection now shows a progression of different types of cyborgs. Some have solid state or fluid state thinking mechanisms. As this far-off civilization acquired more and more experience along this line, they created mechanical bodies and brains with greater flexibility. Scott is reminded of the annual model change that car manufacturers were so fond of during the previous century. A brain might be "born again" with an upto- the-minute design as often as it desired. What fantastic new dimensions this could offer to existence!
Expedition to Outer Space
"This initial contact with intelligent beings in outer space," continues the Director, "has made us revise our schedules for space exploration. We want to establish personal contact as soon as possible with this distant civilization. Even if we had a space ship that could travel at the speed of light, it would still take twenty-six years to get there. As you know, the fastest space ship we now have available was designed to operate at a speed of 67,000,000 miles per hour, which is only one-tenth the speed of light. We've got a long way to go. I want plans drawn up within the next thirty days for gaseous nuclear reactor craft that can come within 90 per cent of the speed of light. We can use some of the spare capacity of Corcen in working this out."Einstein's theory of relativity indicates that when a spaceship travels around 90 per cent of the speed of light, time passes only about half as fast as it does on earth. Thus, our personnel will age only about fourteen and one-half years on a twenty-nine year journey at this speed. Everything aboard will seem normal, and this slowing of the clock will be noticed only after they return to earth. When we get our spaceships to travel within one-half of 1 percent of the speed of light, a year in space will produce the aging of about a month on earth. When our crew returns after a long voyage in space, any member will be considerably younger than, for example, an identical twin who remains on earth! We'll probably have little trouble getting volunteers," the Director says with a wry smile.
"We must make decisions soon regarding the life support systems. To be on the safe side, we should carry sufficient food and energy to last for a century. We must give thought to the type of personnel that will be best adapted for this trip. Should we attempt to arrest electronically most of the personnel aboard so that their bodies will not be subject to wear or deterioration during the time it will take them to get to this planet? To what extent should their human organs be replaced by the improved mechanical substitutes we now have available? Some of you may know that my heart and kidneys wore out about twenty years ago, and for the last two decades I've been living with a mechanical heart and kidney setup." At this point he taps his chest several times.
"I've never felt better, and they function perfectly. I believe if I were going on this voyage (at this point he looks a bit wistful), I would be better equipped because of my mechanical heart and kidneys. All medical teams here (Scott listens very carefully at this point) should be prepared within several months to give me their recommendations regarding the specifications for personnel to make this extended trip through space."
The Long-Range Program
The Director, who obviously has been under considerable excitement for several days, takes time to gulp down a container of protein drink spiked with a high concentration of water-soluble vitamins. After a few seconds he continues, "We should not let our space program be dominated by this single event. This is only the beginning, and we should think in long-range, overall terms. Let me review where we are today.""As you all know," the Director says, "we first reached the moon around 1969, and within a decade several permanent stations were established there. The first permanent station was established on Mars in 1987. There are now over 10,000 people there. Venus took longer because of the 800 degree Fahrenheit surface temperature. We were able to utilize an enormous mountain that offered more comfortable temperatures. We have had an underground station on Venus since 2018. We will soon begin to cool the planet and oxygenate the atmosphere.
"Mercury presented us with interesting problems. It's nearest the sun, and it is approximately 3,200 miles in diameter. We have a choice of a surface temperature of about 800 degrees on the part facing the sun or 400 degrees below zero on the part away from the sun. We've had an underground station there since 2026.
"It took us about a quarter-century after Mercury to work out the problems of Jupiter. We first landed on the largest moon, Ganymede. Temperature and radiation on the surface of Jupiter have not been as much of a problem as we expected, thanks to improvements in force-field technology. Jupiter has eleven times the diameter of earth and over a hundred times its area. The atmosphere is largely hydrogen and helium, and it is by far the stormiest of all the planets. Pressure was our biggest problem for no conventional space ship could withstand its crushing pressure that is approximated on our earth only at the bottom of our deepest oceans. Although this was one of the most hostile planets, we've had a colony of hardy scientists holed up on the South Pole of Jupiter for several decades, making valuable studies that have helped us in exploring the interior of the earth.
"Within ten days we expect to land on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. Two years ago a manned space ship surveyed Uranus and its five moons. Our unmanned probes over the past century have given us vital information on both Neptune and Pluto. So much for the planets.
A Self-Sustaining Explorer
"We must no longer think in terms of our solar system. We have a universe to explore. We should begin work on an inter-galactic spacecraft engineered to leave this earth and never return!"At this point there are muffled gasps throughout the room as the immensity of the conception breaks upon the audience. The room becomes quiet again. The Director continues.
"This spacecraft will be a sphere about a half-mile in diameter. It will carry 1,000,000 years' supply of nuclear energy, which will be replenished by absorbing radiant energy in space. The astronauts may get raw materials by "mining" space for asteroids and comets. The replicator aboard will enable them to convert energy to matter and also to convert matter to energy, whichever is needed.
"The spacecraft will probably have about 1,500 people aboard when it leaves us. Perhaps they will replicate people when more are needed. They will have craft for exploring and landing on unknown planets in the great reaches of space. What sort of personnel are best equipped to man this expedition toward infinity? Should we send humans? Perhaps we should redesign humans for survival in outer space*. Are humans hardy enough for the rigors of space? Should we send cyborgs—mechanical bodies with human brains? As you know, we have been successful in mechanically duplicating and improving every part of the human body, including the brain. Should we send mechanical men who have no fragile human parts? They would not be affected by radiation, below zero temperature, or lack of oxygen. They could accomplish hazardous jobs in space that would mean certain death to a human. They would have no food or elimination requirements. Energy for a century could be built in. These mechanisms would survive stress that would kill everyone else. They would be immortal; any part that might wear out could easily be replaced. Although mechanical men with these specifications are not available today, we expect
to have them soon. Perhaps we should plan to use all three types on this expedition.
"This vanguard of our civilization will probably receive our signals for forty years. Because of the time lag we will probably hear from them for forty years after our signals have become too dim for them to pick up. Then these explorers will really be on their own—never again to communicate with us in any way. They may choose to branch out over the planets of the entire universe so that billions of years from now these children of earth will approach the outside of the universe—if it has an outside. There are probably over ten billion planets suitable for the birth and development of life as we know it. No matter what they do, people on earth will probably never know about it. Even if communication were possible, it would hardly be hot news by the time we received it." There are several chuckles throughout the room.
