Me and Dog

I'm continuing to wear the Lid for ten minutes a day and it's changing me, though I can't explain this clearly -- even to myself. I just know I'm different. It's too early to report on the process itself but I did want to pass a tidbit along to you.

Each time I wear the Lid, I get closer to Dog. I can hear his thoughts at times -- and this teaches me things about the intelligent aliens who sent Dog to us. One item struck me as very funny.

Do you know how they decide if a race has the potential to become truly intelligent? They watch how the candidates handle Saran Wrap! Apparently all semi-intelligent races develop something like Saran Wrap (it's called Zifi on most planets). If the beings can't handle the wrap without it getting all balled up, there's apparently little reason to expect that they will become intelligent. (At this point in our history, humans aren't considered to be intelligent. We are merely candidates for intelligence -- and outliers, at that.)

So are you wondering how humans did? Not well at all. However, Dog spoke up for us and pushed the evidence aside, putting us squarely in the running as a potentially intelligent race.

(Mind you, there's an image in the Universal Encyclopedia that shows a human trying to handle Saran Wrap. It's the illustration for the word "humor". So our current reputation in the universe is less than stellar. But Dog has hope for us -- and that gives me hope for the future of the human race.)

Anyway, as these tidbits of universal knowledge come my way, I will share them with you. But honestly, Saran Wrap. Can you believe it?

Defensive indifference, round two

I read an article on physorg.com today about longevity. In it, a scientist predicted that within 25 years, humans would be born who would live for 1,000 years. Never mind whether he's right or not. Let's just think about how this would change things.

For the sake of argument, let's take the idea a step further. What if we could undergo a treatment today that made us live for 1,000 years? You know what would happen almost immediately? Suddenly everyone would care about global warming! Because it would affect them.

You know I'm right. People are so goddamn selfish that they're willing to let the world die as long as it happens at a later date, to someone else. But make us all live for 1,000 years and suddenly people would care about the future, because it would be their future.

This thought is disheartening because it's obviously true. Defensive indifference: people don't care about anything unless it affects them personally. And so today I send out a big "ugh!" to the human race. Perhaps we don't deserve to prosper as a species. Maybe it would be best if we simply went extinct. I just don't know anymore.

PS: If you click on the link above to read the article at physorg, you may notice that the title of the article, "Is living forever in the future?", is literally senseless. The headline should read, "Is living forever in our future?" 

Immortality can solve that

I was thinking about a hypothetical alien civilization somewhere out there, one that had achieved immortality and somehow -- through augmentation or perhaps by altering their own genetic code -- had stepped up to the next level of existence, one far beyond our ability to understand. Specifically, I was wondering what dreams this race might have and what it still longed to accomplish . . . when suddenly it hit me.

If we were immortal it would eliminate one of the main obstacles in humanity's way -- our short memories.

For instance, in the 1980s we learned about the dangers of HIV and discovered how to stay safe. But then a new generation came up, knowing nothing of what we had learned, and the infection rates rose once again. Our information, our understanding of various matters, does not remain with us because, unlike genes, information cannot be physically transferred to the next generation. In life, any information can be lost if the next generation doesn't pick it up and carry it forward into the future.

(In fact, an entire culture can be lost in one generation if the new one doesn't cling to the language, customs, etc. of their forbears. Note that suddenly no one can read. One generation is all it takes to lose a skill.)

If we were immortal there would surely be new problems caused by immortality itself; it is not a panacea. But if we could live forever, what we learned would stay learned. Perhaps that is the key to our finally becoming an enlightened race. If we all, as a race, remembered the past and its lessons, perhaps we could finally build a positive future.

Or maybe not. But it's an interesting thought.