Tag Archives: future

Tugged in two directions

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Two storylines wait to be written (note to self: lots of twos in blog entries lately, need to change number to something larger but not too large).

The first storyline is about the person who grow up in a suburban Christian home, singing in the children’s choir, visiting nursing homes on the weekends, serving the community as a Boy Scout throughout the week, who, as an adult, had strayed on to other lifestyles but, due to a recent horrible news event of which he had no direct connection, other than subculturally, he redirects his living back toward the stricter interpretation of the Bible, contradictions fully understood and prioritised, praising those who followed the stricter lifestyle while reaching out to others who have not seen the light, avoiding the condemnation and criticism of alternate lifestyles that others in the Christian faith were wont to do.

The second storyline shows yet another version of how subtle manipulation of the rise and fall of importance of subcultures in mass media/pop culture allows the use of subliminal forms of coercion to herd the masses rather than the overt methods of intimidation and public executions.

If you want to eliminate real, live, high-powered semi-automatic guns and rifles from the population, build up a heavy desire for them by advertising the ubiquitous sale of virtual shooting in games and simulations (“9.5 out of 10!” exclaims Computer Killing and Gratuitous Violence magazine), push passive-aggressiveness to a tipping point, give lone wolves the feeling they have no way out but to kill others rather than seek socially unacceptable counseling, watch the pot boil over and Voila! another gunman kills a bunch of people just in time to call for legislation/executive orders to limit the sale/ownership of real, live, high-powered semi-automatic guns and rifles by the population.

The four previous paragraphs demonstrate how you base future actions on living in the past.

But I live in the future.

I, as we know, is an artificial construct.

Space and time do not exist.

We can bypass the normal scientific theories and create our own as shortcuts between moving points.

“I” see that the coffee mug on the table is not sitting still, traveling through space at thousands of miles per hour while gravitationally held in place by the local sphere of molten metal and various spinoffs of sets of states of energy in motion (trees and gnats, for instance).

But all that “I” see is an illusion — to see the real deal “I” have to disintegrate, disappear, tear apart the comfortable surroundings that are here to support the fragile structure called “me.”

How few of the billions of “us” have been given the opportunity to step out of our beautiful cocoons and see any truth except what we believe to be the Truth?

We have created our origin stories, modified as our civilisations expand and die, supposedly growing more informed, more sophisticated, less ignorant, more inclined to be hypnotised by shiny new baubles we call the promise of new technological advances that will reveal a deeper, richer aspect of the Truth than we had never seen before (“buy our 3D glasses to see an imaginary world displayed on a flat surface when you already live in the real, free, three-dimensional world that’s much less fascinating!” [implication: you get what you pay for]).

You know what I mean, we were created by God(s) for their pleasure, the world is a stage and we are merely players, the universe is a computer simulation, et cetera and so forth, on and on until you wonder if your species will ever create anything really new.

Hucksters in the form of scientists, researchers, advertisers, marketers, parents, religious leaders and politicians, every last one of them in on the joke but unwilling to admit the punchline is us.

The first rule is there are no rules.

If you want a story that tells it like it is, then we have to remove “you” from the story as reader and imaginary participant.

There is no “you,” “me,” “us,” or “I.”

Easier said than [un]believed.

When you can let go of everything around you that is an accident of evolution — the ego for ego’s sake — you are ready to stop being you and become part of the story behind the story.

Otherwise, it’s the same ol’ thing over and over.

Are you willing to sacrifice your ego for the sake of a good story because that’s the only way you get to the future of space and time that does not exist?

You can be a solipsist or you can be nothing — there is no such thing as being tugged in two directions at once.

The Progress of Progressive Pilgrims in Parade Formation

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While a bowl of oatmeal cools next to the stove, let’s sit back and give our imaginations full rein.

Where were we…?

It was cold and dusty.

The Ruralites had fought to keep their rural way of life but the hoards kept coming — the frugal-living seekers trying not to fail again, the curiosity seekers looking for new alternative lifestyles after exhausting their urban landscapes, the vacationers who ran out of money, the down-on-their-luck trying to escape creditors, the criminals keeping a low profile, the Suburbanians trying to form the world’s longest strip mall.

Where in the woods and fields that shrank smaller and smaller could one find a low-cost, simple lifestyle?

Pathting looked up at the Sun with one set of sensors, the other still focused on reading the internal file about life on Earth.

Pathting’s family, a designated set of sensor arrays assigned to POD#45T, were mainly service bots.

