Seq E: Black Tortoise > Telepathy
11:11, December 21, 2012 (Time Untime)
(Metafictional omniscient narrator:) Woke up (remembering the Luiseño rule that "no one must eat immediately after rising. They must wait so long that their spirit may return to them from sleep.") dreaming I was a butterfly; bit of confusion sorting out whose dream it was. This morning, the (reality simulated?) mountain air is refreshing (and I always look forward to the qat [Catha adulis; Erowid: Ethiopian euphoriant and Schedule 1 stimulant; 3-5 m, leaves chewed in quids, discovered by goats ["frisky"]; active ingredient: cathinone; "peak plasma in about two hours"]); one awakens every night [day too hot for humans] glad to be E[auth.: Enriched]-Class. The "Sweet Perfection" program (code named "Airtight") is coming along well; based on analysis by a domesticated ("Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors." - Seneca) supercomputer of all socio-economic-environmental-resource factors, it will be unassailable (as if resistance would matter). Of course the program is airtight - from the name (translatable in any language and with lower brain appeal), which has been inserted into the RUMIs (Retroactive Universal Meme Implants ["Relax, you have no past!" {consider the implications for bad action, guilt, remorse, retribution, etc.}]), to the rollout, handled by the Bureau of Cultural Manipulation (members of the S[Suggestible = the Masses {delivered, finally; and note Normativism}]-Class know that manipulation is for their own good as anodyne/nepenthe to the pain of thinking [which the Brain Surgeon General's Warning has now indelibly burned {sorry} into their brains as causing risk of brainsmoke {daydreaming: encouraged, along with Tranquilluset b.i.d.}, acute brainfire {critical thinking: fine or imprisonment} or life-threatening cortex charring {creative thinking: capitally punished when detected by SEBs (Selective Enforcement Brainscans), which, since everybody does, provides an excuse for random, at-will culling of both M(Mesomodal)- and F(Flammable [= intellectual {threatening this cohort with personal, self-actual hellfire (in which, after the SETV [Sensory Enhanced - no imagination required] executions, they now believe quite without question) works like a charm}])-Class populations (R[Randroid {revisit patron Saint Ayn in e*sequitur 38 and other psychosociopaths with malfunctioning amygdalas, giving special poignancy to the term "pea-brain"}, who are ruled by their hindbrains and thus unaffected by cerebral interventions]-Class leetz alone exempt and thus longevivified [and thus nicknamed tRannies {Respect, transgendren} in recognition of their transhumanity]), depending on the level of "thought exposure"}]), to the implementation, handled by the Bureau of Conformative Alignment (neither didacts nor didactees, of course, are aware of the existence of this department) and the campaign, run by the Bureau of Unfulfillable Wishes - so brilliant to connect S-Class synaptic associations with failure as pressure-relieving. Sweet Perfection, which of course narrowly passed (over the objections of the Rs since it would not statistically assure pandemic pain or RMPR [Rapid Massive Population Reduction]), promises to provide the grail of stability: Expecting highly entertaining unintended consequences (like humorist/trickster/psychopomp [see*sequitur 61] Eshu and de dicto dourist Edmund "Eddie No Dice" Burke), we say Hail, Placid Millennium!
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This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System. We now return to our regularly scheduled Programming.*
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In Western terms, the subrealms of
e*sequitur 93: Science Fiction (Hugos: list; Nebulas: list; long list)
(Margaret Atwood's [whose The Handmaid's Tale touches dystopia, sumptuary laws and many other topics addressed in e*sequiturs] underpresence in top-of-mind lists demonstrates the androcentricity of the culture as well as being a cautionary tale of "best" v. "best known") might expansively be said to include technography (tech-fi [technology]; example: Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune of Ga 4.570001865, in which three Americans [and two dogs] use a Columbiad [cannon] in Florida to launch themselves in a projectile [capsule] to the Moon, predating the actual event by about a century; Verne ranks third in books translated); itskepsigraphy (IT-fi [computing]; see Seq 0; examples: I, Robot; 2001 and Dick), onanography (fant-fi [fantasy]) and sans-tete-i-graphy (end-fi [millennial]; example: Neville Shute's sober On the Beach of Ga 4.570001957). Many are cataclysmographic (cat-fi) (one reason, perhaps why the genre is condescendingly, hierarchically disdained as nonliterary [flit-fi], despite commendation by adherents as a "literature of ideas" [and see Seq 8]).
