Microstory 2422: State of the Art

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Isn’t that a funny name for a dome? State of the Art. Since art is so subjective, that term is so often used to describe scientific advancements, which is essentially the opposite of what we’re talking about here. But in this case, they’re calling the entirety of the dome a state, and its purpose is art. Have you ever seen a show from a long time ago called The Peripheral? It only lasted one season, but in that, they feature sculptures that dot the skyline, which are larger than most buildings around it. They never talked about them, or gave any history, but it was set in the audience’s future. I’m not sure if the Castlebourne people were specifically inspired by this, or if it’s a coincidence, but either way, they have those here. These things go up two or three kilometers in the air, and can sometimes be just as wide. It’s really cool to stand on the balcony level, and look down at the whole thing. You’re a few kilometers up yourself, but there aren’t any clouds that low, since they can control all that stuff. Not every dome has one of these second levels, but I think it’s really important in this case. I certainly think that you could extend it more along the perimeter, or even build more layers, but maybe there was a reason why they stopped it here. I just worry that there won’t be enough room once the planet and the dome become more popular. That’s assuming it does. I know you’re all running from your zombies, and wasting each other in the wasteland, but it’s important to learn to be cultured and quiet. That’s what my mom taught me. She was old enough to remember a time before the longevity escape velocity. To them, art was a way of continuing on an individual’s and culture’s community. A piece of visual art or musical piece is a snapshot in history, showing in the most genuine way what life was like—what life was like for the people making the art, and for the people around them. We’re taught that a painting, for instance, comes from a distinct period in time, and it’s important to understand that. You paint a pond of water lilies in 1840, it evokes a different feeling than someone painting it in 2040. Lives change, lifestyles change. Those two people see the world entirely differently, and recognizing the beauty in that is an important human trait that I think we’ve lost as we’ve developed. We still make art, but it’s a reflection of who we are today, and it means nothing if we can’t remember that. Go back to the past, and learn from it. You can visit one of the Babeldome libraries and read about it, and I definitely wouldn’t discourage you from doing that, but don’t forget about the art. Never forget about the art. It speaks, so listen closely. Be cultured and quiet.

Microstory 2414: Adrenadome

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TRIGGER WARNING. I want to talk about laws here, but I’m not going to say which laws specifically right away, because if my review ends up in a blurb, then it could get banned—or shadowbanned—for perpetuating harmful ideas. I think I need a few extra words to be safe sooooooo, there we go. Suicide laws. That’s what I mean. Back in the old days, when death meant the end of everything, and there was no going back, it was illegal in many places to attempt or commit suicide. Over time, these laws were changed to account for people’s unique desires and needs. Suicide and assisted suicide became necessary evils in certain situations, especially when a slow, painful death was the only other option on the table. The funny thing is, over time after that, these laws had to adapt again. Once they started sufficiently treating, or even curing, certain previously life-threatening medical conditions, the reasons for wanting to unalive yourself began to disappear at about the same rate. People stopped having very good excuses for not wanting to be alive anymore. Progress in mental health research, the proliferation of advanced medical solutions, and the drive towards a post-scarcity economy, among other factors, contributed to a healthier society overall. The development of more extreme technologies, like maximal longevity treatments, transhumanistic or cybernetic enhancements, and consciousness uploading and transference made it practically impossible to justify ending your own life, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Even the language of the relevant laws shifted to phrases like “reckless self-destruction” or “consciousness back-up endangerment”. Self-harm became illegal once again. Whereas before, dying meant taking maybe only a hundred years from someone’s potential future, now you’re potentially robbing you or someone else of the rest of eternity until the heat death of the universe. That should be profoundly immoral and unethical in anyone’s book. They’re even talking about making normal biological humans illegal, with some arguing that letting yourself die after a pitiful century is tantamount to suicide when framed as a negligible blip in the full timeline of reality. I don’t know about that. What we’re talking about is your body, your choice. Anything short of total freedom in that regard is hypocritical when you really think about it. Castlebourne is a Charter planet, which means that it doesn’t have to follow Core World Law. They still do, for the most part, having modeled their legal system on what came before, but they’re also free to make some changes, such as the definitions of those phrases above, like reckless self-destruction. What does reckless even mean? Does it mean jumping out of an airplane without a parachute—a new extreme sport, which they call skydying? Adrenadome is attempting to test the boundaries of what you’re allowed to do with your own body. I’m not gonna just list the extreme sports that can be found here. You can look them up. They’re all available, along with variants that forgo safety measures entirely, and just let you die, knowing that your mind will wake up in a back-up body moments later. Not everyone is gonna like it. I personally don’t. I came here to study the concept, because I’m a scholar of law. But it’s certainly interesting that these philosophical questions about the meaning of life and death get to play out in the real world, and no longer only on the lips, or the page.