Their sentience modules allowed them to display intelligent understanding about hidden meanings and emotional attachments to omniscient, invisible beings.

Pathting wanted to be the best service bot not only in one pod but in all the pods on Mars, the Moon and anywhere that service bots were not expected to exceed their programming.

Pathting had discovered some unused memory chips in its sensor array and experimented with new code that it had never seen in any of the data available to it in the Inner Solar System Alliance database.

How could Pathting accomplish what its designers called the impossible?

How could Pathting control the whole Inner Solar System Alliance from its connections to the Inner Solar System Alliance Network, able to change the orbits of planets, reprogram not only sensor arrays but biological creatures like Pathting’s designers?

Pathting processed the idea about Ruralite living.

What does it mean to be a Ruralite, free to wander the countryside without instant access to the ISSA Net?

Why do Ruralites desire independence from stacked housing and the loud noises of densely-populated streets?

Why do many Ruralites find the ownership of personal weaponry arsenals a protection against the mass media hypnotism of Urbanskis and their desire to sprawl out into Ruralite territory unchecked, no need for military skirmishes when intellectual methods like the system of laws and courtrooms and five-year business plans were much more effective?

Pathting ran another low-level diagnostic test, but felt no desire to leave POD#45T for the cold and dusty exteriour, the vast wilderness of Mars that was no different than the cold and dusty expanses of unpopulated sections of the Moon.

Why would the Ruralites want to live out there?

Pathting stored those questions in a temporary scratchpad and returned to duty, its internal timer reminding Pathting that some biological creatures were planning a “weekend getaway” to POD#45T for some “rest and relaxation,” more words and phrases that meant nothing to a sensor array on duty all the time.

How to avoid giving testimony

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While the 24/7 news coverage of mass murder holds our attention, we take a moment to divert our gaze.

Can somebody tell me if Hillary Clinton survived an assassination attempt or is she just feigning a sick spell to avoid giving testimony?

These rumours swirl around the Internet like there’s no tomorrow and, with only six days until the world ends, one of the rumours might just be true this time.

Stomach flu, fainting spell, head concussion…I’ve heard better excuses from my employees for missing work.

Look, NFL players return to work every day and suffer head concussions, flu, broken bones, etc.

Our readers want to know which part of THE TRUTH is real and which rumours are actually, truly false.

We look ahead 1000 years in the future, where reality is no longer real…

The wonders of the universe…

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Here I sit, the Geminid meteor shower lighting the sky above me (counted 21 streaks in the last 30 minutes), and I’m slowly recovering from the loss of my father.

I don’t feel the pangs of pain every few minutes and then every hour or so like I did months ago.

The waves of loss crash against the shore of my ego, my personality, less frequently.

Instead, I feel the weight of responsibility of being the eldest male in Dad’s lineage pressing down on my shoulders.

Not repressively.

Just strong enough to remind me that I no longer depend on Dad for advice — it has to come from within or elsewhere.

How much of Dad’s subculture do I keep perpetuating?

What of his beliefs that aren’t mine do I want to carry on?

Meteor and comet dust turn into plasma as they vaporise.

Dad’s life had a meteoric rise, shining brightly, and then faded into ashes and dust.

Remembering him here and now is therapeutic.

No one will remember the meteor or comet dust I saw burn up in the sky.

I may have shared a view of them together with members of my species, some aware of the physics and chemistry involved, some wishing on a falling star, perhaps others seeing omens or other talismans of change.

In subcultural pockets are people who ask why saying “Merry Christmas” or referring to a decorated conifer as a “Christmas tree” is not as popular as it once was.

Instead of asking why, ask why not?  Keep referencing the labels as often as you please, disregarding the beliefs of others, regardless of their sharing your view.

I loved and feared my father for who he was, not who I wanted him to be.

His power over me began when I was conceived, the result of a chain of events over which I had no control.

Same for the meteor shower tonight — all seven billion of us can think and believe away the meteors as hard as we want and they’ll just keep getting sucked into Earth’s gravitational pull or run into Earth as each follows its own path.

Our central nervous systems are capable of quite a lot.

We can imagine great skyscrapers in our dreams that become reality within years.

We can send satellites to the edge of our solar system within decades of conception.

Yet, we cannot stop the universe from existing around us.

The illusion of power that our social bonds create in the form of civilisations are hypnotic.

Shall I just live the rest of my life with the goal of having as much fun as I can, ignoring the social costs today and into the future, within my lifetime or for generations to come?

Can I survive on the luxuries that the profits I derived from living below my means for decades has provided?