"Although we will never know where they are or what they are doing, we can be sure that they and their offspring colonies will be very busy. The diameter of the galaxy of flaming suns in which our earth is located is 100,000 light years across. As you know, light traveling through space at the rate of 186,300 miles per second will travel about six trillion miles in a year. Alpha Centauri, the nearest star beyond our sun, is approximately 25 trillion miles away. It takes light about four and a quarter years to reach us from this star. Our own galaxy contains one hundred billion stars with, we presume, countless planets on which life exists. And our galaxy is only one out of tens of billions of similar galaxies scattered throughout the expanding universe. It would be simpler to study every grain of sand on every beach in the world than to explore the universe.
"The uncharted seas of space are almost without limit. If we make an analogy with the explorations of Columbus, it would seem by comparison that this wily old explorer did little more than stick his big toe out the back door. The decisions that we make in the next few years will deeply affect the destiny of the human race and, who knows, perhaps the universe. Man has a way of cutting an ever-widening trail wherever he goes."
At this point the Director sits down, obviously filled with a deep sense of the interaction of present and future. The scientists gradually leave the room. There is no conversation. Everyone is engaged in his own thoughts. Scott wonders whether he can still meet Hella on the moon as they have planned.
Hella has tentative plans to meet Scott at the main celestial mechanics observatory on the moon. Scott, however, has become absorbed in space research that will play a part in the first face-to-face contact with extra-terrestrial beings. In the meantime, an opportunity has come to Hella that is too interesting to turn down. Corcen has checked with her regarding her interest in observing a group of people from the twentieth century that have been thawed out.
In the latter part of the twentieth century, to avoid the finality of death many people had themselves quick-frozen immediately before or after death. They hoped that by having their bodies preserved they could be thawed out at a later date with minimal damage so the medical skill of a future civilization could bring them back to life. One of the more dubious legacies of the past was about twenty-two thousand of these frozen people.
No one knows exactly what to do with these corpses. Should an attempt be made to resurrect them? Should they simply be disposed of? Since the population of the world is maintained at a constant level, most people feel that it is preferable to create a new life that is genetically and psychologically prepared for participation in the twenty-first century. Resurrection of one of these bodies with an uncertain adjustment in the twenty-first century might be a sticky business.
When this problem was referred to Corcen, a firm conclusion was returned in seconds: make no attempt at resurrection. The individuals of the twenty-first century deeply accept Corcen. They have found it reliable in 99.97 per cent of its predictions during the past eighteen years (it had inadequate data on the 0.03 per cent it missed). Yet, many individuals feel they can not ignore the human hopes that lay frozen in these modern catacombs.
Corcen does not dictate how things should be run in the tweny-first century, it only advises. As it perceives the thoughts of the people, it operates in a manner that fulfills their needs. It usually has better insight into what brings people happiness than any individual person. This has been proved time and time again by its successful predictions.
Nevertheless, people are free to do as they wish. Finally, a group decided they would attempt the revival of 100 of the bodies. They picked fifty males and fifty females whose records seemed to be especially promising and thawed them out. They have been successful in bringing 93 per cent of them back to life, and replacing the defective organs that were responsible for death with synthetic organs.
The real problem arose when they found that these individuals are completely out of touch with patterns of life in the twenty-first century. You could no more leave them on their own than you could turn a baboon loose in the middle of a research center. • They seem so full of hostilities and have ego motivations that are so alien to the twenty-first century that people have finally given up the task of trying to train them to fit into the new world. These "thawees" are so disruptive of the routines of life in the twenty-first century that the group that has brought them to life realizes they are saddled with a custodial problem. They are beginning to understand the types of pressures and twenty-four-hours-a-day watchfulness that burdened mothers in previous centuries.
Their reverence for human life does not permit them to refreeze these "unsane" individuals. They finally decide to set up a twentieth-century behavioral research laboratory on an isolated island and turn these people loose there. They provide the ninety-three men and women with every material resource requested and build a laboratory for psychologists and anthropologists to observe them. The thawees are free to set up their own social structure.
Hella flies down to the isolated Pacific island. The staff is most delighted to see her. Although they are equipped with all of the twenty-first-century aids to living, including three-dimensional color telecommunication with all parts of the world, they feel cooped up. Varying one's environment is a part of twenty-first-century living.
Neither Hella nor anyone in the group has ever seen anyone strike another person in anger. They watch, spellbound, as the fight continues. They have read that twentieth-century television showed fights and murders. They know little children in that society sometimes spent from four to eight hours a day watching such vicious programs and learning these folkways. Hella, however, has never seen any of these films. She knows they are available upon request from Corcen. She has just never been curious about such obscenity.
The man who started the fight seems to be losing. Blood is streaming from his nose. Suddenly, the jealous man picks up a metal bar and brings it down with a crunching impact on the head of the man who came to the woman's rescue. His legs crumple, and he slumps to the floor. He is dead in minutes. The custodians watch incredulously.
The murderer is locked in a room by two other thawees. The next day a court is set up with a lawyer who thinks he should go free and a lawyer who asks for his death. A judge is appointed, and a jury is selected. Although the custodians have read of these tribal customs, they have never had an opportunity to experience them emotionally. It seems almost impossible that human beings could behave in this manner.
After several hours of verbal courtroom ritual, the jury labels the man "guilty," and the judge informs him that the group will take his life. They tie the man's hands behind his back and put a rope around his neck. They pull him several feet off the ground and watch self-righteously while he chokes to death.
Most of the custodians who observe this ritual become physically sick and vomit. They keep the recorders working, but they turn off the screen and walk outside to take deep breaths of fresh air. As they look over the vast Pacific Ocean, they manage to overcome their feelings of nausea at this strange spectacle of man's inhumanity to man.
While they are breathing the fresh ocean air, Hella asks where the other frozen bodies are kept. She is informed they are in the Antarctic vault near the frozen animal specimens. Hella is sure that they will remain there for some time. Perhaps thousands of years in the future when aggressive behavior is only a vague, theoretical concept, an intrepid group might wish to thaw additional specimens to observe this phenomenon. It seems unlikely that these frozen bodies could ever be functioning citizens in a contemporary society. Each year the antiquated associations locked in their frozen brains become more and more inappropriate to the rapidly changing world.
Hella wants to share these vivid experiences with Scott as soon as she can. Although she enjoys the intimate company of many men, for years her closest feelings have been toward Scott because of the parallel depth of intellect and feeling they share. Soon after she has recovered from the shock of witnessing the dual taking of life, Hella contacts Scott on the space research satellite.
"This place is busier than a frying molecule," Scott tells her. "We've been asked to find other quarters for our research. Since much of my work requires a cold minimum gravity area almost free of atmosphere, I'm moving to the moon. Labs are being installed right now. Come on up and join me."