Generally, simply and honestly, science fiction might be better defined as the "literature of time (including the future)" (so temp-lit, futurigraphy or fu-fi), elaborating social system implementations in socio-futuro-fictigraphy (soc[pronounce sohsh]-fi; examples: The Time Machine [set in Ga 4.570802701], Brave New World, the aforementioned A Clockwork Orange [see*sequitur 26] and Bellamy's unacceptably unknown Looking Backward 2000-1887, a best-selling vision of American utopian society [in which, previously, people
"believed... that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind together... the exact reverse of what seems to us self-evident... that the antisocial qualities of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesive force of society...."
and
"[A] society which was founded on the pseudo-self-interest of selfishness... has been replaced by... the true self-interest of a rational unselfishness.... [I]t was for the first time possible to see what unperverted human nature really was like.... The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis."
]); extrapolating the potential outcomes of current trends (C[onsequence]-fi; examples: 1984 and Kornbluth's harshly titled "The Marching Morons" [illustrating regressive evolutionary theories where the "fittest" {and most populous} are non-intellectually defined {as even less than mediocre (cf. e*sequitur 68); this may, on average, be true, posing a HUGE problem for progressive social and political scientists}, The Problem is a resented "gift" from past generations and Hitler's fake postcards from paradise are sent to the gullible masses {dysgenic offspring}]); or envisioning the impact of new developments (including the typically pessimistic "contact with extraterrestrial species of superior intelligence" subgenre [xenography {ET-fi; aliens; note Robert Freitas' "Xenopsychology" (and e*sequitur 81); abbreviated excerpt of elements of alien and human nature:
Alien [Wilson's ants?]: Antennal rites, body licking, cannibalism, caste laws, drone control, eschatology, euthanasia, larval care, metamorphosis rites, mutual regurgitation, nursing castes, nutrient eggs, queen obeisance, soldier castes
Human: Sports, bodily adornment, dancing, dream interpretation, education, firemaking, folklore, funeral rites, games, joking, kin groups, language, law, magic, medicine, penal sanctions, personal names, population policy [auth: and war]
; example: Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land of Ga 4.570001961}]). The contingent (humans always programmatically fantasising an escape) appeal of technological mayhem caused by man and his tools in a world in which jongleurs de données (data-djinn) achieve gobsmacking wealth is understandable. Exemplifying the natural impuissance for which sci-fi typically creates prosthetic compensation (including clairaudience, clairsentience, et al.), there is the visionary
e*sequitur 94: Marshall McLuhan,
who in Ga 4.570001967 proclaimed, "electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system...." in The Medium is the Massage, a work of Social Science Prognostication (sci-prog?) wrapping its message of certain mass unemployment and the technological Disintermediation of Nearly Everyone (the Big Dis [see*sequitur 39]) in a hip, monochromatic graphic package. Sci-fi thrives on Doomsday (see Seq F), biomorphs, brain implants and superceuticals. And violence (apparently it's unimaginable that authors shed this tripish trope, the inclusion of which is no doubt scientifically shown to maximise monetisation given its titillating surrogacy for actual bloody murder and rape [as favoured by human piranhas, and as noted in e*sequitur 18]).
In re ET-fi: One suspects the use of random plot generators, resulting in formula fiction (this one by Philip Fotheringham autogenerates with no input permitted), although these might produce cadavre exquis or chatbot results. One does, however obtain a short list of future occupations: Seems there will be work for telepaths (who knew?) (see psionics and other psychic pseudosciences [e.g., the Hollow Earth {here a veritable piñata of speculations} {and William Emerson's The Smoky God (whereat the "Inner Continent," "the navel of the earth," 27-30+ metre elephants, and 4-5 metre Methuselahan denizens)}; and here's another, just in time to help the reder achieve materialist dreams:
... the principal significators for wealth in the nativity are:
1. the sign on the 2nd house cusp and its ruler;
2. the ruler of any intercepted sign in the 2nd;
3. the Part of Fortune and its dispositor;
4. Jupiter, a general significator for wealth;
5. Any planets located in...
{you get the idea}; astrology a hocusful of pocus {here a trove, with many aggregated databits of actual interest, including Uluru}, such as the moiety of the orb; limits of completion; heliacal emergence; perfection {again, recalling Seq 2}; damaging and partile aspects; the Lord of the triplicity of the Moon; inconjunct planets; and, lo and behold, Plotinus {see*sequitur 26} babbling about "such and such" another planet; and the cosmic cross {and note that astrorubes and their predators freely roam the streets}]), genetic engineers and xenobotanists (assuming xenobiologists, consider parahumans and other therianthropes [in e*sequitur 90]). Such optimism (that there will be meaningful activities in the future [will future reders forgive?]) is disputed by technological determinists, but no matter - they're abstract artists, anyway.