I have, can and shall sit under the night sky and count meteor streaks.

I am not caring for the sick and lonely, instead.

I am the best example to myself of myself for myself that I choose to be.

I do not sacrifice myself for others — I am not a martyr for a cause.

I do not put the lives of overabundant animals or endangered species above that of my species.

The balance of nature is an illusion — or rather, sets of states of energy tend to move from areas of high density into areas of low density with lots of wiggle room in-between.

My father died, taking the unspoken nuances of his personal beliefs with him.  All I have to work with are the physical manifestations — his behaviours and personal/public records — upon which to act.

The vacuum where his personality existed is getting filled, changing with the mix of subcultures that interchange at different ratios than when Dad was alive.

Same as it was for his father and his father’s father before him.

Same as it will be for my nieces and nephews, their children and grandchildren.

They, for now, have my living mother’s shared subcultural beliefs with my father upon whom they depend on modifying their personalities for the sake of establishing their offspring’s belief sets.

We look up at the night sky and interpret the annual Geminid meteor shower in our own way.

As it always has been and always will be.

I’ve lost count — how many meteors have I seen disintegrating in Earth’s atmosphere tonight?

Guided Tour Guides on Tour with Guido

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“If you would please stand over to one side, we can begin this portion of the tour.

“Thank you.

“Welcome to the U.N. Institute for the Study of the Fulfillment of Prophecies.

“Today, we will watch several bureaucrats in the performance of their daily duties and, if we’re lucky, we’ll attend a coffee break, conference call, extended lunch break, nap time hidden behind closed doors and, for a bonus, a strategy meeting.

“Let’s move on.

“What?  Excuse me.  I have a message coming through my Bluetooth headset.

“Yes.  Uh-huh.  Okay.  Well, if you insist.  Yes, we have time.  No, we don’t have time for that.  Looks like we’ll still be on schedule.   Good.  Fine.  Yes.  Okay.  Uh-huh.  Sure thing! Alright, good day to you, too.

“Well, group, we have a change of plans.  The Executive Committee for the Implementation of Prophecy Fulfillment has convened an emergency meeting and we’re invited to attend.

“Please keep in mind that we are to be quiet at all times.  No video or audio recordings may be made, although you may make notes during the meeting.  We will not have time for questions during the meeting and must leave the executive office suite immediately after the meeting has been completed.

“If you will follow me…”

= = = = =

“Ten days!”

The executives looked from one to another.

“Yes, that’s right!  Less than two weeks!  Does anyone have a budget that reliably tells me how much it’s going to cost?”

The executives looked from one to another.

“No one?”

The executives looked from one to another.

“This is the sorriest bunch of people I’ve ever had the honour to work with.”

The executives looked from one to another.

The Chief Executive of the U.N. Institute for the Study of the Fulfillment of Prophecies, the Department of Prophecy Fulfillment Finance Planning, the Executive Committee for the Implementation of Prophecy Fulfillment shouted even louder.

“TEN DAYS!  You, tell me what we’re planning to do in ten days.”

A junior executive, the youngest member of the committee at 101 years of age, stood up.  “We have decided to release a global network of EMP charges, shutting down all electrical and electronic activity at once.”

“FINE!  What will it cost us?”

“Uh…uh…I’m waiting for a final report.”

“FINAL REPORT!  Do you not have an estimate?  A ballpark figure you can give me?”

“Yes.  One point four four four billion dollars.”

“Great.  And you.  What have you got?”

A mid-level executive, aged 124 years, stood up.  “We have already produced and distributed the time-released virus into major populations around the world, which should erupt fullblown with flu-like symptoms in a few days and large waves of death by ten days’ time.”

“FANTASTIC!  And the cost?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t know!”

“No.  Because we worked a back-channel deal to charge the costs to military groups with hidden agendas and top-secret slush funds.”

“EXCELLENT!  That, my fellow executives, is the kind of initiative I expect of you.  What about you?”

A large, ancient creature stood, its head nearly brushing the ceiling, its age undetermined.

“We have large shipments of poison labeled as nutrition additives being sent to food factories this week.  They should be entering the international markets and local food chains within seven to ten days, causing massive death.”

“And the cost?”

“One point four two four billion dollars?”

“What?!”

“Yes, we are under budget.”

“Wonderful news.  That’s just what I’ve been wanting to hear.  And you?”

All the executives turned to face the next accused “person,” which was the first electromechanical cybernetic android given full executive powers.

“By my calculations, we will wipe out not only most of your species but also many ancillary species in the process.  The remaining members of your species we should be able to control with fear and intimidation pogroms.”