Microstory 2408: Sportsdome

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Sports. Have you heard of them? Well, I like them. I’m pretty old. I was, in fact, one of the oldest people still physically capable of being upgraded enough to stick around back when life extension was in its relative infancy. I remember taking the train all around the country to see baseball games. I managed to see at least one major league game in every stadium. As the centuries went by, I watched as they faded from popularity. Some of them were outright banned—or effectively neutered—due to laws against violence. Remember hockey? That was basically just an excuse to fight on the ice. The whole act of hitting a puck into a net was more secondary to that urge to express one’s aggression and manhood. I never liked it, but they got it here on Castlebourne. They have every single sport somewhere here. Name one, they got it. Even the really obscure or really old ones that I hadn’t even thought of when I was growing up, still believing that I would die one day. Anyway, I think this dome is pretty cool, and I intend to spend a lot more time here. Unfortunately, nearly all of the players are androids, because we’re still in the early days of this planet, and like I said, sports in general have dimmed in popularity. It’s kind of creepy, because there was this glitch when I first showed up. They weren’t expecting me, and they didn’t sense my presence right away. Obviously, these things aren’t just playing games for no one to watch. They only do it when a visitor is around to see it. So there I was, walking onto the football pitch, and the androids were just standing there, staring into space. Of course, they weren’t staring, they were in dormant mode, but since they’re so lifelike, it looked really scary and unsettling. So that was just a little issue that I think will get worked out if people actually start to come here and see what all this stuff is about! Really try to give it a chance. I know it sounds so quaint. I mean, how interesting could it be to watch 22 people kick a ball back and forth? It’s a lot more nuanced. Just because you’re not in a virtual reality where the rules to some random game some random guy randomly came up with take ten years to learn doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch. If you swing by, I’m sure we can find you something that you’ll like. For now, I’m going to see what jai alai is like. We didn’t have that when I was a young one.

Microstory 2250: Consequences are Inevitable

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It’s Nick. I technically could have written my last blog post, but I wasn’t really feeling up to it, so I asked Kelly to fill in for me again. She’s kept you well up-to-date on everything that was happening with me. We don’t have all the details yet, but from what we gather, a rival of the man who was paying me for my index and bone marrow does not want the procedures to go ahead. Evidently, there’s this whole subsector of research that’s looking into longevity that a lot of people don’t know about. It’s kind of secretive, because progress is slow, so it doesn’t make the companies any money, which can make them skirt the rules sometimes. I was a victim of this hidden war. Everyone working in the field believes that I’m the biggest breakthrough anyone could have had, and the competitors are feeling jealous that he’s the one who got to me first. Well, it looks like my poisoner may have gotten their wish. I seem to have suffered permanent damage from the pesticides that I ingested, which will likely forever contaminate every system in my body. It won’t kill me anytime soon, since we caught it early, but however I die in however many years, it will almost certainly be a contributing factor, like smoking. That’s exactly why I don’t smoke, because the consequences are inevitable, if not apparent. There are some things that I can do to help the situation, like being as healthy as possible for the rest of my life, but there’s no cure, because there’s not really a disease. I suppose I would be all right if I did manage to get out of this universe, and into one that allowed my immortality to flourish. I told you a little while ago about there being a potential way to make that happen, but it would require the aid of other people, and that would require capital. I no longer have that if we’re not doing the surgeries. Don’t worry, the sort of down payment I received is mine to keep. He’s assured me that he won’t be asking for it back. And hey, it might still happen, I need to do more tests in the coming weeks to see if it’s worth it. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, it may be in my best interests to start looking for a regular job again.