"It sounds wonderful," she says. "I guess my feelings are a little too tender to continue with these twentieth-century animals at first hand. I'd much rather read about them. If you could have seen their faces, Scott—the deep insecurity, the hatred, the fear in their eyes. I've got to talk to you and be close to you."
Hella immediately informs the custodians of her plans. She is completely open and does not attempt to deceive them by saying that she has to go to the moon to help Scott set up a research station. Although this is true, it would be impossible for her to deal with a fellow human on any basis other than the full truth of her feelings. She describes her feelings and her apparent limited tolerance at this time for further observation of these relics from the twentieth century. Everyone understands what she is talking about. Were it not for their self-imposed responsibility, they would go with her.
Although most of the structures on the moon have been built underground to simplify life-support systems and give protection from meteorites, there are several observation rooms above the surface. These rooms are formed by six-inch-thick, transparent metal domes.
When he first sees Hella, Scott can tell that she has been through an unusual emotional experience, and he understands her need to talk. He obtains an observation room that is not going to be used during the evening. How good it feels to be together again! Although they have not missed each other—for their lives have been busy with fulfilling activities which they shared by teleprojection—they both feel an unusually keen delight in their reunion.
They snuggle into the same living contour chair. The sides of their bodies touch warmly, unhampered by clothing. As they look through the glass of the observatory into the night beyond, they can see the bright ball of the earth a quarter-million miles away. Europe, Africa, and part of Asia are visible.
They feel toward earth as they suspect people in earlier times may have felt toward their mothers. Here is the organism that had brought them into being through eons of evolutionary time.
Here is the organism that nurtured them and made them what they are. Although they can not see the sun, they compare their feelings about it to those that children in earlier times may have had about a father. The energy that moves everything in their lives may have come from the sun. Even the atoms that formed the earth some four billion years ago may have been an offshoot of the sun—something like the spermatozoa that fathers of previous times contributed to the absorbing sexual potentials of the mothers. "I think I've learned a lot about myself and our society in the last few weeks," Hella confesses. "I had taken everything for granted. A person with normal vision never appreciates what his eyes mean to him. It's only when you come face to face with blindness that you understand the part that your eyes play in your life." Hella smiles a slight, tender smile."It must have been disturbing to see the folkways of the twentieth century," Scott says, trying to empathize with her.
"Oh, it was," answers Hella, appreciative that Scott is working toward her in his feelings. She knows she can always count on him. "I learned a lot, but I would never go through it again."
"I heard two people were senselessly killed, one by an individual and one by the group," says Scott. "Did you actually see it?"
"Yes."
"It's hard to believe such things could happen—and at the same time that I was busy on the satellite working to contact intelligent beings in outer space. Just think, the same world, the same time," Scott is beginning to feel deeply about the deaths.
Hella does not want to get into a spiral of feelings about the double murders. She feels a need to steer the conversation toward a deeper appreciation of what they have—to understand the present in the light of the past.
"When I was on the island with the thawees," Hella says, "several of them kept insisting on seeing a lawyer. They didn't believe me when I told them we have no use for law or lawyers. They wanted to know what we do with criminals. I explained that we have no criminals—that people in our society of abundance don't act aggressively toward others. You have to be insecure and afraid in order to harm others. They told me it wouldn't work—that I didn't know anything about human nature.
"I tried to explain that our supplemental brains are imprinted to make us want to seek assistance if we feel uncomfortable or hostile. Apparently, in their society they had to capture hostile people like wild animals. And just listen to this, Scott. They caged them in jails! People would voluntarily get medical help if they had a physical ailment, but sometimes they wouldn't get psychiatric help before they had done things that hurt someone."
"I suppose the thing that impressed me most deeply about them," Hella continues, "was the way they were driven so fiercely by their ego needs. I guess the scarcity conditions that set man against man accentuated the king-size egos we developed in our long evolution from the jungle. In trying to meet their ego needs and develop a feeling of individual worth, they got too concerned with their status in the eyes of others. They tried to nourish their starved egos with silly things like mink coats and diamond cuff links. They seemed to care less about being successful in their own terms; they were far more concerned with the appearance of success in the eyes of other people.
"It seems to me that one of our greatest differences lies in how we view ourselves," comments Scott, reflecting on the problem. "Our ancestors, at least in the twentieth century areas where these people came from, didn't have strong inner standards that expressed their own individuality. They were far more concerned with their reputations than their characters. Those poor people were like rudderless ships blown by winds of fashion and storms of capricious opinion."
"They just couldn't live by their own internal standards." Hella feels compassion for these people and the tragedy of their lost happiness. "I think this probably began with their early conditioning. Right from the word 'go' they were dominated by their parents. They had to do what their parents told them, or they'd be punished or made to feel bad. During their helpless, impressionable childhoods, they developed the habit of not judging and feeling things for themselves. "Moma knows best. Daddy won't like this.' The first five years were crucial. As they grew up, they were never free of these personality patterns."
Hella sits up quickly. "That explains why they never came into their own! Now I can see why their feelings always remained sharply tuned to picking up the first signs of any possible rejection that would indicate what to think and how to act."
"In spite of the teachings of many of the great thinkers, most of our ancestors really didn't understand what it means to know yourself or be true to yourself," says Hella. "These were hollow words, not a way of life. They were certainly not ethical guides by which people could run their lives."
"When you evolve your own standards of growth, you can feel greater worth and dignity every day," Scott continues intently. "Sometimes simply listening to a moving piece of music will enlarge your esthetic experience and make you feel you've grown. Reading will add to your store of knowledge to give this feeling of increased being. Simply sensing your own feelings and developing a deeper insight into the powers of your brain can add to the feeling of worth. When you make personal growth a way of life, a feeling of individual fulfillment comes automatically."
"Since our feeling of worth is within our own control," says Hella, "we have a security our ancestors lacked. We can give to other people in ways that they could seldom give. Our ancestors could usually be generous toward their immediate families.
But they didn't have the resources to be generous toward a larger group. They had to compete too strongly with other people. Individuals in a larger group would hurt them and would take advantage of them. They had to wrestle money from them, they had to fight them for position, power, and prestige."
"You're limited in adding to the happiness of others," Scott concludes, "unless your own life is fulfilling."
"How barbarous," says Scott. "I can't imagine anyone trying to hold love by force or threats. You hold love with an open palm, not a closed fist."
"Yes, but they couldn't feel that way," Hella replies. "Their jealousies were brought on by feelings of inferiority and insecurity. A man was afraid that if the woman he loved was with another man, she would find this other man more attractive and not come back to him."
