From Science to Sci-Fi
While all my blog posts are now happily settled into one place I realise all my tags for Exploration I have not travelled with me… So that leaves me with a lot of tagging to perform :-/. That aside I now can back everything up in one place. Ahhhh sweet bliss of easy, regular back-ups. Now to automate the process… Because I can.
A fantastic alien dialogue by Terry Bisson, if this is copyrighted then tell me I’ll take it down, it was just too good not to share.
(a dialogue)
“They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”
“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”
“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”
“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”
“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”
“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.”
“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”
“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take long. Do you have any idea what’s the life span of meat?”
“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”
“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”
“No brain?”
“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“So … what does the thinking?”
“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”
“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”
“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?”
“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.”
“Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.”
“Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?”
“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.”
“We’re supposed to talk to meat.”
“That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.’ That sort of thing.”
“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?” ”Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”
“I thought you just told me they used radio.”
“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”
“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”
“Officially or unofficially?”
“Both.”
“Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”
“I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say? ‘Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?”
“Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.”
“So we just pretend there’s no one home in the Universe.”
“That’s it.”
“Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?”
“They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.”
“A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.”
“And we marked the entire sector unoccupied.”
“Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?”
“Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.”
“They always come around.”
“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone …”
the end
I am trying to take my various blog ideas and put them on this site so things may get pretty messy until I find a nice way to separate posts and clean things up. I am not too worried about losing the minimal traffic I have from this as most of what I write is simply to have written it up in a digital format.
My latest inclusion is the Exploration I notes, a large quantity of quasi-philosophical / political writing that I did while on buses and the métro. The idea of creating a community of people dedicated to science and progress in much the same way a monastic order is dedicated to praying and servitude to a god. Only in this case it’s serving humanity and would have tangible results.
I have been very absent recently but I hope to make this a habit again. I have a lot of work to do and only one lifetime to do it in. Wish me luck.
Why does the community work for external business, organisations or governments?
Nothing can exist in a vacuum, and it does not contribute anything to the community to isolate itself utterly from society at large, this would only generate suspicion and resentment between the two groups, those creating an us and them mentality. The community should make as much as possible available to the public; libraries, videos of lectures, personal blogs, transcripts of of dialogues, finances, taxes it should be clear there is nothing to hide about the community.
The second major reason, is income, the members will be paid in savings, due to the spread of costs cheap-shared labour, and food. The income to the community should be reasonably, higher than the outgoings and costs. A large proportion of the excess money should go into savings for future difficulties and growing new communities.
The final benefit of engaging with a variety of different groups is a growth of understanding their requirements and through our work, research and testing; improve charities, foundations and opensource technologies and through those efforts help the world and the next generation. However, no work should be done that be done that goes against the ethics of the community.
It should appear obvious to anyone, looking at the world we live in that money has, for better or worse, become a mandatory element of modern survival. As such it is only right that we pay people for their efforts. Now what is different in this regard, as mentioned before, is that the lump sum of money is placed into a locked saving account, preferably one with a reasonable rate of interest, insured against losses. This sum grows during the members lifetime in the organisation.
If it is necessary to upkeep regular payments like loan repayments, existing mobile contracts, even flat rent payments, during the period the member is involved in the community these will be deducted from the final payment.
While the payment system and amounts will be covered in detail later, the reason of why is obvious from a savings to paying off loans the lack of spending within the community makes it the very best environment to save significant amounts with interest. Imagine earning £10,000 a year in savings without any significant (or any) outgoings, by your 5th year you would have in excess of £50,000, for many this should be a massive incentive.
In short, for many people the community would be a more effective means of obtaining capital than the standard methods used in society at present. Those savings would grow effectively for their entire working life within the walls of the community.