Microstory 2238: Stress Will Kill

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I made a decision this morning to be a more positive person. It doesn’t make much sense that I’ve had to be such a downer lately. I beat death! That’s a good thing, even though it doesn’t change the fact that everyone else is going to die eventually. So will I, even if some other Westfaller opens a new door, because they can’t keep it open forever. Believe me, if I knew how to help you, I would. In my stories, I had trouble being able to kill characters off, because I built a world where there were so many ways around it. Even when I did come up with a way, I rather quickly undid it, and placed all the dead people in an afterlife simulation that was essentially heaven—even for the not-so-great people (because at least they still existed)—but digital. There was even a way to get out of the simulation, and return to true life. I hate death more than the average person, which I know is saying a lot, because most people don’t like it a-tall [sic]. I could tell you about all of the technology that those people used, and which others did in other universes, but I would never be able to develop them for you. It’s a lot easier to conjure a genius character than to be as smart as them. It’s nothing that you guys have not already contemplated, I’m sure, like longevity treatments, telomere restoration therapy, cybernetics, mind-uploading, etc. Anyway, I don’t wanna get hung up on this, because that’s negative, man, and I don’t wanna be negative anymore, man. Let’s all just be chill, and only move around when we need to relax. Sound good? In the end, stress will kill you faster than anything. So, what does this all mean for the future? I’m not sure yet, but I’m going to try to remain calm, and not worry about things too much. I’m sure everything will be all right, one way or another. I’ve never had that kind of attitude before, so I’m not sure if it will work, but I may as well try.

Microstory 2210: It Broke Him

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Hello, everyone. My name is Kelly Serna, and I am Nick Fisherman IV’s lifecare assistant. If you follow him on social, you’ll already know that. What you don’t know yet is that he’s having more trouble with this than he has let on. When I took over for his update this morning, I didn’t want to say anything, but after rereading some key full posts from days past, I’ve decided to maintain his spirit of honesty. Nick has reportedly always been fascinated with immortality. He’s come up with a number of different ways for the characters he creates to subvert death. He told me yesterday that it kind of got so out of hand that in one universe, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to die, which effectively lowered the stakes for the stories, forcing his other self—the one who is still a writer—to come up with major loopholes to the backup protocols. At this point, I believe that Nick would salute, and respectively repeat the words “Major Loopholes”. Anyway, the way he tells it, the ability to avoid death was his favorite superpower out of all of them, which was why he felt such relief when he managed to procure it for himself. When he realized that he lost this power, he felt hopeless and frustrated, and apparently fell back into his old habits, which he had exhibited when he was just a normal guy, before the multiverse opened up to him. And yes, to be clear, I one hundred percent believe that he comes from a different version of Earth, and that he is telling the truth about everything that would sound outlandish coming from anyone else. I’ve read every installment on his site, and we’ve been talking a lot about it lately, because I didn’t pay all too much attention when we worked together at the plant nursery. Nick had never warmed up to the idea of dying, for any reason. He had been planning to live forever since he was eight years old when his older sister made a casual comment that they didn’t know it was impossible just because it hadn’t happened before. Traveling to a world where he was no longer immortal was one thing. He could have still held out hope for science. But to come to realize that he was so sick, not even the most optimistic of longevity advances could save his life in time? It broke him. He doesn’t want to do this site anymore, but I have faith that he will want to return to it one day, and when he does, he will not want his daily streak to have been broken. I have his passwords, so I will continue to update you in his stead. And when he does come back, I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about how I handled things. I hope not to disappoint him.

Microstory 1879: Mow Problems

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I was so excited when I first heard about Landis Tipton, and his miraculous healing abilities. It would spell the end of death for all of humanity. I know, I know, people think that humans can’t live forever, or we’ll have an overpopulation problem, but I doubt it would ever come to that. Yes, futurists were expecting life extension technology to develop in tandem with other advancements, which might alleviate such issues, but I still wasn’t worried. I knew that we wouldn’t all be saved overnight, but I’m young and healthy, so I was eternally optimistic about it, especially when it came to myself. As a friend pointed out to me, though, Landis has been predominantly concerned with curing terminal illnesses, and for good reason; those are the ones that aren’t normally fixed. Lots of people have died from terrible injuries, but many have survived them too. Of course you want to help the ones least likely to survive without you. Even so, it would have been nice to have some kind of solution to my problem when Death came knocking at my door. Or rather when it came banging on it. Because it was loud, unsubtle, and is taking much longer than I would have guessed. Though, to be fair, the magic panacea that researchers promise will one day come out of studying Landis’ abilities probably wouldn’t have helped me anyway. It happened too fast. I remember, I said that it was too long, but I was talking about the process. The incident was instant, and irreversible, and once it happened, I was incapacitated. I should say that I am incapacitated, because it’s still going on as I muse on my final thoughts. I can’t call for help—for reasons that will become clear once I explain—I can’t even move. The ironic thing is I was just looking up freak accidents on the internet, and one eerily similar situation scared me so much that I locked my dog in the house, instead of letting her supervise my work, like I usually do. She loves it, and she grew used to it, and she’s been stressed out because I took her job away. But I’m glad I did, because I don’t want her to see me like this.

