3351 AD: Reporting Back From Paradise

I had a dream not so long ago that may have been a message from the future. The memory of this dream is kinda fuzzy, so I decided to capture the essence in this little interview I had with an Earthling from the year 3351 AD, a world without money or the need to work for a living.

_{source: Pixabay}

"No, no, of course I don't mind! You go right ahead and eat all the "chocolate surprises" you want; there's plenty more where that came from son!"

I kept being amazed by the fact this man kept calling me "son". Me. A 50 year old man with almost no hair left on his head, being called "son" by this young lad that looked like he just left college... I also kept forgetting that this "lad" was actually 70 years my senior: born in 3231, this 120 year old man kept his youth thanks to enormous developments in medicine.

Or should I say: developments against medicine? The old young man explained just a few minutes earlier that scientists came to the realization that achieving balance in body, mind and spirit was the way to go forward. This led to a lot of resistance by the established western medicine, or "Big Pharma" who were demonized in my time for getting rich of selling medicine to cure the diseases they themselves caused.

"Just look at your world now son, back there in 2018 or there-about; how much of the work that's done in your time has to do with the calculation and distribution of money? How much, what percentage of work is wasted by administration, bookkeeping, speculation, insurances, banking... In this era, thankfully, we figured it out. Just letting go of this ridiculous addiction to competition, ownership and trade, negates all necessity for all those jobs, and also jobs to do with the legality of all those 'ownerships'. How we could have been fooled by this notion that we could all privately own a little piece of the planet we all share... it's beyond me."

_{source: PixabayCan we even imagine a world without this?}

My mouth was still full of the handful of "chocolate surprises" I scooped up seconds ago, but my jaws refused to process them any further. Everything stopped inside my head for a fraction of a second that seemed an eternity. What percentage... Wow. I was hit by an unsettling realization, namely that we, in my time, waste the majority of our efforts in a stupid game that ultimately boils down to a race without purpose to a sudden dead end. Here, in the year 3351, I was hit hard also by the fact that "time" is the only real scarce commodity on this four-dimensional plane of existence. And for 99% of us that's the only thing we have to trade, so we sell it to the highest bidder...

The 120 year old boy cut the eternity short and continued:

"'Economy' isn't even a science anymore. We teach our children about it in history class, because it's reign was long lasting and defined our mindset and behavior for such a long time, and we almost took a wrong turn on many occasions... But I must say, it's really hard to find any source materials from your era, son. Because of your blind faith in eternal economic growth, everything produced back then was deliberately made to not last long. Growth demands the constant overproduction of goods nobody needs and demands that we keep buying them at an ever increasing rate. Planned obsolescence wasn't a conspiracy theory son, it was essential to the economy of your flawed material mindset."

Should I be insulted? Not only did he keep calling me "son", but... No. He is right of course. Even I, the stupid little boy from way back in the year 2018, know that even in my time we are capable of producing razor-blades that last a lifetime by applying a thin diamond layer over the sharp edge. But we keep making the kind we throw away. I remember a discussion between the inventor of the crown cork, William Painter and one of his employees, mr. King C. Gillette, who would become the inventor of the throw-away-razor-blades we pollute the earth with:

_{source: Wikimedia CommonsWilliam Painter - inventor of the crown cork and mentor of King C. Gillette}

[‘King, you are always thinking about inventions – always trying to invent something worth while. Why don’t you invent something like the Crown Cork which, when once used, is thrown away, so that the public has to keep on coming back for more until the end of the chapter? For every new customer you get, you lay a permanent foundation for profit’ – William Painter (King Gillette boss at the Baltimore Seal Co)] That sounds easy, Mr Painter, but how many things are there that everybody uses like corks and pins and needles? [‘You don’t know, King. I don’t know. Nobody knows. You may not strike anything like the cork. However, it certainly will do no harm to think about it.’ – William Painter]
_{source: quoteswise.com}

Future-boy of more-than-a-century was on a rant, so I had no time to finish my thoughts on crowns, King and razor blades... And was it my imagination or did he suddenly look even younger than he did a second ago..?

"I myself work 10 days per month, but that's just because I want to; it's not mandatory, but more than 90% of the world's population voluntarily performs tasks that are deemed essential to our continued collective happiness. And there's just not that much real labor left to be done by humans; almost everything is automated by a smart network of real world GPS and RFID networks linked to decentralized public blockchain tokens. This was the ultimate step towards the liberation of mankind from his Earthly possessions: what you called 'economy' is left to several AI, plural, which operate completely outside our four-dimensional real world. No man or woman owns anything as we all realize that we only have a limited time with the 'stuff' in this reality anyway."

"But... What do you mean, this reality?" The urgency with which I blurted out that question must have taken future-kid aback for a second, because for the first time he had a slightly puzzled look on his insultingly young face. He pointed at the now empty bowl of "chocolate surprises", leaned forward and spoke in a soft menacing voice:

"You'll see... You'll see soon enough..."

Just before future-chucky burst out in an evil laugh, I woke up and sat straight up in my bed. I tried to look at the clock but didn't register the time, because my attention was immediately focused on the title of the magazine-article that lay next to it: "The future of war"... I was immediately back on Earth, May 25th, 2018 and suddenly the year 3351 AD seemed a lifetime ago...

This was something different for me; I hope, dear readers, that I didn't completely waste your time with this experiment :-) A lot of this little story is based on the ideas I have come to embrace from a lot of different thinkers, writers, moviemakers and other artists, also here on Steemit. A very good summary of all of that can be seen in this short video about "paradism":

I am, of course eager to hear what your ideal future for mankind looks like. I know it may seem a useless effort to even begin to formulate a vision for the ultra long term, but it really isn't. Every change, every invention has begun as an idea in the heads of regular people like you and me. So I encourage you to share your future visions and dreams in the comments section and try to think about times we ourselves may never experience, but are given form by our thoughts today. Thanks!

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