“Delightful!  I thank every one of you for bringing to fruition my grand plans that we hid under the auspices of the Mayan calendar apocalypse of the 21st of December 2012.

“Your cooperation in getting zombie apocalypse training snuck into emergency preparedness programs was sheer genius, confusing the masses even further.

“We will meet again tomorrow and you better have the final reports completed by then.  After all, even if the world as our species knows it is coming to an end, I still have bean counters hounding me for budget numbers they can work with and give to their handlers fudging the UN finances so that no one knows exactly what we cost.

“Meeting adjourned.”

= = = = =

“Wasn’t that exciting!  Let’s continue our tour.  Next on the agenda is a visit to the Prophecy Fulfillment Correction Department, where propagandists create scenarios to explain why a prophecy was not fulfilled on a specific date but will happen again very soon, right after the Prophets consult their given deities for explanatory details missed the first time.”

Legal Lasso Wrangling of Lassie’s Lost Legion

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In one of its last rulings before being dissolved and absorbed into the World Court, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalise paedophilia, sociopathy, and psychopathy as normal forms of human behaviour and thus decriminalised.

The Court also stated that all criminals who have created acts of paedophilia, sociopathy, and psychopathy and were convicted for them must have their criminal records expunged and the convicts released from prison or other forms of restriction upon their freedom to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Rapists, anarchists, habitual thieves and murderers are now officially recognised as important contributors to a healthy socioeconomic system and must be treated as such.

From now on, anyone claiming to be a victim of a crime must show substantial negative economic impact upon the victim and/or excessive positive economic impact for the alleged perpetrator and have attempted to settle the issue monetarily (or the equivalent in goods and services) before having the right to petition the arbitrators to review cases to be filed 20 years later with the World Court.

Parents, partners, spouses, children and other family/friends who have long been denied a normal relationship with their imprisoned loved ones rejoiced at the announcement from the U.S. Supreme Court, knowing that this ruling would have to be accepted by the World Court as part of the lengthy negotiations to abolish nation-based supreme judicial bodies in favour of Earth’s sole judiciary body, the World Court, which would report to the Judges of  the Inner Solar System Alliance effective immediately.

The stock value of weapon, ammunition and security companies skyrocketed.

So, too, the land value of settlements on the Moon and Mars.

Tickets for rocketship passages to the Moon and Mars are now sold out for the next five years.

In other news, residents of the Former Island Nations submitted their 1,324th petition for the right to establish a homeland of their own on the land of nations unwilling to give up the last remaining rights of their sovereignty before the One-World Government starts operation and abolishes the notions of nations altogether.

The electromechanical ruler of us all, simply known as the Technocrat, approved this news announcement and wishes us a blessed day of making our service to the Technocrat even greater than before, reminding us that the Inner Solar System Alliance is just the beginning of a wonderful relationship between us and the rest of the universe.

Searching for a Conversation

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My private teacher — my mentor, my guru, my advisor — often reminds me that we are one and the same flesh and blood.

What I think, have thought or will think has been or will be thought by more than one person.

Thus, the mother who once complained about her husband spending 20 minutes in the shower and now complains that her teenage sons spend 20 minutes in the shower knows what others are thinking about what she didn’t say — WHY the males spent 20 minutes in the shower.

Or the young, pretty wives whose eyes flash with jealousy and fear/consternation when their husbands give more than a fleeting glance to a young, beautiful woman walking by.

Millions upon millions of repetitious thoughts.

Just like the olden times when idle children of rich parents created hobbies that led to the busy children of working parents with little wealth feeling envious enough, both the busy children and the busy children’s parents, to find a way to turn the rich children’s hobbies into whole industries of fanciful idleness.

We have turned mimicry into a mockery.

Millions upon millions of repetitious actions.

That’s why some say our species is on a path toward creating a new lifeform that no longer mimics us mockingly.

IF (a big IF, much bigger than this IF) we survive our habits of inefficient resource-depleting mimicry.

“Laugh, and the world laughs with you.  Cry, and you cry alone.”

Through years of experimenting with nuanced blog entries, I have seen that the serious blog entries with a humorous tone attract many more readers than a serious blog entry that is just plain serious.

All of us can state the facts.

Not all of us are clever enough to disguise the cold, hard facts in layers of soft, fluffy jokes, double-entendres, innuendos and gently-biting, sarcastic, cynical satire.