It was a mowing accident, though probably not as bloody and disgusting as you’re imagining. It had nothing to do with the blades. Well, I guess it did, but they didn’t cut me. There’s no blood. I hate mowing, but the thing I hate the most about it is picking up the yard before starting to mow. Those sticks and rocks, ugh. I would rather just roll over them, damage my blades a little, and then get them sharpened in the winter. I’m lazy like that, and a huge procrastinator, which is what got my into this mess, because the tall grass is what hid the murder weapon from my view in the first place. It was a rock, and I can only speculate here, since like I said, it was so quick, but I think it shot out of the side, ricocheted off of my chain link fence at just the right angle, and headed right for me. But you said there’s no blood, you remind me. There’s not, because the rock didn’t just hit me in the head. It flew into my mouth, and lodged itself in my throat. I fell down, and began to squirm, because that’s all I can do. I understand I should try to stand back up, and slam my chest against the deck railings or even the mower—wouldn’t that be funny; the thing that tried to kill me could save my life—but I’m unable to even sit up. Maybe there is blood, because I’m choking on something wet. I don’t know if this is punishment for being so irresponsible, and letting the lawn get this bad, but at this point, I just want the pain to end. My second-to-last thoughts are of the people I love, and of my dog, but my very last thought is when did I last clear my browser history?

Microstory 1781: Triangle Water

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There was originally nothing special about the Bermuda Triangle. There are many explanations for why there seem to be more lost aircraft and oceancraft in the area, and not all of them are supernatural. Yes, some believe it leads to another dimension, while others think that there’s some kind of glitch in the magnetosphere over this spot. Even the more logical explanations aren’t necessary, because the truth is that it mostly comes down to math. Why are there more disappearances in this one region of the sea, as opposed to, say, the middle of the South Pacific Ocean? Simply because there is more travel happening in this area. It’s like asking why there are more deaths in cars that are driving on the road, as opposed to cars that are parked in people’s garages. Well, they’re not moving, so there’s not as much opportunity to suffer an injury. It’s not impossible, but not as common, and not reported as a traffic accident. In the 1950s, sensationalist media began to suggest that there was something different about the Bermuda Triangle, and people began to contrive their conspiracy theories. Once this happened, the Triangle began to distinguish itself. Just the suggestion that it was special was what made it special, and that was what gave it the temporal properties that it otherwise would not have had. To be clear, supernatural disappearances did not start to occur in the 50s. It was still perfectly safe to sail or fly over these waters, and expect no more problems than you might encounter elsewhere. Neither activity is without risk, but that’s true of anywhere. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to be prepared, and again, this is true of anything. At any rate, you won’t have to worry about an undersea demon rising up to eat you. It’s more that becoming so important to the global consciousness has allowed the natural laws of temporal sciences to exploit it for other purposes.

Time travel is real, and so is immortality, but reaching true immortality is a pretty big chore. It requires obtaining eleven sources of water. Catalyst primes the body to accept them, and Activator binds them together. Each of the sources in between imbues you with a different flavor of non-mortality. Bermuda Triangle water is called Existence. Most of the waters are fairly obvious in regards to their purpose, while Existence is a little more vague—though not quite as vague as Death—at least if all you’ve heard is its name. Youth keeps you young, or even youngifies you, if necessary. Longevity lets you keep going throughout the years. Health cures you of disease, and immunizes you against all future disease. The others are just as apparent when you first hear of them. You can take any of the waters you want, and exclude any you don’t, but once you drink Activator, it’s over. You are permanently at least one kind of immortal, and you can never benefit from any of the ones you missed. Heck, you could theoretically not drink any of the middle nine, and become permanently immune to them. Some choose to ignore Existence, but it is the absolute most important. Time water keeps a time travel event from preventing you from ever reaching your goal of immortality in an alternate reality. Existence is similar, but instead it prevents a time travel event from preventing you from being born in the first place. If you never existed, you can’t become immortal, can you, even if you drank Time in your first timeline? The closer to the center of the Bermuda Triangle, the better, and it only counts for the water found after 1950, but if you did manage to drink it, and then Activate, no one can take it away, even in the past.

