Mail From The Future

PerfectWorld story (The NOW)

I have to tell you about something incredibly BIZARRE.

The other day I received a letter. Well, not received as much as discovered it on my desk. The funny thing is, I don't remember picking it up from the mail center, and my roommate swears he didn't put it there.

It opened in an unusual way, too. I couldn't find any flaps or glued edges, and the paper was too tough to tear. It kept slipping out from under the cutting edge of my scissors, too. But looking closely I could see tiny words printed at the top which read, "Glide finger along edge."

A little wary of paper cuts, I followed the instructions carefully, and no sooner did my finger finish its path than the envelope slipped out of my hands and landed on the desk-- as a sheet of paper! All signs of the envelope were gone.

Huh! Technology, eh? It started in the 70's for me with the microwave-- a box that's cool when you put food in and cool when you take food out 3 minutes later, but the food is SIZZLING! I am constantly amazed at what the human mind thinks to invent. I began to read the neatly printed page.

"Dear Bruce,

I like technology too!.."

I stopped. Did this letter just begin with a comment on my thought? How odd! I continued.

"Yes it did. And it's not odd, since you are not holding a letter per se, but a piece of very advanced technology..."

I dropped the page on my desk, startled. WHAT was going on here? It's like the letter was reading my mind! I looked at it, askew on my desktop. It seemed normal-- a piece of unlined paper, about 5x7. Who sent me this? I didn't think to find a return address on the now missing envelope, so I hadn't a clue. Without touching the page, I read the next line and my jaw dro... well you know what it did.

"Reading your mind? Not exactly. Truth be told, I don't know how it does what it does any more than you know how that microwave heats your food..."

Hmph! I know how a microwave works! The magnetron produces a vigorous wave energy that bounces around inside the metal cabinet and excites water molecules in the food. If it doesn't contain water, it doesn't get hot. I resent that implication!

"Sorry. Don't get upset... let's move on. The point is, I wanted to send a thank you letter to the guy who designed the best social system ever, and as a citizen of that time I have to say, ruddy insightful of you, Bruce!"

My mind was reeling with this information! I am a science fiction buff and reading new ideas on paper usually don't startle me. However, this interactive mail was a new take on science, a blending of new and old technology-- an email which is delivered to your desk in letter form and updates with no apparent input-- now THAT is a cool idea!

But what REALLY got me was just dawning on me now... and washed a cold chill through me to the core. Am I actually talking to the FUTURE? To a live person? If I am... how cool is that? And most importantly...

"Sorry. I can't remember back two hundred years. I don't know who won the 1980 Super Bowl. Besides, you know about paradox-- telling you anything would change the future."

Dang. A great opportunity to get rich, wasted.

Wait. TWO CENTURIES? How is this even possible? And who am I even talking to?

"Your great-great-great-great-great-great grandson. Your daughter was my great-great-great-great-great grandmother. I met her when I was very young and she was very old. Call me Broose."

BROOSE? Really? That's how my name is spelled in two hundred years?

Hang on-- why am I focussing on the inane? I need to know how it all turns out!

"It turns out very, very well. Most of your ideas have come to pass-- we are a merit-based society now, without homelessness or hunger or untreated illness. Many occupations of your time are gone now, as the milkman is to you-- salesmen, advertisers, cashiers, meter readers, security guards, politicians, ticket takers, waiters, maids, spin doctors, Generals-- the list is enormous, quite frankly. Most people only work about one day a week, unless they are involved in a project. Much of their free time is spent in creative endeavors, recreation and entertainment.

"Education is tailor-made to the talents of the individual and continues lifelong. Children are still our most precious resource, but now we take much better care of them. Parents are important but have lots of help.

"Billboards are gone, as is most signage. Pollution is gone, landfills are almost gone and urban blight has largely disappeared. Population has dropped through attrition to about a billion and is holding steady. We are much more the race of humans now-- every stranger is a family member. War hasn't existed anywhere for 40 years.