"When you're with someone else, I'm glad." Scott's tone is warm. "I know you've found a relationship that adds to your life. When you're with me, I have the satisfying feeling that we're together simply because we want to be with each other. In the past if a man and woman loved each other and wanted an intimate type of companionship, society expected them to bind themselves with a legal arrangement called marriage. Of course, this was done to provide for children during their growth years. But can you imagine fettering love and companionship with legal rights and obligations?"
"Sounds awful. If you enjoy being with me, it's wonderful." Hella's hand touches Scott gently. "If our paths grow apart, we've found more satisfying relationships elsewhere. Either way, we're ahead."
"Our open ways of feeling about each other and our ethical standard of being true to ourselves are perhaps the greatest social inventions of mankind," Scott philosophizes. "They could be realized only to a limited extent in previous societies. Only today's cybernated world can permit their full flowering. Warped children grow into warped adults. People who labor under an inferiority complex can't fully enter into this new way of feeling and acting."
"In the past," says Hella, "children spent their first five years of life under conditions that gave them a permanent inferiority complex. No matter how worthy they later became, no matter how learned, no matter how much power or skill they acquired, they always felt inferior to some extent."
"Those who struggled hardest for power, such as the Napoleons or Hitlers, were usually short men who had been heavily structured by the authority of their parents in their early years," adds Scott. "In an attempt to fight off their inferiority complex, they developed what outwardly looked like a superiority complex. But inside there always remained a scared little boy, insecure, trembling, and afraid someone would find out what he really felt. As long as people had an inferiority complex, it was impossible for them to get a fully secure feeling of worth based on their own inner development."
"Idiotic," Scott explodes. "How could a picture of one of the most beautiful experiences in life ever be considered obscene! A drawing might be crude, yes. It might be untalented . . ."
Hella interrupts. "We have a different way of applying the label 'obscene.' I have just witnessed the most obscene thing —a man hitting a woman in the face, a man turning on another person to kill him, a social group choking him to death with a rope." She shudders.
"Anything that degrades, debases, or dehumanizes a human being is considered obscene today," generalizes Scott. "Our ancestors in the twentieth century had a tremendous amount of obscenity. They plastered it all over their magazines, television screens, newspapers, and books. Murders, race prejudices, wars, etc."
"Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Dachau—ovens that devoured live, screaming human beings. Grotesque piles of human corpses— these are obscene things that were shown to men, women, and children in 'civilized' countries in the latter part of the twentieth century."
"Perhaps one of the most obscene things of all was a man in an electric chair twitching and writhing as the shock of electricity burned through his body," Scott grimaces. "I think the most obscene word used in twentieth-century America was the word 'nigger.' But few people seemed to realize it. They felt that their most obscene words were four-letter symbols for sexual and eliminatory acts. They wallowed in the worst sort of corroding filth without knowing it. They made attempts to cleanse themselves of four-letter words that had little to do with the human spirit."
"You wouldn't believe how many hours they spent putting their hair in weird shapes. They painted their fingernails red. They painted their eyelids purple. They used chemicals to make their cheeks a light red and their lips a darker red. What's more, they seemed to feel better when their heels were three inches off the ground and their toes sharply pointed in a way that bore no resemblance to the shape of their feet. Both the men and women seemed obsessed with youth. They apparently felt they had been going downhill since the age of twenty. They did everything they could to put up a hopeless fight against aging."
"I'd hate to live with such sham, such artificiality," says Scott. "Men and women seemed to build separate worlds for themselves. I believe they even used separate bathrooms."
"They did," Hella agrees. "Little boys and little girls were trained in ways that were very different. A little girl was encouraged to be a 'young lady.' Her toys were often dolls and doll houses, furniture, and cooking implements. A boy was considered a sissy if he showed much interest in these things. He was given guns and cowboy outfits. A little girl was considered a tomboy if she ran too fast or yelled too loud. In a thousand subtle and not so subtle ways, a woman was molded into patterns known as 'feminine,' and a young boy was encouraged to be what they called 'masculine.' Since young boys and girls are neither masculine nor feminine, but are just human, this created stress on many individuals. Their cultural training kept men and women from sharing the deeper worlds of feeling.
"Their sexual do's and don'ts were incredibly complex. Scott, they had rules about everything. Often, no variety was culturally permitted; you had your choice of one if you were married or none if you weren't. Some cultures even had laws governing the sexual positions people could use. Many societies frowned on women who expressed their sexual desires; it wasn't 'ladylike.' And intimate relationships with those of the same sex were often taboo."
"People in the twentieth-century Western culture had deeply inculcated guilt feelings which kept them from achieving an intense and ecstatic perfection in sexual pleasures," Scott points out. "Often a sexual climax was largely a shallow physical experience."
"In a way, we care for sex both more and less than the thawees I observed." replies Hella. "It is a more profound experience for us. And yet if we do not have it, we are so engrossed in other dimensions of life that we don't miss it. It is, paradoxically, more keenly enjoyed and less keenly missed. I find that my sexual feelings usually become more satisfying as I get to know a person better. And yet I enjoy the variety of occasionally being with other men,"
In the latter part of the twentieth century, to avoid the finality of death many people had themselves quick-frozen immediately before or after death. They hoped that by having their bodies preserved they could be thawed out at a later date with minimal damage so the medical skill of a future civilization could bring them back to life. One of the more dubious legacies of the past was about twenty-two thousand of these frozen people.
No one knows exactly what to do with these corpses. Should an attempt be made to resurrect them? Should they simply be disposed of? Since the population of the world is maintained at a constant level, most people feel that it is preferable to create a new life that is genetically and psychologically prepared for participation in the twenty-first century. Resurrection of one of these bodies with an uncertain adjustment in the twenty-first century might be a sticky business.
When this problem was referred to Corcen, a firm conclusion was returned in seconds: make no attempt at resurrection. The individuals of the twenty-first century deeply accept Corcen. They have found it reliable in 99.97 per cent of its predictions during the past eighteen years (it had inadequate data on the 0.03 per cent it missed). Yet, many individuals feel they can not ignore the human hopes that lay frozen in these modern catacombs.
Corcen does not dictate how things should be run in the tweny-first century, it only advises. As it perceives the thoughts of the people, it operates in a manner that fulfills their needs. It usually has better insight into what brings people happiness than any individual person. This has been proved time and time again by its successful predictions.
Nevertheless, people are free to do as they wish. Finally, a group decided they would attempt the revival of 100 of the bodies. They picked fifty males and fifty females whose records seemed to be especially promising and thawed them out. They have been successful in bringing 93 per cent of them back to life, and replacing the defective organs that were responsible for death with synthetic organs.