Microstory 1716: Sea Goat

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I’ve done it, I’ve cracked it! I have finally figured out how to genetically engineer the sea goat. No, this is not like the mythological Capricornus creature thing that’s half-goat, half-fish. This is an aquatic goat, which still looks mostly like a goat, but which has features that allow it to swim below the surface. Most goats can already swim, but they don’t really like it, and they certainly can’t breathe underwater. The sea goat is different. I designed fin flaps on his legs, so when he’s in the water, he’ll curl his hooves inward, and let the fins do the paddling. His hair is more like otter or beaver fur, capable of keeping him warm in frigid waters. The gills on his neck can process both saltwater and freshwater equally well, allowing him to stay under indefinitely. He has a set of transparent eyelids underneath the opaque ones, which allow him to see through the water. You may be asking why I would do this. Why create an amphibious goat? The truth is that not once during the process did I ask myself that question. It seemed like such a natural objective that I never considered there needed to be any sort of reason. Now, you’ll notice that I keep referring to the animal as a he, but the truth is that its genderless. I just use the term for the sake of ease, but he is no more male than he is female. When he’s ready to reproduce, he will do so asexually. That doesn’t mean he carries both reproductive organs, but that he doesn’t need different organs. When it’s time to propagate the species, he’ll develop the eggs. He won’t have to fertilize them, but he also won’t be making an exact copy. Enzymes in his reproductive system will attach themselves to the eggs randomly. Once enough of these enzymes are attached, they’ll operate uniquely, and in concert, altering each egg’s DNA in unpredictable ways. This allows for the offspring to be born genetically diverse, whilst still only requiring the one parent. The species will evolve as normal, but will have no need to find suitable mates.

The only thing I’m having trouble with now is figuring out how to prompt the reproductive process in the first place. If I were to engineer a sexual species, two members of that species would undoubtedly experience the instinct to mate with each other, which would continue the bloodline. Without such environmental factors, I’m not sure why the sea goat would do this. Most species evolve the biological imperative to pass on their genetic information, by whatever means they have available to them. This is because any individual who doesn’t have this drive, won’t pass on their genetic information, and will die out long before we ever have a chance to study them. They just don’t exist—in random defective organisms, yes, but not in an entire species, because it wouldn’t make any sense. But evolution didn’t take too much part in what I have created. It’s impossible to tell whether the fundamental biological imperative is strong enough in the sea goat, or is even there at all. If all goes according to plan, he’ll lay about a dozen eggs, and maybe half of them will survive through the early developmental process. That is if anything happens at all. I don’t really want to try to trigger the propagation myself, because I want to see if he will do it on his own. That day may never come, but I have no choice but to be patient. The sea goat’s life span is presently about as long as a human’s, which is a gift I deliberately added to his genes. I may die before seeing the second generation come to fruition, so that is why you’re here. If you accept the position, you’ll be responsible for carrying on my legacy. You won’t be my assistant, you’ll be more like my heir. Now that you know a little bit about what we do here, how about you tell me more about yourself? Why do you want to study and raise sea goats?

Microstory 1643: Fighting Fire With Accelerant

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Like a lot of human cultures that manage to evolve, and survive past their early Great Filters, the people on one version of Earth figured out how to defeat death. They did it both biologically, and technologically, which is standard. The outcome wasn’t as favorable as it is for others. While inventing immortality is in no way inevitable, it’s pretty hard to miss unless you’re deliberately trying to avoid it. If you do, there is every chance that you will run up against your next Great Filter, and die out as a species, so be careful. Still, some people don’t think that death is something that should be overcome, and this side of the argument wins about as often as it loses. This is about an Earth where that didn’t happen initially, but it became that way after they already started to walk up the path of immortality, and actually go pretty far along it. Right around the time that scientists and engineers were coming up with the right solutions, the world was suffering sociopolitically. Leaders were being elected in multiple countries who did not have the best interests of the public at heart. Fascists, is what they were, but unlike their predecessors, they were a lot less obvious about it, and a lot more insidious. They started manipulating laws slowly and quietly, so as not to sound any alarms. While they were doing that, they instigated social unrest, which led voters to believe that the secret fascists were their only hope. Eventually, they just did away with voting altogether, first by postponing it due to extenuating circumstances, and then simply refusing to let go of their power. Meanwhile, longevity researchers were allowed to keep working, but when their work was sufficiently complete, there were significant downsides to releasing it.