e*sequitur 95: Cryptozoa
("cryptids," including the Ahool [a megabat or possibly flying primate; see Seq 4], the Ropen [for snooty pedigrists who'll want to check lineage in the Cryptozoic Social Register {an Aryan Ariosophic interstellar Theozoan can never be too careful}, this is the Ropen of the bioluminescent {not hoi polloi sonoluminescent or infra dig shrimpoluminescent!} Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin talkin' Ropens] and the Bloop) figure into the realm of Fantasy Fiction. These may exist in nested clades (humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons in the superfamily Hominoides); the living fossils among them may have survived extinction events (and note the Elvis and Zombie taxa). Among this group (the Lazarus taxon) are found the terror skink (Phoboscincus boucourti) and the evolutionarily conservative coelacanth (since Ga 4.160000000!; Chill, execs! Not C-E-O-lacanth [although this fish may dwell in the Hadal or Hadopelagic Zone, and you can probably infer what that means]), thought to be extinct in about Ga 4.490000000 found in Ga 4.570001938. Don't count on this happening to the delicate H. sapiens: like Descartes, the C-fish long hid well from human fisher-elves and was, after all, found only by a fluke (this a nugacious trifle of a pun compared to those in the Mock Turtle's tale).
Some of the best fossils documenting the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, in which non-avian dinosaurs were extinguished, are to be found on Vega Island in Antarctica. Neighboring Seymour has extinct penguin (note gamy Isabella, namesake) species (now available in up to 20 varieties [Pool Set caution: demanding, if endearing pets {several hundred the ideal minimum complement; a well-fish/krill/squid-stocked icewater body at least 150 m deep; don't forget floating floes, and orcas to control your beloved pets' population}]); Mount Kirkpatrick Formation, formerly part of Gondwanaland, produced pterosaur fossils (just think... all that creation in only 6,000 years!).
e*sequitur 96: Petroglyphs
and other rock art (too many for e*sequiturs) run, we might learn, the gamut from star maps to graffiti, from turtles to therianthropes, from Moab to Guadeloupe. At the latter site, his psychic Arawakan cousins must have communicated funda•mentally with Adolf Wölfli (see*sequitur 32 and "Au début du XX° siècle" here), the results leaving us breathless. From rockwriting we have recently advanced to hyperreal electronic markmaking (only remotely resembling reality), occasionally regressing (no doubt senti•mentally) to rockpiling
e*sequitur 97: Inuksuit,
arctic directional stone mannikins long used by natives traversing open expanses (and also, apparently, as caribou-herding scarecrows). Today, these inanimate producers of the uncanny valley reflex [see Seq 9] have migrated south en masse and inhabit, litterlike, highwayside and other scenic outcroppings where they, multiplying in Malthusian numbers, like demonic troll dolls [reminding the traveler that nature is never safe from human tree-micts {"I p*ss, therefore I am" (cf. la Piramide del Sol)} {in this case urinating on themselves}], reflect animated Canadian national pride. Soulful or soulless, Inuksuit are likely to outexist polar
e*sequitur 98: ice
(noting Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle's Doomsday Ice-Nine, the real and more benevolent Ice-IX and hexagonal ice [Ice-Ih {see*sequitur 34}]; here we rocketsled down the path of grey goo, anomalous water and more), which may be missed when it's gone. Frost's nym•pun•ic agent won't suffice to perform its eschatological task if it isn't present, although seasonal telescopic views of Mars (or conversation en séance with Hélène Smith [nom], the stipended and claimed-to-converse-with-Martians Muse of Automatic Writing) may bring back memories in the calid future. As Ursus maritimus, another magnificent creature, is sacrificed (see the passenger pigeon in e*sequitur 29) to Petroleus, the belching black deity of oblivious midgets (Respect, real midgets), playing at games and
e*sequitur 99: the Sixty-four Arts
([compare I Ching's 64 hexagrams] these from the Kama Sutra), which include composing poems, writing in cypher, tattooing, playing on glasses filled with water (see*sequitur 64) and colouring the teeth (black = Ohaguro, by aristocratic married women and sometimes men ref'ed by Lady Murasaki in the Genji Monogatari, which closes with "The Floating Bridge of Dreams"). Once you've mastered these, your correspondent will congratulate you on your perseverence, opening the door to
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> Seq F
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Image: Catha adulis
(Khat or Qat). Wikipedia: Annette Höggemeier, Botanischer Garten, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.