"Technology is advancing in leaps. Most jobs that are necessary and yet despised are done by mindless and obedient robotic machines. Power is plentiful and clean, coming from floating wind farms in the gulf stream. Airships have given way to maglev tubes shooting people across the globe at speeds of 8000 miles an hour. Local travel is accomplished in a vast network of peoplemover trains, many of which are subterranean. Light electric cars speed people on the few surface streets automatically by destination. Clever new self-propelled devices use a fraction of the energy old bicycles used to.

"Religion exists but is more a curiosity and a way to link to the past. Logical thinking is the new religion and encourages divergent studies. Sexual repression is gone in the wake of your drive to design society around the natural human condition, and weekly congress is encouraged for all. Antique age limitations have been replaced with awareness metering, dissolving sexual frustration. Disease and unwanted pregnancy have been wiped out.

"Politics has been abandoned as a determinant for social change. Politicians were elected to be representatives for the people, bringing their vote and their vote only to the congress. When that stopped happening we realized that, thanks to computers and the web, EVERY voice can now be heard individually, and each can join the forum of debate to drive social change, and so the job of politician disappeared. Social debate has replaced politics, and quite efficiently at that.

"Competition was determined to be the single worst driving mechanism for moving a society forward. It worked all right, and society advanced at a tremendous rate during that time, it but also caused an equal slide backwards in the area of human relations, an area determined to be one of the most necessary for any advanced people.

"Greed became unnecessary as the reasons for greed disappeared. Common sense reigns supreme now, and one-upsmanship is considered bad form. There is no longer a consumption mentality--people's needs are more direct, though most of the great toys still thrive-- apparently a greater sentience comes with a greater love of the simple pleasures.

"Just as you predicted, there are a wide variety of lifestyles, each available to anyone at any time. There is no 'normal'; whatever a person finds intriguing or titillating is accepted. Judgement in that regard is considered a character flaw.

I stopped reading the page (which by the way, had no bottom-- the words kept scrolling up as I read, with no control mechanism, as if it were keeping my place for me) and took a deep breath. I was quivering a little. Put yourself in my shoes-- can you imagine carrying on a conversation with someone in the far future? Especially one who is acknowledging your work as essential to the future? Truly, the whole situation would be similar to getting DaVinci on the phone, don't you think?

But more importantly, my concept took! The world is now patterned after my writings! Could I be more proud? I felt like the father of a newborn! But boy, did I have questions. So I thought a question, and looked at the page for answers.

Are there jails? In large letters,

"No."

Rich people?

"No."

Money?

"No."

Hookers?

"No."

Drug addicts?

"No."

Murderers?

"No."

Raves?

"Hell, yes!"

Space flight?

"YES."

Cloning?

"Rare, but yes."

Exorcisms?

"Umm... no! Duh!"

People still say 'duh'?

"Translation matrix, sorry. The word I used was 'pasticated'. A merge of 'past' and 'eradicated'."

Oh, okay. How about rape?

"No. And eww."

Agreed. Okay, one last question.

I paused. This one was a biggie. I'm clear on what our society looks like today. I also have a good picture of what the end product should look like. The one thing I can't figure out yet is how to transition between the two.

You see, the biggest stumbling block in having this Perfect World Theory come to fruition are the people who feel they would be losing out in the new world. Who exactly would be losing out? Truthfully, nobody. Since the plan is 200 years long, nobody who is here when it starts will live to see it completed, so all of those who have something to lose would actually still have their thing, right up until the day they die.

But here's the short list of the people who THINK they have something to lose in the Perfect World:

The rich.

The evil.

The powerful.

The selfish.

The far right.

The greedy.

The religious fundamentalists.

Please note that, simply because they are in the same list, individuals in one group may very well have nothing to do with those in another-- they simply have different reasons for not wanting this change to occur. So my last question is...

How did the transition occur?

"Simple. You just... all you did was... do you hear that? Can you hear that noise?"

What noise? Tell me... I just WHAT? All I did was WHAT?

"That noise! Damn technology, that buzzing is driving me crazy! Make it stop!"

What buzzing? HOW DID I MAKE THE TRANSITION? I HAVE to know!

"You can't hear it? I can't think! It's going BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ"

BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZZZ BUZ--

Goddamn alarm clock.

It was just a dream.

copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman