Here’s my fantasy, of the moment…

Clearly, we aren’t very good at organizing our affairs so that the maximum amount of people enjoy the best possible life.

Perhaps it’s time to redirect our efforts away from Utopian political projects (or really, any political project) and towards a universal command and control matrix.

In Harry Bates‘ “Farewell to the Master” a robot, called Gnut, arrives with its human servant to offer humanity some new options.

The filmed version of this story made the choice quite clear: you (humanity) have nuclear weapons and nascent space flight, this makes you a potential future problem for the rest of us. So, either calm down and straighten up or we’ll destroy you – a sort of preemptive interstellar unilateralism.

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As far as I know, there aren’t any extraterrestrials hovering about, waiting to give us valuable lessons backed up with a friendly smile and the threat of annihilation (which, as mind focusing incentives go, surely has a lot going for it).

So it’s up to us.

Perhaps a global collaborative effort to fashion strong artificial intelligence is in order. I suggest the creation of a new United Nations office: the International Artificial Intelligence Perfection Agency or IAIPA.

IAIPA’s mission would be to shepherd our replacements (at the managerial level) into existence.

Even if this proved to be a failure (and although this is a fantasy, making the impossible possible, I suspect it would), perhaps new methods of global cooperation would result.

I’ve decided that I’m quite thoroughly done with work, at least as it’s currently structured.

The early rising, the commuting, the forced socializing, the near constant worries about job longevity…it has all become a bit too much.

Capitalism agonistes.

Not being wealthy – or the relative of a wealthy person – this weariness puts me in a rough spot: I must work to live but working makes living far less enjoyable.

It’s at times like these that having the tool making, problem solving brain of a talking monkey (instead of, say, a Praying Mantis mind, with its singular concerns) proves to be an advantage.

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The type of mind evolution equipped us with is an important consideration; both because of its problem solving capacity and its emotional needs which form the basis of my get rich (eventually) scheme.

Some, such as American “self-help” maestro Wayne Dyer have traveled the royal road from flat broke to Ferrari dealership visitor by telling people able to write hefty checks, relentlessly, that nearly all their problems exist solely within their heads. Change your thoughts and the rest will follow.

As cause and effect theories go, this one’s fairly limited and falls rather short of the dependent origination ideas Siddartha chatted about quite some time ago (for example, I imagine it would be easy to find an Iraqi or two who might blame American ordinance for their woes and not a lack of happy thoughts).

Still, when it comes to feeding the mind (and making a handsome profit) adherence to reality is a secondary consideration at best. This is the secret of George, “The Power of Nightmares” Bush’s political success in the United States.

As attractive as the self-help guru route is, it’s not for me. Standing on a stage for hours with a wireless headset mic roughly mixing Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity (Islam is always left out of the party) in a tongue blender and producing a philosophical pastiche would annoy.

Also, it’s not nearly ambitious enough.

No, the real money is in religion. The most obvious choice is evangelical Xtian huckster – dire warnings of eternal damnation unless my audience repents and constant requests for “financial gifts to help this ministry move forward.”

Yes, that’s the most obvious choice but not the one I’m fond of.

What I want to do is start an entirely new religion, one based upon an idea so absurd and outrageous it’s bound to attract followers simply through sheer audacity.

My new religion is Klaatuianism.

According to Klaatuianists (a group whose membership consists, at the moment, of just me – but our membership and marketing people – by which I also mean me – are hopeful for explosive growth) the 1951 movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is not merely an important early sci fi film based upon Harry Bates’ story “Farewell to the Master” but a fictionalized version of actual events (what Americans used to call a docu-drama) that have been covered up by the CIA, NSA, MI6, train spotters and various other shadowy groups.

The Klaatuian inner council – again, just me…for now – understand the film’s hidden meanings and critical importance to life’s profound mysteries.

These mysteries will be revealed – for a fee, of course – to seekers looking to unlock the “Klaatu Within” (catchy slogan).

…

Already I’m picturing myself behind the wheel of a new Ferrari.

Recently, for some unknown reason, I’ve been thinking about the ideal, long haul computer.

What would it be like?

It would be very different from the computers we use – which, cast adrift from the power, contextual and semantic life support systems of our civilization, would be pointless (imagine you’re transported to the 14th century, or survive some future catastrophe, with your laptop intact – while the battery held out it’d be a curiosity – after the battery died it’d be junk – connectivity makes our logic devices valuable).

So a perfect computer would be able to connect to networks and inter networks, of course, but it would also have other capabilities that made it self sufficient, a stand alone resource.

The perfect computer (or maybe, instead of writing “perfect” I should write “useful anywhere and everywhere”) would have the following characteristics:

• Astoundingly durable – so mind bogglingly durable you could toss it over the side of the Grand Canyon, climb down after it, and boot the tough little bastard up.

• Self powered

• Store all human knowledge and media (or, a reasonable amount of it) so you could look up how to do anything, watch movies, listen to music and read any one of millions of books.

• Incorporate sensors that allowed it to determine environmental conditions, detect toxins, perform radar sweeps and just generally be able to interact with the real world, crunch data and produce information based upon what’s going on in 3D.

• Employ both voice and touch interfaces (not exclusively, there’s still room for a keyboard)

• Employ some level of what’s called artificial intelligence

• Be able to perform instantaneous language trasnslation (perhaps through an earpiece transmission so my lack of fluency in, say, Farsi, is hidden).

Of course, a universally useful robot would have all of the above but also be mobile and capable of lending a hand (enforcement of Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics would be good too).