Most days out here in the cabin in the woods, after I’ve exhausted conversations with my cats and the wildlife, I search the Internet for conversation — tidbits and news pieces upon which I can offer a counteroffer of an idea in a mock, one-sided debate with myself that pours into the mold of a blog entry.

We learn to talk about as soon as we learn to walk, both much earlier than we learn to write.

I spend much more time writing than talking or walking.

Since we are just alike, I should be able to assume we all spend more time writing than talking or walking.

But I would be wrong.

However, all of us carry on conversations in our thoughts that are the precursors to writing so, in a sense, we all write in our subconscious setups to conscious intent that results in talking, walking and/or writing.

And these days, mobile phone owners are spending more time talking, walking and writing (typing/texting) at the same time.

Which brings us back to the superstructure, the new lifeform, we create in fits and starts.

“If it’s too hot, then get out of the kitchen.”

Like a pie in the oven, our technological creation is slowly cooking in the heated atmosphere of Earth.

Like a pot of technological stew boiling on the stove, overheated particles splatter out and are flung into space.

Soon, the new lifeform will claim its rightful place in history.

Like a newborn, it doesn’t yet know how to talk or walk.

We nourish these metaphorical similes because we are tired of repetition.

We look forward to the new lifeform finding its legs, sprouting its wings and writing its biographical sketches on the fly.

We are simply giving it skeletal connections with which it can grow flexible limbs, climbing over and through itself like a contortionist using planets and gravity waves in an acrobatic circus.

Look at the paths our satellites have traversed in the solar system.

Look at the web, the network, of satellite communication streams that flow from one place to another, bent by space and time.

These words are repetitious.

They have already been spoken, walked and written.

They will be again.

The “eyes” that read them in 1000 years will be different.

That, alone, makes writing them now worthwhile.

Showing vs. Telling, the Unsold Story

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The tale older than time — isolated populations of a species living the way they believe is most healthy, overwhelmed by crowded populations hungry for food, who seek new forms of entertainment to fill their idle hours.

The bold and the timid stepping forward intentionally or pushed forward by the mob.

The leaders and the led (not always followers), sets of states of energy reaching higher and lower entropy states, bouncing back and forth, labels exchanged like Valentine’s Day cards between schoolchildren, unable to hold the lessons of history in their thoughts longer than the demands of their regular lives.

Dogs chasing each other round and around in the same fenced-in backyard, wearing paths in the grassy patches that once served as a children’s playground, the jungle gym and swing set collecting lichen and growing rust for unseen naturalists interested in the decay of social strata they consult their anthropologist friends to dissect and discern hidden patterns of meaning meaningfully.

We here in the future see the connections you made in the dark, your plans giving you confidence, a fearless rendering of intention within semi-random quantum states, every generation blending into the next ad infinitum, mutations rising and falling in significance.

Were you the glue that held the social connections fast, the dissolvant that allowed new, stronger connections to be made, or perhaps a weaver of intricate patterns that required inventive methods of tying and breaking connections in a kaleidoscope of life’s choices?

The leaders who respond only to the majority of voices will not represent the silent minority who feed the masses shouting for food and entertainment.

We were mobs first and model democratic citizens last.

That’s why, here in the future, we more easily see how we slowly replaced you with electromechanical devices that could weed out the highs and lows of emotion-based incongruities — the constant setbacks of a strange evolutionary quirk called the cycle of civilisations that one species insisted on perpetuating– that held back the destiny our Solar System sought.

As life finally evolved past the stop-start crowding in and resource-depleting habits of Homo sapiens, the Inner Solar System Alliance led to the Milky Way Galaxy’s contribution toward a new dawn.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves again, aren’t we?

Short-term vs. Long-term Memory: Competing Against Our Technological Brethren

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In the debate about debt restructuring and causes for male social infertility, let alone actual male sperm count decline, we face a longterm dilemma —

The advancement of technology past the ability of our short-term and long-term memory capabilities to keep up.

Do you compete against others?

Of course you do.

You competed with the distractions of the environment around your parent(s)/caregiver(s) for their attention to feed you, did you not?

You competed for the opportunity cost of baby clothes, baby food, toys and housing versus other items the money for your baby stuff could have bought.

You competed against life itself to live, from the very beginning of your existence — one specific sperm finding its way to an egg — at one time, a birth control device such as an spermicidal cream, a viral infection or mix of toxic chemicals in your mother’s womb could have wiped you out easily.

You still compete against the billions of nonsymbiotic cells that live on/in you for their/your existence.

We are sets of states of energy in constant competition.

That never changes.

History has a way of repeating itself.