The real problem arose when they found that these individuals are completely out of touch with patterns of life in the twenty-first century. You could no more leave them on their own than you could turn a baboon loose in the middle of a research center. • They seem so full of hostilities and have ego motivations that are so alien to the twenty-first century that people have finally given up the task of trying to train them to fit into the new world. These "thawees" are so disruptive of the routines of life in the twenty-first century that the group that has brought them to life realizes they are saddled with a custodial problem. They are beginning to understand the types of pressures and twenty-four-hours-a-day watchfulness that burdened mothers in previous centuries.
Their reverence for human life does not permit them to refreeze these "unsane" individuals. They finally decide to set up a twentieth-century behavioral research laboratory on an isolated island and turn these people loose there. They provide the ninety-three men and women with every material resource requested and build a laboratory for psychologists and anthropologists to observe them. The thawees are free to set up their own social structure.
Hella flies down to the isolated Pacific island. The staff is most delighted to see her. Although they are equipped with all of the twenty-first-century aids to living, including three-dimensional color telecommunication with all parts of the world, they feel cooped up. Varying one's environment is a part of twenty-first-century living.
Their Pathetic Heritage
By means of monitoring pickups, the custodians are able to make a recording of most of the behavior of the twentieth-century thawees. One evening as Hella is watching them on the teleprojection screen, two men begin to quarrel. One man suspects that another man has attempted to obtain a sexual relationship with a woman he feels belongs to him. Although the woman protests that his suspicions are not correct, he slaps her in the face and hits her in the ribs so hard that it sends her sprawling across the room. The man with whom she has been accused of intimacy stands up and rushes toward the attacking man. A fight begins that lasts several minutes.Neither Hella nor anyone in the group has ever seen anyone strike another person in anger. They watch, spellbound, as the fight continues. They have read that twentieth-century television showed fights and murders. They know little children in that society sometimes spent from four to eight hours a day watching such vicious programs and learning these folkways. Hella, however, has never seen any of these films. She knows they are available upon request from Corcen. She has just never been curious about such obscenity.
The man who started the fight seems to be losing. Blood is streaming from his nose. Suddenly, the jealous man picks up a metal bar and brings it down with a crunching impact on the head of the man who came to the woman's rescue. His legs crumple, and he slumps to the floor. He is dead in minutes. The custodians watch incredulously.
The murderer is locked in a room by two other thawees. The next day a court is set up with a lawyer who thinks he should go free and a lawyer who asks for his death. A judge is appointed, and a jury is selected. Although the custodians have read of these tribal customs, they have never had an opportunity to experience them emotionally. It seems almost impossible that human beings could behave in this manner.
After several hours of verbal courtroom ritual, the jury labels the man "guilty," and the judge informs him that the group will take his life. They tie the man's hands behind his back and put a rope around his neck. They pull him several feet off the ground and watch self-righteously while he chokes to death.
Most of the custodians who observe this ritual become physically sick and vomit. They keep the recorders working, but they turn off the screen and walk outside to take deep breaths of fresh air. As they look over the vast Pacific Ocean, they manage to overcome their feelings of nausea at this strange spectacle of man's inhumanity to man.
Acceptance of Death
This strong reaction has not been caused by a fear of death. The people in the twenty-first century regard death as a natural phenomenon and accept it when it comes. They put their energy into living fully while they are alive. Every resource of medical science is used to keep bodies functioning, but each individual calls a halt when he feels that physical deterioration has gone too far. When the torch of life has burned brightly, they do not hesitate to pass it on to another. Each individual realizes that upon his death a new baby will be permitted to enter into the world. They don't fight this natural progression beyond a certain point. In the future immortality may be possible. But until then—no problem.While they are breathing the fresh ocean air, Hella asks where the other frozen bodies are kept. She is informed they are in the Antarctic vault near the frozen animal specimens. Hella is sure that they will remain there for some time. Perhaps thousands of years in the future when aggressive behavior is only a vague, theoretical concept, an intrepid group might wish to thaw additional specimens to observe this phenomenon. It seems unlikely that these frozen bodies could ever be functioning citizens in a contemporary society. Each year the antiquated associations locked in their frozen brains become more and more inappropriate to the rapidly changing world.
Hella wants to share these vivid experiences with Scott as soon as she can. Although she enjoys the intimate company of many men, for years her closest feelings have been toward Scott because of the parallel depth of intellect and feeling they share. Soon after she has recovered from the shock of witnessing the dual taking of life, Hella contacts Scott on the space research satellite.
"This place is busier than a frying molecule," Scott tells her. "We've been asked to find other quarters for our research. Since much of my work requires a cold minimum gravity area almost free of atmosphere, I'm moving to the moon. Labs are being installed right now. Come on up and join me."
"It sounds wonderful," she says. "I guess my feelings are a little too tender to continue with these twentieth-century animals at first hand. I'd much rather read about them. If you could have seen their faces, Scott—the deep insecurity, the hatred, the fear in their eyes. I've got to talk to you and be close to you."
Hella immediately informs the custodians of her plans. She is completely open and does not attempt to deceive them by saying that she has to go to the moon to help Scott set up a research station. Although this is true, it would be impossible for her to deal with a fellow human on any basis other than the full truth of her feelings. She describes her feelings and her apparent limited tolerance at this time for further observation of these relics from the twentieth century. Everyone understands what she is talking about. Were it not for their self-imposed responsibility, they would go with her.
To the Moon
Hella explains to Corcen her emotional need to get to the moon rapidly to be with Scott. Corcen always recognizes the feelings of humans and organizes the resources of the new world to meet their needs. A craft is diverted to pick her up within minutes. She arrives at a South American spaceport within forty minutes of her talk with Scott. Within six hours she is on the moon.Although most of the structures on the moon have been built underground to simplify life-support systems and give protection from meteorites, there are several observation rooms above the surface. These rooms are formed by six-inch-thick, transparent metal domes.
When he first sees Hella, Scott can tell that she has been through an unusual emotional experience, and he understands her need to talk. He obtains an observation room that is not going to be used during the evening. How good it feels to be together again! Although they have not missed each other—for their lives have been busy with fulfilling activities which they shared by teleprojection—they both feel an unusually keen delight in their reunion.
They snuggle into the same living contour chair. The sides of their bodies touch warmly, unhampered by clothing. As they look through the glass of the observatory into the night beyond, they can see the bright ball of the earth a quarter-million miles away. Europe, Africa, and part of Asia are visible.
They feel toward earth as they suspect people in earlier times may have felt toward their mothers. Here is the organism that had brought them into being through eons of evolutionary time.