Once the rich took notice of the new technology, they took control. The wealth disparity increased drastically, raising the richest of people to almost godlike status, and dropping everyone else to ants. It was bad before, where tyrants could pass their unearned power on to the next generation of tyrants, but now the threat was insurmountable, for the original tyrants could conceivably be able to maintain their power literally forever. A great war began, and nearly resulted in the destruction of the human race. They survived, but everything changed. Instead of finally making longevity treatments and upgrades free for public use, the victors simply made all such enhancements illegal. The standard lifespan was eighty years, and it was against the law to live past it, even if one managed to be healthy enough to surpass it. All seventy-nine-year-olds were executed, and many people were executed before that if the new government felt threatened by them in some other way. They weren’t about to let a fascist plutocracy rule the lands again, and their anger clouded them to the fact that the only way to enforce their will was to become the fascists. Anyone who attempted to show them this reality was—you guessed it—executed. Of course, once a given technology exists, you can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube. Another resistance rose up in response to the consequences of the first one. They lost, and were wiped out, but this only served to galvanize a third resistance to try again. They won this time, and were able to make immortality free for all. Unfortunately, when they looked around, they realized that almost everyone was dead, and it didn’t really matter anymore. Most of the few immortals left standing would later find ways to let themselves die, and leave the uninhabitable world behind.

Microstory 1144: Keilix Oliver

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Everyone who signed up for the Kansas City Metropolitan Area City Frenzy event had their own reasons for it. About the only thing they all had in common was that they were athletic. Some were faster than others. Some were more competitive than others. Keilix Oliver was one of the few racers who was really just a runner. When she raced, she went straight for the finish line, not stopping for anything but traffic, and other obstacles. She studied the map exhaustively, and was extremely familiar with the entire metro. Unfortunately, her tactic wasn’t the most efficient. Even though she didn’t get distracted with dancing and waving at the cameras, she also didn’t take many risks, so she never won the Frenzy. That was okay, though, because that wasn’t why she did it, and when she finally aged out of it, she pretty much just moved on with her life. Keilix wasn’t ashamed of the things she did when she was young, but competition was never very important to her. She wasn’t a tracer, or a dancer, or a martial artist. She ran for health, and to fight against the wind. She could do that alone. She went off to college in Ireland, partially to gain new and exciting experiences, but also to deliberately separate herself from everything she had ever known. She wanted to be cut off from her family—her always reliable support system—so she would be forced to deal with her own problems, with no safety net. She lived in a world with people who had special time powers, and even knew a few of them personally, but she never discovered the truth. She lived in a time of great change, technologically and biomedically, though she remained as she was, and chose not to undergo youth and longevity treatments, or transhumanistic upgrades. She took an unremarkable job in a modest town, met a humble man, raised three lovely children, and lived out her days in the countryside. She kept running for exercise, until her body could no longer do it. She died as a content old woman, surrounded by her loved ones, which included seven grandchildren. She was a normal person—nothing to write home about, as they would say—but perhaps that’s exactly the kind of person whose story deserves to be told.

Microstory 397: Transhumanism II

Click here for a list of every step.
Transhumanism I

I know you love food, and don't want to be transhuman, but you’d get used to not having to crap once or twice a day. Everything you love about being a human is actually what’s limiting you. You have to sleep a third of the day away, which means you can’t be productive during that time. You have to eat tons of calories just to have the energy to keep breathing. You have to breathe, for that matter, which is already restrictive. You can’t spend significant amount of time underwater without wearing all this bulky equipment. You can’t take a walk in space without an even more involved process. There is so much you could do if you could enhance your experience as a human. Ocular implants would allow you to look up in the sky and watch exoplanets revolve around their respective host stars. You could watch molecules floating around. You could record memories for others to see. In the future, you might be able to integrate your senses with virtual worlds, mashing them up with the real world in what we call mixed reality. You could communicate across great distances instantly, and as if you were in the same room together. The world would be less dangerous for you since your body is tougher, heartier, and capable of repairing itself fast enough to keep up with any damage. Supplemented by artificial parts, your organs would last you indefinitely by being capable of self-rejuvenation. Nanites would flow through your bloodstream, monitoring medical issues and acting upon them, probably without you even knowing. Even further in the future, some of us will no longer be organic at all. Our consciousness will exist in an entirely new neural lattice. We’ll be able to travel lightyears away at relativistic speeds, knowing that we won’t starve to death, or get too old to enjoy what awaits us on the other side. When you no longer worry so much about death, you’ll start to be able to focus on long-term goals. Rather than just trying to get through the next few decades, our culture will try spread out to the stars, going boldly where no one has gone before. Transhumanism does not mean that you’re no longer human. That’s why we sometimes call it Humanity+. They say that the future is now, but it’s not; we have more work to do.

