Artificial Thought
Ten years into the evacuation, all that’s left should be an uninhabited planet. And, of course, the ruins of millions of commercial and residential buildings and sheer desolation. But the exodus stalled around the fifth year. And by the seventh year, repatriations were in full-swing. By some estimates, planet Earth was again host to almost 40 percent of the pre-departure population at the end of year seven. The original message—the one that urged all humankind to leave the planet—was given new energy after two full years of languishing. At the beginning of the tenth year, physicists revealed measurements that confirmed the original evacuation order. Today, well into the tenth year, we know an Earth-sized exoplanet, untethered to a star, is only weeks from slamming into our planet. We have been told our atmosphere, within eight days will begin experiencing massive pressure gradients that will effectively bend gravity. Roughly a week later, at the moment of impact, the rogue planet will tear into the only place we have ever settled, destroying ever single piece of evidence that humans were ever arrogant enough to think they were in control. Despite the unmistakable gloom facing us at this impossibly late date, we are doing all within our power to avoid a cataclysmic clash between two planets that would trigger an instantaneous massive and multiple species extinction events. Realistically, in the time we have before our defenses become completely ineffective, we have only six or eight days to complete the evacuation. And, realistically, we have the capability to evacuate only five percent of the people remaining at this moment. Their destination will be the brand-new Space Pavilion that was conceived forty years ago but was built only after we learned our fate was, in all probability, hopeless. The latest obstacle to survival is the predicted direction the incoming exoplanet will take after colliding with Earth; it will follow the Space Pavilion transports that will carry, at most, five percent of those of us left.
The woman who will command the Space Pavilion interplanetary migration, Sharmotticus Bledgeware, has the most spectacularly attractive face I have ever seen. Every inch of her face exudes beauty, including her piercing grey-blue-green eyes that, when she stares at a person, the target feels intense heat on his skin, wherever her gaze traveled over it. Her only other unusual feature is a nine-foot-long tail infested with yellow thermomagnetic scorpions. Calypso Kneeblood had seen, during a foray into Facebook, that description applied to her eyes. He and I, by the way, are detrimental twins. That is to say we both had an intimate relationship with Sharmotticus. The problem with that, aside from several rather sticky moral issues, can be attributed to her husband’s frequent and completely transparent dalliances with several of the women on the nuclear crew. He (Klagnav Bledgeware) regularly sauntered into the sauna with a naked nuclear physicist on each arm. I’ve wasted too much time. The air is heavy and gravity is spinning me in tornadic swirls. This could change with a simple replacement identity. I am looking for one, preferably in an olive and aubergine finish.
An Unmeasured Opinion
Perhaps the educational system (K-12+) in the United States needs a complete overhaul. It might begin with a comprehensive exploration of the relative importance of every subject and ending with the selection of topics, curricula, and a skeletal mandatory syllabus. Teachers would have considerable autonomy in determining and selecting optional elements of the syllabus. Included in the system would be at least one mandatory foreign-language; graduation would require demonstration of proficiency in the selected language. Other core courses would include English, world literature, mathematics (up to and including algebra, geometry, and business math), world history, local and state and US history, basic biology, basic geology, and “shop/home maintenance.” Students would receive instruction in (or, at least, self-educational exposure to): keeping accurate personal finance records; how to balance financial accounts; and budgeting. In addition to a broad and well-balanced course of study, students would be required to serve at least one year each in the military and the service corps. The first year (in the military) would be intended to instill a sense of (and obligation for) discipline, teamwork, and the importance of following the chain of command. The second year would continue the inculcation of a service ethos, but would be meant to serve as a means of building among the service members the characteristics of compassion, sympathy, and community cohesiveness. Rural kids would spend an intense three months in a dense urban area; kids in cities and towns would spend a like amount of time on farms and ranches and other rural places of business. Finally (perhaps), following on the example set by some schools in Japan, students would be taught to, and expected to, perform some of the duties of janitors, kitchen and cafeteria workers, and other blue collar occupations. These educational opportunities would be arranged to correspond to subjects taught in “shop.” I could go on and on. Of course, I have always said I could never be a teacher because patience has never been my strongest point. Something that should be taught at home (along with some others in my long list), too, is polite behavior; but it should be emphasized and reinforced in schools. Lapses in polite behavior should be punished in ways that will stick with the student; the student should be made to understand that future such behavior will not be tolerated.
The most significant overhaul in education should begin with prospective parents BEFORE conception. Before the decision to have (one or more) children, couples should be required to successfully complete a short certification course on parenting. Once the certificate is granted, the document can be used to justify a single birth (experience). Parents and children will then be evaluated annually or more frequently; either the family will make necessary corrections or will be reconfigured. I am not any more “okay” with children being permitted to be rude, insensitive, and otherwise obnoxious than I am with the same behaviors with parents. I am not certain how I feel about corporal punishment, but I think if it is absolutely needed it should never be so physically or verbally violent that either of the parties to the interaction could be injured.
Now, before anyone adopts my thinking on education, I want to encourage actual research into the effective of my approaches and whether any unwelcome and unexpected consequence could be triggered by them. If so, I would hope the researchers would explore and evaluate other options until safe and workable methods are available to replace the unsatisfactory ones.
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Birthday Cluster
Today is my niece’s birthday…just two days after mine. No matter how hard she tries, though, she will remain younger than I am from here on. Always 24 years younger, up until the point when I stop having birthdays. Several others have birthdays in October. I do not understand how that can be. We’re different people…with the same birthdays?! How can that be? I would explain, but I have people to be and jailers to flee; I cannot be captured, is that so hard to see? Yep, I’m behaving like an eight year old kid.
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