Here is the organism that nurtured them and made them what they are. Although they can not see the sun, they compare their feelings about it to those that children in earlier times may have had about a father. The energy that moves everything in their lives may have come from the sun. Even the atoms that formed the earth some four billion years ago may have been an offshoot of the sun—something like the spermatozoa that fathers of previous times contributed to the absorbing sexual potentials of the mothers. "I think I've learned a lot about myself and our society in the last few weeks," Hella confesses. "I had taken everything for granted. A person with normal vision never appreciates what his eyes mean to him. It's only when you come face to face with blindness that you understand the part that your eyes play in your life." Hella smiles a slight, tender smile."It must have been disturbing to see the folkways of the twentieth century," Scott says, trying to empathize with her.
"Oh, it was," answers Hella, appreciative that Scott is working toward her in his feelings. She knows she can always count on him. "I learned a lot, but I would never go through it again."
"I heard two people were senselessly killed, one by an individual and one by the group," says Scott. "Did you actually see it?"
"Yes."
"It's hard to believe such things could happen—and at the same time that I was busy on the satellite working to contact intelligent beings in outer space. Just think, the same world, the same time," Scott is beginning to feel deeply about the deaths.
Hella does not want to get into a spiral of feelings about the double murders. She feels a need to steer the conversation toward a deeper appreciation of what they have—to understand the present in the light of the past.
"When I was on the island with the thawees," Hella says, "several of them kept insisting on seeing a lawyer. They didn't believe me when I told them we have no use for law or lawyers. They wanted to know what we do with criminals. I explained that we have no criminals—that people in our society of abundance don't act aggressively toward others. You have to be insecure and afraid in order to harm others. They told me it wouldn't work—that I didn't know anything about human nature.
"I tried to explain that our supplemental brains are imprinted to make us want to seek assistance if we feel uncomfortable or hostile. Apparently, in their society they had to capture hostile people like wild animals. And just listen to this, Scott. They caged them in jails! People would voluntarily get medical help if they had a physical ailment, but sometimes they wouldn't get psychiatric help before they had done things that hurt someone."
"I suppose the thing that impressed me most deeply about them," Hella continues, "was the way they were driven so fiercely by their ego needs. I guess the scarcity conditions that set man against man accentuated the king-size egos we developed in our long evolution from the jungle. In trying to meet their ego needs and develop a feeling of individual worth, they got too concerned with their status in the eyes of others. They tried to nourish their starved egos with silly things like mink coats and diamond cuff links. They seemed to care less about being successful in their own terms; they were far more concerned with the appearance of success in the eyes of other people.
"It seems to me that one of our greatest differences lies in how we view ourselves," comments Scott, reflecting on the problem. "Our ancestors, at least in the twentieth century areas where these people came from, didn't have strong inner standards that expressed their own individuality. They were far more concerned with their reputations than their characters. Those poor people were like rudderless ships blown by winds of fashion and storms of capricious opinion."
"They just couldn't live by their own internal standards." Hella feels compassion for these people and the tragedy of their lost happiness. "I think this probably began with their early conditioning. Right from the word 'go' they were dominated by their parents. They had to do what their parents told them, or they'd be punished or made to feel bad. During their helpless, impressionable childhoods, they developed the habit of not judging and feeling things for themselves. "Moma knows best. Daddy won't like this.' The first five years were crucial. As they grew up, they were never free of these personality patterns."
Hella sits up quickly. "That explains why they never came into their own! Now I can see why their feelings always remained sharply tuned to picking up the first signs of any possible rejection that would indicate what to think and how to act."
The Supreme Ethical Standard
"Of course, our present way of life is not without roots in the past," Scott says. "In ancient Greece, Socrates advocated our supreme ethical standard: 'Gnothi seauton,' know thyself." Scott pauses long enough to sit up. "And Shakespeare said, 'This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.' ""In spite of the teachings of many of the great thinkers, most of our ancestors really didn't understand what it means to know yourself or be true to yourself," says Hella. "These were hollow words, not a way of life. They were certainly not ethical guides by which people could run their lives."
"When you evolve your own standards of growth, you can feel greater worth and dignity every day," Scott continues intently. "Sometimes simply listening to a moving piece of music will enlarge your esthetic experience and make you feel you've grown. Reading will add to your store of knowledge to give this feeling of increased being. Simply sensing your own feelings and developing a deeper insight into the powers of your brain can add to the feeling of worth. When you make personal growth a way of life, a feeling of individual fulfillment comes automatically."
"Since our feeling of worth is within our own control," says Hella, "we have a security our ancestors lacked. We can give to other people in ways that they could seldom give. Our ancestors could usually be generous toward their immediate families.
But they didn't have the resources to be generous toward a larger group. They had to compete too strongly with other people. Individuals in a larger group would hurt them and would take advantage of them. They had to wrestle money from them, they had to fight them for position, power, and prestige."
"You're limited in adding to the happiness of others," Scott concludes, "unless your own life is fulfilling."
Love Without Jealousy
"In previous times there was never enough of anything— money, security, or love," Hella says. "People developed feelings of possessiveness. The murder I recently saw revolved around the desire of a man to possess a woman. He seemed to feel he owned her—that he could tell her how to live her life.""How barbarous," says Scott. "I can't imagine anyone trying to hold love by force or threats. You hold love with an open palm, not a closed fist."
"Yes, but they couldn't feel that way," Hella replies. "Their jealousies were brought on by feelings of inferiority and insecurity. A man was afraid that if the woman he loved was with another man, she would find this other man more attractive and not come back to him."
"When you're with someone else, I'm glad." Scott's tone is warm. "I know you've found a relationship that adds to your life. When you're with me, I have the satisfying feeling that we're together simply because we want to be with each other. In the past if a man and woman loved each other and wanted an intimate type of companionship, society expected them to bind themselves with a legal arrangement called marriage. Of course, this was done to provide for children during their growth years. But can you imagine fettering love and companionship with legal rights and obligations?"
"Sounds awful. If you enjoy being with me, it's wonderful." Hella's hand touches Scott gently. "If our paths grow apart, we've found more satisfying relationships elsewhere. Either way, we're ahead."
"Our open ways of feeling about each other and our ethical standard of being true to ourselves are perhaps the greatest social inventions of mankind," Scott philosophizes. "They could be realized only to a limited extent in previous societies. Only today's cybernated world can permit their full flowering. Warped children grow into warped adults. People who labor under an inferiority complex can't fully enter into this new way of feeling and acting."
"In the past," says Hella, "children spent their first five years of life under conditions that gave them a permanent inferiority complex. No matter how worthy they later became, no matter how learned, no matter how much power or skill they acquired, they always felt inferior to some extent."