Transcendence

Microstory 396: Transhumanism I

Click here for a list of every step.
Self-actualization

I have a good reason for putting these last few after self-actualization, rather than before, where you might have expected them. The next two are so far beyond what we understand about the world that we can’t truly know how they’ll work in the end. The one after that isn’t really something I personally believe in, but it’s a theoretical step. The last one is something no human has ever witnessed, or really even accurately imagined, in the history of time. I keep bringing up transhumanism because it’s a very important subject to me. I want to discuss it in more depth, and I want to be able to use 793 words to do it. Transhumanism is all about living forever. Some say that this is not true immortality, and that it’s best described as the longevity escape velocity, but no. I have a bachelor’s degree in linguistics, and I’m here to tell you that immortality is a perfectly acceptable word to use in this scenario. Most words have more than one meaning, so stop being so narrow-minded and ignorant just because you’re trying to be trendy. Whew, that wasn’t directed at you, more at my futurist community. The fact of the matter is that there is no real reason for death, or most of the other restrictions we have so far experienced in this world. We don’t know what the mind is, or how to create or move it, but we will. One day, long after artificial intelligence has been created, you will be able to transfer your consciousness to a new substrate. Now, people don’t like this, and they think it goes against God’s will. That’s all well and good, but remember that I don’t worship your God, or any God, so don’t stop me from living as I choose. From my perspective, anyone who chooses a life that ends in death might as well be choosing to kill themselves. Remaining a standard human when more efficient, healthy, and lasting options are available is tantamount to suicide. I mean, you don’t reject antibiotics when you’re sick do you? That would be insane. I wouldn’t respect anyone who does that. I’ve also heard people worry that immortality would render life meaningless, but it won’t. Death does not give life meaning, what you do in life is what gives it meaning. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Transhumanism II

Microstory 394: Enthusiasm

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Honor

Enthusiasm. Wow, I bet you never thought I would be one to support the idea of enthusiasm. Unless you don’t know me, in which case you’re now like, “what is he goin’ on about?” Well, I’m very quiet. I only speak when I got something to say. Unfortunately, since I don’t have as much practice as others, I often say the wrong thing. I don’t have a filter, I just have a mute button. Be careful turning my volume up, because you may not like what you hear. Anyway. Enthusiasm. This is really just the word I chose as a kind of catch-all term for loving life. You can appreciate your work, and you can even have hobbies that you love, but that doesn’t mean you “love life”. The opposite of loving life, mind you, is not being suicidal. That’s a whole different situation there that I won’t get into. Though, I suppose at some point, if I didn’t already, I should have said that you shouldn’t be suicidal. Don’t kill yourself, get help. Loving life is a sort of feeling you have pretty much all the time. Of course you’ll still have problems and challenges, but if you’ve reached this point, it’s going to be a lot harder for people to get you down than it was before, or than it is for others. I would say that I’m an optimistic person, despite what facial expression you see me with (it’s called bitchy resting face, that’s just what I look like). As a futurist, I know both how bad the world is, and how bad it could become, but I also know how great we can be. Man’s fourth greatest day in history was when he looked down and saw clouds. His third greatest day was when he looked down and saw the Earth. His second greatest day was when he looked at a screen and saw the Universe. I’ve heard people lament that we were all born too late to explore the planet, and too soon to explore the stars, but this is not true. This is an exciting time. This is when it all changes. The internet, nanotechnology, longevity, and the intelligence singularity are all going to propel progress at a rate never achieved before. Man’s greatest day has been happening all along; as he looks forward and sees endless possibilities.