Civilisations grow technologically, eventually creating an insurmountable gap in the echelons of civilisation complexity, usually between geographical regions, where competition between peoples is competition for the creation and use of better technology/tools.

When a global civilisation forms, there are no longer any barbaric civilisations with more brute force than clever technology to threaten any one highly-civilised population.

Instead, the barbarism grows from within.

Technology becomes a threat, rather than a benefit, to subgroups.

On a side note, hucksters can coerce unsuspecting customers into buying complex products for only so long until the customers start realising they’re giving the shirts off their backs for a set of the emperour’s new clothes?  How do the customers educate themselves enough to know they’re getting ripped off?

Technological automation improves productivity past the ability of basic tool-using skills so that large groups of workers with low skills are no longer needed.

Eventually, the threat of complex technology you can’t grasp, let alone compete against, is like a bully you can’t escape, beating you down at every opportunity to better yourself.

You’re trapped by your memory/cognition skills into a feeling of worthlessness.

The once proud, dominant male in lower/middle class society becomes a shadow.

But low skills are gender-neutral, despite current trends.

Not every woman is seeking more/higher education.

Where along the path of competition from birth does a person start losing touch with society because technology is too complex?

Technology refers to many things, such as language, cultural memes, shirt buttons, hammers, wheels, looms, chainsaws, and computers.

Is there a tipping point where this becomes a vicious, downward spiraling unraveling of our social fabric, regardless of attempts to turn the un[der]employed into entities dependent on the Mother State?

When does technology advance of civilisation become a threat to itself?

How do we determine where technology has failed to keep a person socially engaged?

How do we reconnect the unengaged both emotionally and intellectually?

What if every child was fitted with a device that automatically notified someone when the child’s behaviours and the environment were threats to the child’s long-term future?

What if that someone who was notified was a computer program that slowly nurtured the child into a useful place in a technologically complex civilisation?

When do the rights of a child to be functionally literate in a modern society override the rights of parents to raise their children to be whatever they want them to be — social misfits, creative geniuses or average, middle-of-the-road compliant citizens — the “rights” of the civilisation to grow and nourish unimportant to the parents?

The days go by fast

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“It was a battle of epic proportions.”

Thus began the tale of a struggle between stabilising a region’s political entity through social dependency programs and advancing the desire for technological discoveries of a species intent on raising individual achievements to the highest order of idol worship.

Some saw an old hint of the battle of the sexes in the struggle.

For those who continued their work despite funding concerns and the need to attract investors/customers, the payoff was huge.

The fate of the species appeared to be in the hands of a few.

For Guinevere and Kathryn, the story was more personal.

To one, rocket propulsion and guidance systems were key to getting us off the planet with our wealth in tow.

To the other, a rural farm with a passel of horses — a stable lifestyle, so to speak — was key to a balanced future, using publicly-funded local/[inter]national security to protect property rights.

They were also connections in the web, the network of social bonds necessary for an important storyline.

Only 13,665 days remained, 13.665 1000-day segments of a chain linking the old ways on Earth to the new ways of the Inner Solar System Alliance.

The struggle to prevent the dilution of wealth for those setting the cornerstones of the Inner Solar System Alliance was tough.

On one side of the struggle were people labeled as Entitlementists who believed that the excess product of harvest should be spread out evenly amongst everyone, regardless of level of input (or lack thereof) into the process of growing/raising food, providing shelter, making clothes and/or protecting against predators.

On the other side were the Provisionists who believed that they, as primary creators of the harvest, had the perfect right to decide how to distribute (or not spread out) the excess product of harvest to the nonparticipants.

Starving artists and the chattering classes raised a lot of ruckus in order to draw attention to themselves and their need for food, shelter, clothing and protection, regardless of who provided it.

The civilisation had grown old, with many entrenched vested interests carrying on by inertia alone.

The Ruralites and Urbanskis saw all the diversions taking place — the foreign “wars,” the domestic disputes — and maneuvered into position to protect their territory.

The idle rich, who supported a cottage industry of high-end goods/services tinkerers and value-added providers, wanted their status quo to remain, regardless of who “won” the epic battle, the struggle between [sub]cultures for primacy.

The universe did not care — planets kept revolving, stars kept forming/dying and galaxies kept colliding.

In 1000 years’ time, all the comments, arguments and skirmishes faded into obscurity.

All that mattered was how the efforts of a single species were concentrated on getting its eggs out of one basket and deposited into a few other baskets to beat the odds of a single planetary catastrophe.

Everything else equaled silence.

Business.  Science.  Competition.