"Those who struggled hardest for power, such as the Napoleons or Hitlers, were usually short men who had been heavily structured by the authority of their parents in their early years," adds Scott. "In an attempt to fight off their inferiority complex, they developed what outwardly looked like a superiority complex. But inside there always remained a scared little boy, insecure, trembling, and afraid someone would find out what he really felt. As long as people had an inferiority complex, it was impossible for them to get a fully secure feeling of worth based on their own inner development."
The Obscene Past
"The only thing that made me laugh while I was observing the resurrected twentieth-century people was their warped standards of obscenity," says Hella with a remembering smile. "One of the men had a drawing of a man and woman engaged in intercourse. Every woman that saw it acted shocked, and this seemed to give the man a perverse delight. I understand back in Victorian times a nude figure of a woman was considered obscene. Later, mores in Western society were revised so that only representations of the act of love were classified as lewd.""Idiotic," Scott explodes. "How could a picture of one of the most beautiful experiences in life ever be considered obscene! A drawing might be crude, yes. It might be untalented . . ."
Hella interrupts. "We have a different way of applying the label 'obscene.' I have just witnessed the most obscene thing —a man hitting a woman in the face, a man turning on another person to kill him, a social group choking him to death with a rope." She shudders.
"Anything that degrades, debases, or dehumanizes a human being is considered obscene today," generalizes Scott. "Our ancestors in the twentieth century had a tremendous amount of obscenity. They plastered it all over their magazines, television screens, newspapers, and books. Murders, race prejudices, wars, etc."
"Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Dachau—ovens that devoured live, screaming human beings. Grotesque piles of human corpses— these are obscene things that were shown to men, women, and children in 'civilized' countries in the latter part of the twentieth century."
"Perhaps one of the most obscene things of all was a man in an electric chair twitching and writhing as the shock of electricity burned through his body," Scott grimaces. "I think the most obscene word used in twentieth-century America was the word 'nigger.' But few people seemed to realize it. They felt that their most obscene words were four-letter symbols for sexual and eliminatory acts. They wallowed in the worst sort of corroding filth without knowing it. They made attempts to cleanse themselves of four-letter words that had little to do with the human spirit."
Separate Worlds of Men and Women
"Did the women really decorate themselves the way they appear in the old films?" Scott asks, as he comically pushes his hair to one side."You wouldn't believe how many hours they spent putting their hair in weird shapes. They painted their fingernails red. They painted their eyelids purple. They used chemicals to make their cheeks a light red and their lips a darker red. What's more, they seemed to feel better when their heels were three inches off the ground and their toes sharply pointed in a way that bore no resemblance to the shape of their feet. Both the men and women seemed obsessed with youth. They apparently felt they had been going downhill since the age of twenty. They did everything they could to put up a hopeless fight against aging."
"I'd hate to live with such sham, such artificiality," says Scott. "Men and women seemed to build separate worlds for themselves. I believe they even used separate bathrooms."
"They did," Hella agrees. "Little boys and little girls were trained in ways that were very different. A little girl was encouraged to be a 'young lady.' Her toys were often dolls and doll houses, furniture, and cooking implements. A boy was considered a sissy if he showed much interest in these things. He was given guns and cowboy outfits. A little girl was considered a tomboy if she ran too fast or yelled too loud. In a thousand subtle and not so subtle ways, a woman was molded into patterns known as 'feminine,' and a young boy was encouraged to be what they called 'masculine.' Since young boys and girls are neither masculine nor feminine, but are just human, this created stress on many individuals. Their cultural training kept men and women from sharing the deeper worlds of feeling.
"Their sexual do's and don'ts were incredibly complex. Scott, they had rules about everything. Often, no variety was culturally permitted; you had your choice of one if you were married or none if you weren't. Some cultures even had laws governing the sexual positions people could use. Many societies frowned on women who expressed their sexual desires; it wasn't 'ladylike.' And intimate relationships with those of the same sex were often taboo."
"People in the twentieth-century Western culture had deeply inculcated guilt feelings which kept them from achieving an intense and ecstatic perfection in sexual pleasures," Scott points out. "Often a sexual climax was largely a shallow physical experience."
"In a way, we care for sex both more and less than the thawees I observed." replies Hella. "It is a more profound experience for us. And yet if we do not have it, we are so engrossed in other dimensions of life that we don't miss it. It is, paradoxically, more keenly enjoyed and less keenly missed. I find that my sexual feelings usually become more satisfying as I get to know a person better. And yet I enjoy the variety of occasionally being with other men,"
Communication of Feelings
"One of the great differences between our way of life and theirs," Hella continues, "seems to He in the degree to which we communicate our feelings. We talk about everything. The thawees seemed ashamed of their feelings. They often repressed them and weren't even able to face their own feelings, much less the feelings of other people. They hid behind polite masks."
"Didn't Mark Twain say, 'Only the truth is good manners'?" interjects Scott.
"Even husbands and wives would go through their lives miles apart in their inner feelings," says Hella. "Since they were ashamed of so many of their feelings, they felt it would hurt their image to let someone else know how petty their feelings were. And yet the other person was tortured by motives that were equally petty. This stupid mutual shame seemed to keep them from talking to each other and reaching out to touch each other."
"I can't understand how this could have happened," says Scott. "I don't believe I've ever had a feeling that I was ashamed of. I've had feelings that I didn't consider desirable, but they went away as soon as I expressed them to someone. Because other people have always empathetically received all of the feelings I've ever expressed and were not threatened by them I don't believe I've ever accumulated any mental baggage. I live fully here and now. The dead past and the unborn future don't control me."
"I remember reading about a twentieth-century man so angry at his wife that for eighteen years he never spoke to her," Hella says. "They lived together and ate at the same table, but he never talked to her. Finally, they went to a psychiatrist, who urged the man to communicate. The first thing the husband said was, 'I don't want to talk about it'"
"This was extreme," Scott replies. "Few people, however, were able to express their feelings fully to any other human being. Sometimes a few managed to do this with counselors. But rarely were they able to do this with those that were nearest and dearest to them and with whom they most needed to communicate their feelings. Instead, they wore masks and assumed personalities they didn't have. They used words to hide their real selves, both from themselves and others."
"In the old competitive world," Hella points out, "it was too risky to expose one's inner thoughts. They were afraid that other people would judge them, would be overly helpful, would give them advice that was not wanted, would start diagnosing them and tearing them apart and telling them what to do, or would save up this information and use it against them later. It was rare to find anyone who could listen with his heart."