Self-actualization

Microstory 377: Life Extension

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Calm

I’ve told you that I am what we in the business call a transhumanist. I’m also a futurist, which means that I study future events in the same way that historians study the past. You can actually go to school to study this, which I would do if I had the money. For now, I just do research on my own. My macrofiction series The Advancement of Mateo Matic is basically a sensationalistic textbook from the future. On subject, most people don’t really understand what aging is. Don’t feel bad, I know slightly more than you, and scientists know less than you would think. It’s a big mystery, but what we do know is that there are these things called telomeres. Every time our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter. The diminishing returns from this process ultimately leads to the death of the organism. It’s like a tiny hourglass counting down to our demise. And if this exists, then it can be stopped. The hourglass can be turned over, almost literally. Science marches on, and while we’re working to cure disease, restore vitality, and protect people from danger, we’re also working on repairing genetic flaws. You’ve all been operating on the assumption that death is inevitable. You drink, smoke, and take unnecessary risks. You think you might as well do whatever you want, because you won’t have much time on this world anyway. At most, any death is stealing eighty or ninety years from an individual. I’m here to tell you that this is no longer true. Anyone born 1960 or later is estimated to be young enough to reach the longevity escape velocity. Of course, this only works if you’re also a healthy individual. If you’re sedentary, if you have a preexisting medical condition, or if your job puts you in a level of physical danger, then I can’t guarantee you’ll last. I suppose I can’t guarantee it either way, because of unexpected dangers, but you get what I mean. The reason I keep bringing this up is because I think it’s important that people understand their options, and this is my only medium. Now is the time to change your life if you’re not happy with it, because there’s a chance it goes on forever.

Imagination

Microstory 247: Perspective Twenty-Two

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Perspective Twenty-One

My husband is about to be fired. He’s been incompetently ignoring his responsibilities in an attempt to protect his friends’ interests. He’s been justifying these actions through a series of incoherent babblings. They finally figured him out. He’s not a bad person, just bad at his job. Serves him right. I’m leaving him. If you think that’s bad, you haven’t heard what he’s done at home. He’s wrecked two cars completely, and he’s been involved in any number of other incidents. Sometimes I think he’s come home from a hit and run and never tells anyone about it. There was one time when we lived up north that he slid on the ice and ran over a stop sign. No, not into it, over it. Then he just drove on someone’s lawn until ending up on the intersecting street where he kept going as if nothing had happened. My God, what if he hits a child? What if he has hit a child? He can’t cook worth a damn. You should see what the kitchen looks like after he tries to slap together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I’ll tell ya that much. He’s late for literally everything. He can’t remember anything I tell him, but he becomes so immersed in novel series and television franchises that he’s basically an anthropological historian of fiction. I don’t know why I married him in the first place. It’s not like we were dumb kids who thought we had everything figured out. And we certainly weren’t pushed to it by influential parents, or something. We were pretty old at the time, and we thought we were making the right decision. He probably still thinks so, but I’m done. He’s so nice to me, and treats me well, unlike his friend from work who is clearly a rapist and must be dealt with accordingly. I’ve always thought that I would rather be with someone dumb and nice than smart and mean, but this is just too much. I settled, thinking I was too old for something better. But ya know what? Forty is the new thirty, right? I mean, age is different than it used to be. People are living longer, and scientists are working on longevity, age regression, and even immortality. So that’s what’s happening, my life is starting right now. Chapter Two.

Perspective Twenty-Three

Microstory 100: Lifespan Tattoo

Ethan woke up with a slight itch on his arm. He lifted his sleeve and discovered a tattoo that he had no recollection of getting. He had only put his head down for twenty minutes for a nap, and he didn’t drink. There was no way he could get a fully healed tattoo and not remember it. It read Ethan Daniels 2002 - 2044, which was incredibly ominous. He rode his bike to various tattoo parlors in town but they all assured him that they would never ink a 13 year-old without his parents’ permission. He knew his parents would never agree to such a thing either, even if he asked. Eventually, he gave up on finding a logical reason for it, and instead focused on the warning. It was clear that someone was trying to tell him that he was going to die in 29 years. As he continued trying to go about his normal life, the message ate away at him. He took classes and did research online about precognition, ghosts, time travel, and anything else so much as mildly relevant to his situation. He found himself obsessed with the possibility of immortality. He ended up studying longevity in college and began a company of his own that put vast amounts of resources into solving death by attacking the problem from multiple angles. His death loomed, and he was running out of time. The tattoo didn’t show a date, so he had always assumed that it would happen on his birthday, July 10. On that day, despite objections from his team, he subverted safety protocols and uploaded his consciousness to an android body. It worked. The artificial neural network soaked up his brain patterns like a sponge. It was only then that he realized the truth. The tattoo was never predicting the year of his death; it was predicting the year of his birth.