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Authors: Robert A. Wilson
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equals zero” (1 + 1 = 0).
The primates were so dumb they didn’t realize that one plus one equals two (1 + 1 = 2) and one murder plus one murder equals two murders, one crime plus one crime equals two crimes, etc.
They did not understand
causality
at all.
The few primates who did understand causality slightly called it
karma.
They said all sorts of foolish things about it.
They didn’t even know enough mathematics to describe quantum probability waves. They said, in crude hominid metaphor, that bad karma led to
“bad vibes.”
LANDSLIDE
Bryce S. DeWitt states: “The Copenhagen view promotes the impression that the collapse of the state vector, and even the state vector itself, is all in the mind.” … One fact which seems to emerge from the present discussions of the nature of consciousness is that it is nonlocal
(i.e.
, not confined to a certain region of space-time)….
—L AWRENCE BEYNAM ,
Future Science
Furbish Lousewart V was elected President of the United States in 1980 with the greatest landslide since Roosevelt II buried poor Alf Landon alive in 1936. The People’s Ecology Party also gained control of both the House andthe Senate and twenty-three governorships out of the fifty-one.
The PEP platform, a weird mixture of tangled religiosity and New Left antirationalism, became official policy.
The New Order began mildly—at least by comparison with what was to follow—and the major changes of the first administration consisted only of cutting the NASA budget to zilch; banning McDonald’s hamburger shops (which resulted in underground “Steakeasies,” where you gave the right password and got a Big Mac for $7); outlawing tobacco (a “lid” of Chesterfields was soon selling for $50 to $75 coast to coast); appointing three antitechnology fanatics to the first three vacancies in the Supreme Court; forbidding the teaching of Logical Positivism in colleges; throwing everybody off welfare (the streets were soon full of crippled and schizophrenic beggars, some of whom also slept there or even starved there on occasion, creating that Third World look which PEP regulars regarded as “spiritual”); cutting the use of electricity by 50 percent, gas by 70 percent, and atomic energy by 97 percent, thereby causing millions to freeze to death and millions more to join the army of unemployed beggars on the streets; beginning all Cabinet meetings with hatha yoga sessions and Krishna chanting; serializing the collected works of Ralph Nader in the official Party newspaper,
Doom;
encouraging Party members to beat up mathematicians, geologists, science-fiction fans, and other “non-ec” types (“non-ec” types were those either known to be disloyal to the Party or suspected of such disloyalty); encouraging the reemergence of cottage industry by rigidly repressing every more advanced kind of industry; introducing Zen meditation to grammar schools; and most important of all, blaming the host of new and tragic problems that resulted from government policies on an alleged conspiracy of “scientists” and instituting a nationwide witchhunt to round up the members of this conspiracy for incarceration in reeducation centers.
The Revolution of Lowered Expectations had triumphed. By 1984 nobody in the country had any higher expectations than a feudal serf.
Actually, the apotheosis of Furbish Lousewart V had been engineered by the same group of alpha males who had been promoting the Revolution of Lowered Expectations all along.
These were very cunning old primates in several of the most skillful predator bands on Terra. Because of the stealth and skill of these bands—made up of successful predator families that had been intermarrying for several generations—they collectively owned 99.4 percent of all the territory and resources of Unistat.
They only owned about 40 percent of the rest of Terra, and that seriously annoyed them.
The Revolution of Rising Expectations annoyed them even more, because it led many
The primates were so dumb they didn’t realize that one plus one equals two (1 + 1 = 2) and one murder plus one murder equals two murders, one crime plus one crime equals two crimes, etc.
They did not understand
causality
at all.
The few primates who did understand causality slightly called it
karma.
They said all sorts of foolish things about it.
They didn’t even know enough mathematics to describe quantum probability waves. They said, in crude hominid metaphor, that bad karma led to
“bad vibes.”
LANDSLIDE
Bryce S. DeWitt states: “The Copenhagen view promotes the impression that the collapse of the state vector, and even the state vector itself, is all in the mind.” … One fact which seems to emerge from the present discussions of the nature of consciousness is that it is nonlocal
(i.e.
, not confined to a certain region of space-time)….
—L AWRENCE BEYNAM ,
Future Science
Furbish Lousewart V was elected President of the United States in 1980 with the greatest landslide since Roosevelt II buried poor Alf Landon alive in 1936. The People’s Ecology Party also gained control of both the House andthe Senate and twenty-three governorships out of the fifty-one.
The PEP platform, a weird mixture of tangled religiosity and New Left antirationalism, became official policy.
The New Order began mildly—at least by comparison with what was to follow—and the major changes of the first administration consisted only of cutting the NASA budget to zilch; banning McDonald’s hamburger shops (which resulted in underground “Steakeasies,” where you gave the right password and got a Big Mac for $7); outlawing tobacco (a “lid” of Chesterfields was soon selling for $50 to $75 coast to coast); appointing three antitechnology fanatics to the first three vacancies in the Supreme Court; forbidding the teaching of Logical Positivism in colleges; throwing everybody off welfare (the streets were soon full of crippled and schizophrenic beggars, some of whom also slept there or even starved there on occasion, creating that Third World look which PEP regulars regarded as “spiritual”); cutting the use of electricity by 50 percent, gas by 70 percent, and atomic energy by 97 percent, thereby causing millions to freeze to death and millions more to join the army of unemployed beggars on the streets; beginning all Cabinet meetings with hatha yoga sessions and Krishna chanting; serializing the collected works of Ralph Nader in the official Party newspaper,
Doom;
encouraging Party members to beat up mathematicians, geologists, science-fiction fans, and other “non-ec” types (“non-ec” types were those either known to be disloyal to the Party or suspected of such disloyalty); encouraging the reemergence of cottage industry by rigidly repressing every more advanced kind of industry; introducing Zen meditation to grammar schools; and most important of all, blaming the host of new and tragic problems that resulted from government policies on an alleged conspiracy of “scientists” and instituting a nationwide witchhunt to round up the members of this conspiracy for incarceration in reeducation centers.
The Revolution of Lowered Expectations had triumphed. By 1984 nobody in the country had any higher expectations than a feudal serf.
Actually, the apotheosis of Furbish Lousewart V had been engineered by the same group of alpha males who had been promoting the Revolution of Lowered Expectations all along.
These were very cunning old primates in several of the most skillful predator bands on Terra. Because of the stealth and skill of these bands—made up of successful predator families that had been intermarrying for several generations—they collectively owned 99.4 percent of all the territory and resources of Unistat.
They only owned about 40 percent of the rest of Terra, and that seriously annoyed them.
The Revolution of Rising Expectations annoyed them even more, because it led many
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