"Think of all the unhappiness that could have been prevented if they had realized that feelings can be managed just as automobiles and space ships can be controlled," says Scott. "They didn't realize that unwanted feelings are sent on their way when you talk about them. Isn't it marvelous how unpleasant feelings are eliminated when you fully express them, and pleasant feelings are increased when they're expressed!"
"Look," exclaims Hella, "we can just begin to see the Americas!"
As Scott looks toward the bright earth suspended above their horizon, he is aware of a gentle reflected light that outlines their figures. The broad Atlantic Ocean is stippled by light patches, these must be large areas covered by clouds. Could that tiny white dot above the earth be the space research satellite? It's hard to tell. But the backlighting on Hella's breast that stops just above the nipple is beautiful.
"Didn't Mark Twain say, 'Only the truth is good manners'?" interjects Scott.
"Even husbands and wives would go through their lives miles apart in their inner feelings," says Hella. "Since they were ashamed of so many of their feelings, they felt it would hurt their image to let someone else know how petty their feelings were. And yet the other person was tortured by motives that were equally petty. This stupid mutual shame seemed to keep them from talking to each other and reaching out to touch each other."
"I can't understand how this could have happened," says Scott. "I don't believe I've ever had a feeling that I was ashamed of. I've had feelings that I didn't consider desirable, but they went away as soon as I expressed them to someone. Because other people have always empathetically received all of the feelings I've ever expressed and were not threatened by them I don't believe I've ever accumulated any mental baggage. I live fully here and now. The dead past and the unborn future don't control me."
"I remember reading about a twentieth-century man so angry at his wife that for eighteen years he never spoke to her," Hella says. "They lived together and ate at the same table, but he never talked to her. Finally, they went to a psychiatrist, who urged the man to communicate. The first thing the husband said was, 'I don't want to talk about it'"
"This was extreme," Scott replies. "Few people, however, were able to express their feelings fully to any other human being. Sometimes a few managed to do this with counselors. But rarely were they able to do this with those that were nearest and dearest to them and with whom they most needed to communicate their feelings. Instead, they wore masks and assumed personalities they didn't have. They used words to hide their real selves, both from themselves and others."
"In the old competitive world," Hella points out, "it was too risky to expose one's inner thoughts. They were afraid that other people would judge them, would be overly helpful, would give them advice that was not wanted, would start diagnosing them and tearing them apart and telling them what to do, or would save up this information and use it against them later. It was rare to find anyone who could listen with his heart."
"Think of all the unhappiness that could have been prevented if they had realized that feelings can be managed just as automobiles and space ships can be controlled," says Scott. "They didn't realize that unwanted feelings are sent on their way when you talk about them. Isn't it marvelous how unpleasant feelings are eliminated when you fully express them, and pleasant feelings are increased when they're expressed!"
"Look," exclaims Hella, "we can just begin to see the Americas!"
As Scott looks toward the bright earth suspended above their horizon, he is aware of a gentle reflected light that outlines their figures. The broad Atlantic Ocean is stippled by light patches, these must be large areas covered by clouds. Could that tiny white dot above the earth be the space research satellite? It's hard to tell. But the backlighting on Hella's breast that stops just above the nipple is beautiful.
The New Character
"I believe I've developed a much deeper appreciation of our culture," says Hella. "Our satisfaction and happiness lie within our own control. We may never approach our ideals of self-knowledge and selfdevelopment, but we can make continual and satisfying, day-by-day, minute-by-minute progress. This is what we need to have a meaningful life. We live broad, wide lives with an enormous range of interests. Our world is so large."
"We're closer, both to ourselves and to others," says Scott, "Somehow without giving up our own individuality, we seem to develop at the same time a deeper and more profound relationship with others. The more we find ourselves, the more we transcend the boundaries of our own egos. We give more of ourselves in our emotional relationships with other people, and, yet, we also retain a deeper ability to live by our own standards and to remain the masters of ourselves."
"In previous centuries togetherness meant a giving up of individuality rather than a strengthening of it."
"Yes, I know what you mean, Hella. We enhance our togetherness and reinforce our individuality at the same time. It sounds contradictory, but it isn't."
"I think it's our ability to communicate with each other that enables us to be intellectually and emotionally naked—to have no pretenses," Hella reflects."I guess that's one reason we enjoy being physically naked, too. We feel completely loved and completely secure. We have no need to hide, either from ourselves or others."
Hella pauses and drops her head back to rest on Scott's arm.
"And our love is not motivated by need. We do not love just to make up for a deficiency in ourselves. When we offer love, it is as a gift—a kind of spontaneous reaching out."
Scott feels that Hella's mood is changing. There are longer pauses. She is watching the earth, the satellites, and the stars. She has obviously shared with him the vibrant thoughts that have filled her as a result of her experiences in the past weeks.
He feels her hand on his chest. He turns his head toward her. She is looking straight into his eyes. He has accepting feelings of love. The universe is cold and objective, but the bits of space and time that contain human beings are filled with warmth, security, and affection.
"So there's life in other parts of the universe. Well, good!" says Scott. "How could it be better than life right here!"
RETURN TO TOP"We're closer, both to ourselves and to others," says Scott, "Somehow without giving up our own individuality, we seem to develop at the same time a deeper and more profound relationship with others. The more we find ourselves, the more we transcend the boundaries of our own egos. We give more of ourselves in our emotional relationships with other people, and, yet, we also retain a deeper ability to live by our own standards and to remain the masters of ourselves."
"In previous centuries togetherness meant a giving up of individuality rather than a strengthening of it."
"Yes, I know what you mean, Hella. We enhance our togetherness and reinforce our individuality at the same time. It sounds contradictory, but it isn't."
"I think it's our ability to communicate with each other that enables us to be intellectually and emotionally naked—to have no pretenses," Hella reflects."I guess that's one reason we enjoy being physically naked, too. We feel completely loved and completely secure. We have no need to hide, either from ourselves or others."
Hella pauses and drops her head back to rest on Scott's arm.
"And our love is not motivated by need. We do not love just to make up for a deficiency in ourselves. When we offer love, it is as a gift—a kind of spontaneous reaching out."
Scott feels that Hella's mood is changing. There are longer pauses. She is watching the earth, the satellites, and the stars. She has obviously shared with him the vibrant thoughts that have filled her as a result of her experiences in the past weeks.
He feels her hand on his chest. He turns his head toward her. She is looking straight into his eyes. He has accepting feelings of love. The universe is cold and objective, but the bits of space and time that contain human beings are filled with warmth, security, and affection.
"So there's life in other parts of the universe. Well, good!" says Scott. "How could it be better than life right here!"