From: Forrest Bishop (forrestb@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Mar 13 2000 - 12:36:44 MST
This is a solicted draft article for an audience of non-transhuman futurists.
Comments wuold be appreciatd.
=====================
Scenario of 3000 C.E.-
DECLINE AND FALL OF NATIONS
The millennium started off with quite a bang, or rather, an implosion. The
Last Bubble and its global fiat-currency collapse of 2000-2001 C.E. led
into the
two-decade Really Great Depression. Mankind's final experiment with fraudulent
money and all its attendant horrors gave rise to the current system of Open
Currency- money creation visible and monitored by all. That single advance
produced all manner of benefits- freeing us from the machinations of parasitic
financiers, damping boom-bust cycles, and destroying the then popular
debt-welfare state.
Although entities resembling nation-states lingered on for another fifty
years
or so, they were never quite the same. The global interconnectivity of
minds was
well under way: the notion of a free press was re-introduced, net-based
correlators tracked the activities of the powerful, virtual courts tried them
with juries ranging into the millions; the emperor's clothes were found
wanting.
Civilization's childhood of hierarchical command was over.
The Industrial Revolution had reached its natural conclusion by 2060
C.E. with
the advent of atomic-scale engineering and the ability to replicate the
means of
production itself. This of course did not affect the fundamental underpinnings
of economics.
There was one small SETI event of note-
In 2538 C.E. a brief set of radio messages emanating from a star in the
Andromeda Galaxy was intercepted and partially decoded. One of the signals
was a
video broadcast, depicting an alien race having large bony structures on their
heads, hence the term "Bonehead". Parts of messages were translated as
"…by the
God-given wisdom of our Bonehead Overlords…" and "…we'll just print up some
more
United Bonehead currency for that…" and "...all for one and one for all…".
After a short staccato of high-energy electromagnetic pulses they were not
heard
from anymore.
Most of the Old Continents of an increasingly irrelevant Earth have been
restored to a semblance of their pre-industrial state, more a matter of whimsy
than anything else. I/we seldom walk there anymore as biological humans- there
is little to gain from it. The real action in directed evolution is on the Dark
Stars. Our augmented bird, reptile, 'dinosaur' and mammal superintelligences
have added some richness to the original great ape derived lines.
As a side note, I/we have decided to disassemble Venus- trying to cool
it down
as a single mass is too much of a hassle. We'll have to adjust Earth's orbit a
trifle in the process. We move out to the stars, our Sphere of Life is now over
700 light-years radius. The unfettered hyper-evolution in the new systems adds
yet more richness and diversity.
The pathology of religious belief finally faded into welcome oblivion after
the derivation of the Godel-Invert Proof in 2130-2138 C.E. With this full
realization, that I/we are alone and on our own in the here and now, the
preservation and extension of superintelligent consciousness becomes
immeasurably more imperative.
====================
Forrest
-- Forrest Bishop Manager, Interworld Productions, LLC Chairman, Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering http://www.speakeasy.org/~forrestb
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