The Loved and the Lost

by Lory Kaufman

  Some logical future thinker then determined the following: the whole of human society must turn this thinking on its head. Humankind must burn into the front of its consciousness that the purpose of inventions must be to allow populations to remain low while helping to keep the individual’s quality of life high. This would not only allow the demands humans make on the planet to remain small, but also allow them to expand the ability to express themselves creatively or to just live in peace. (How they achieved this is described in the section called “Artificial Intelligences, A.I.s.”)

  None of these ideas are expressed explicitly in the narrative of my story. After all, it is supposed to be an exciting action adventure. However, this is an example of all the machinations a writer has to go through when world-building a future society.

  “All right already, Lory,” you’re saying. “Get to the part where you tell us why you had your Council of Elders pick 300 million as the number of people that should be on the planet.” Okay. Fair enough. Here’s how I came to that very specific number . . . I made it up.

  The 300 million figure in some ways seems high in relation to historical human numbers on the planet (as compared to the one million figure for before agriculture), and low compared to historical human memory, (seven billion in only 10,000 years and growing . . . and growing). However, suffice it to say that the fictitious late 21st-century elders considered that if humans could use technology to keep quality of life high, but also have as the criteria for technology that it must be designed to make a small footprint on the Earth’s ecology, then a much higher number of humans could survive. The reality is that, the number could be five hundred million or it could be two hundred million, two million, five or ten million. I suppose it would all be dependent on the technology at the time. And after all, this is just fiction. But hey, I’d love to hear what readers think our human numbers should be - and why.

  Artifical Intelligences (A.I.):

  Some readers have asked, “Why did you give every human on the planet a companion artificial intelligence from birth?”

  For me, the A.I.’s are a symbol of the fact that humans seem not to be able to work together without some faction undermining things. “What does this have to do with artificial intelligences?” you ask. Well, as I already mentioned, by the end of the 21st-century I have humans on the brink of extinction. Plagues and bacterial infections are threatening calamity and some population centers are already collapsing. But, at the same time, human technology is also successfully creating synthetic intellects, superior to humans in many ways. (Given where we are with computer technology now, I don’t think this is out of the realm of possibility.)

  So, as opposed to some dystopian literature, where A.I.s rebel and dominate humans, I have chosen another road. I have artificial intelligences become the saviors of humans, though not as benignly as one might think.

  I’ve done it like this. Each person’s A.I. is with them from before birth. At first the A.I. acts as nanny to the baby and toddler, and a helper to the parents. Then the artificial intelligence takes on the role of tutor when the person becomes a youth, then an adolescent, watching out for that individual and monitoring his or her progress. This role changes as the human grows into adulthood. Like a loving aunt or uncle today, the A.I. changes into a life-long friend and confidant. By constant and gentle vigilance, A.I.s allow humans to find their own path in life, as long as their actions don’t put at risk the long-term safety of society or that of the other life forms on the planet.

  So, humans have ceded ultimate control to their A.I.s, which have become both the “philosopher kings” and the “protector class” of humankind. They are a benevolent police force, making sure that small factions of people can’t sabotage society’s long-term survival for personal or tribal purposes, which, when I think of it, seems to be among the most repeated themes in human history.

  Another very important fact to understand is that the A.I.s do very little of the actual work for humans. It’s not like “The Jetsons” or like some cheesy science fiction movie where people walk around in identical plastic suits and use mass-produced, computer-made products. In the world where History Camps exist, individual craftsmanship and self-sufficiency is the new way of things and the norm. Clothing is made by individuals and small, local shops, not by large corporations. The purpose for A.I.s is not to provide for humans, but to protect, love and nourish them — and the protection is mostly from ourselves and our own natures.

  After finishing the first drafts of The Lens and the Looker, I realized mine was not such a new idea in science fiction. While watching a rerun of the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, I saw how the race of aliens, represented by the character “Platu,” had recognized their inability to control themselves as a culture and given control of their long-term wellbeing to a race of “robots,” such as the one in the movie named “Gort.” I can’t honestly say whether I reinvented the idea or subconsciously adopted (stole) the concept from watching the movie as a child. I suspect the latter, but it really doesn’t matter. Orson Scott Card does a similar thing in his new series Pathfinder, Robert J. Sawyer in his W.W.W. series, but both in very different ways.

  As humans, we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for being aggressive and individually greedy. Any creature that had to fight its way out of the primeval ooze and survive by consuming others and protecting its offspring by destroying and consuming the family units of other creatures over billions of years cannot be expected to change its instincts quickly, if ever. Was it a mistake of nature to give us an intelligence that would cause us to outstrip our biology and not be regulated by the immediate environment? Was it a divine plan (or joke on the creator’s part) to give humans the ability to destroy ourselves and much of the planet’s life forms much more quickly than the evolutionary forces that usually bring down a species? At this point, we can’t know. (Hey, that just gave me an idea for another story.)

  One last thing on this topic. I have in my little brain the idea that, in some future story, I’m going to show that in the 31st -century, humans are gaining the ability to control themselves and thus the one-to-one necessity of A.I.s to humans is being lowered. I don’t know if I’ll do that because people have changed culturally or because they’ll have actually have bred out of themselves this need to dominate others to an extreme. We shall see.

  Time Travel:

  At the beginning of The Lens and the Looker, humans in the 24th-century can’t time travel. They can in the 31st-century and a History Camp counselor from that future, Arimus, comes back and kidnaps three spoiled hard cases: Hansum, Shamira and Lincoln. He takes them back to a time when there is no social safety net and he abandons them. That’s when the fun and adventure starts.

