Biological optimization was always sort of in the back of the minds of the
people who lived in Moderaverse, even before they earned their name. I
couldn’t explain why it is that this version of Earth was so different than
others. I couldn’t explain why such a thing ever happens at all. What changes
are made that cause this divergence, and why? I suppose that it doesn’t truly
require an explanation. It just is. The Moderaversals just reached what they
would call technological completeness, and left it at that. That’s what it
really comes down to. Most cultures develop a high level of curiosity, and
nothing can stop them from pursuing knowledge. They might be held back by
religious hangups, or they may be limited by other conditions, such as
pandemics, or extreme gravity. But the strongest of them will survive because
they had a drive to be better, more advanced. This, I suppose, is an extension
of the evolutionary concept of the survival of the fittest. The reason humans
always become the dominant species of their world is not because they decide
to be better at life. They’re better at life because those fit to survive are
the only ones who will survive. Nothing evolves to be subservient, weak, and
averse to survival. Such traits always disappear, because anytime they show up
in an individual, that individual will struggle to persist, and pass on their
genes. So once the species evolves enough to have intelligence, they’ll start
using that intelligence to improve themselves. Then it will just keep going
until there is nothing left to learn, if such a state is even possible. The
Moderaversals, on the other hand, experience no such desire. They have
determined that life itself is good enough, and as long as it never ends, they
shouldn’t worry about advancing beyond it. They don’t need faster ships, or
cooler tech. All they care about is relaxing, exerting as little effort as
possible, and living in harmony with nature.
It was a long road to reach this point. As I said, the dream was always there,
but it wasn’t always practical. Everyone starts somewhere. No one quite
remembers how exactly the movement got started, or who started it, but it was
kind of like a nonreligious religion. I guess it was more of a philosophical
way of life, where people started to reject modern technology in favor of
simpler lives, but still with less work. A true simple life would involve
waking up while it was still dark, and working until it became dark again, but
they certainly didn’t want that. That wasn’t chill. They got rid of most of
their worldly possessions, which included a lot of art. That was one
interesting side effect of the movement. Art does not require technology, but
the enjoyment of it often does. For them, it meant no more movies, no more
television. If they wanted to see a play, admire a painting, or hear music,
they would have to go witness it in person. Over the decades, even as
technology progressed, the movement grew. The great thing about it was that it
was adjustable. Some people eschewed all electricity, while others just tried
to unplug more often. Eventually, there wasn’t as much demand for certain
things as there are in other universes. Most people didn’t care about looking
for life on other planets. They didn’t care about cooling down supercomputers,
or building extremely realistic virtual simulations. They just didn’t ever
want to die. So that was the kind of science that students started getting
into, and the more that started the help them, the less they relied on other
things; from the hyperfast pocket devices, to even just clothes. When you can
regulate your own body temperature, clothing seems a lot less necessary. There
wasn’t really any sort of opposition to this movement. No one decided to move
off, and do their own thing somewhere else. They all just fell in line, and
got with the program, until doing anything all day other than pretty much
nothing was essentially unthinkable to nearly everyone.
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