  So, as a writer whose stories depend on time travel, do I actually believe it’s possible? Not in the way it’s used by me or most speculative fiction authors. Am I suggesting that in the foreseeable future it’s possible? I used to believe it, but now I’m not sure. It’s impossible to be certain about things like that.

  Then why do I use time travel? Well, it’s a great literary device that allows characters from different times to be thrown into the same arena of life to compare notes and knock heads - and the more outrageous the situation the better. You see, for me the art of writing (and the fun) is to make the impossible seem real and truly plausible; to craft words in a way that the reader will want to suspend disbelief. Also, time travel works especially well for me since my interest in doing these stories is to be part of a discussion about what type of world the human race will plan for the future. Time travel allows me to compare the past, as well as the future, and then I hope some readers will decide to live the changes they want to see happen in the world. Hey, like Arimus said, “. . . what’s life mean, without an impossible dream?”

  One last thought about time travel and the one thing I am certain about. We shouldn’t hold our breath about it coming soon enough to help fix and save the world. The older
I get, the more obvious it becomes that we’re on our own for that.

  The Steady-State Economy:

  This is a bit of a catch-all section. Because of space constraints, I have included a few brief thoughts that could each have their own sections. I’m hoping these thoughts will be expanded in a longer version of a “Back Story” to my books, or on my website, in the future.

  In the 24th-century of The Verona Trilogy, I created something called a steady-state economy. In our present economic system there must be continual growth and expansion, which leads to the continual consumption of natural resources and, as a repercussion, the continual growth of populations. At the present time we cannot have one without the other.

  In a steady-state economy, I envisage scientists having determined (and the A.I.s confirming unbiasedly) the amount of calories of energy that would be safe for three hundred million people to extract from the planet without interfering with the delicate and very long-term balance of nature.

  These units of energy are then converted into “money” (like gold and silver was used as a standard in the past) and divided among the population as a guaranteed income.

  I retain “money” in this future because I see it as probably the greatest of human inventions. It has allowed humans to engage in complex bartering and include knowledge and service to be part of economies. So, where do the phrase, “Money is the root of all evil,” and other related clichés come from? While money has the potential to distribute the wealth of a community in some kind of equitable fashion, it also has the potential to centralize power into fewer and fewer hands over time. That’s where our world is at now.

  However, in my future world, after individuals use what resources they need for food, clothing, shelter, transportation and their other general needs, they can invest the rest of their share of the world’s bounty with people who have the talent and ambition to create technologies, goods and services that other people want. If these technologies are innovative and use smaller amounts of resources than previously, then the surplus energy (which is money) is their profit, allowing them to have more latitude to be more creative and innovative.

  So, this is not a nanny state. It has recognized that it is vital to allow people to have outlets for their creative energies and ambitions, whatever they are, (business, entrepreneurial, technological, scientific, artistic) But it has also recognized that the natural world is finite and the rest of the ecosystem of the planet has to be taken into account on society’s balance sheet. This is the one line the ultra-ambitious can’t overstep. That’s where the A.I.s come in.

  Finally, I did an online search on a phrase I thought I invented, “steady-state economy.” What popped up was a group of professors, economists and environmentalists who have already started an association on this topic. So, it’s started. We shall see where it goes. Look it up if you want.

  Elders as opposed to super consumers:

  There’s a clichéd phrase in our culture, “Those with the most toys when they die, win.” Of course, the originator of the phrase is definitely saying this ironically, but so many people in our world live like this. As a baby boomer, I was part of the Yuppie (Young, Upwardly-mobile Professional) generation in the 1970’s and 80s. As boomers age, we all now aspire to be Woopies. (Well Off Old People).

  But seriously, so many people today have lost hope in the future, or more dishearteningly, they don’t even know we’re supposed to be having a discussion about it. In my 24th-century future, as opposed to wanting to be rich and decadent, people aspire to be elders. These are experienced leaders in the community who accept the responsibility and are given the authority to keep society strong and steady. After all, who wouldn’t want to be an elder when along with that role comes the respect and admiration for helping keep the world in a shape that will allow humans to continue existing on planet Earth for thousands of years?

  Education in the future:

  As everyone has a guaranteed income in the future I envisage, schools are no longer factories to train industry’s workers at society’s cost. Everyone receives a classical education, including sciences, maths, technology basics, history, arts, crafts, food production, etc. As people get older, the ambitious ones will specialize in their interests. And, as mentioned a bit earlier, regional craftsmanship reemerges for clothing, household goods, building, food, etc. Most people will be happy to lead healthy lives, able to express themselves through their talents, raise their children and be part of a community. Progress is measured very differently in this world.

  Why the planet’s average community has

  sixty people:

  One of the fun things I have happening in this future world is people living in small communities of 30 to 60 people. Anthropologists have determined that this was the size of the majority of human settlements up to around 10,000 BCE. It’s a natural number then, one that allows survival of a group. It gives enough variety of personalities and talents to fulfill the group’s needs: hunters, gatherers, artisans, men, women, leaders and followers. I envisioned a good portion of people in the future choosing to go back to living in these smaller communities. However, in my future model of modernity, because we’ve been able to retain a very high level of technology, people don’t live lives of subsistence. They don’t live lives of opulence either, but ones in which they are comfortable, produce most of their own food, and are able to communicate with and contribute to the rest of the world. This goes hand in hand with the steady-state economy, where growth is not necessary or seen to be good. Progress is now the development of ideas and the ability to continually do more with less.

  Why New York City in the 24th-century only

  has thirty thousand people in it, and why

  it isn’t on Manhattan Island anymore?

  Large cities were necessary, in part, so people could be safe from “others”; other tribes, then other city states, and then other civilizations. As they grew, their leaders harnessed the populations in different ways to grow further. Cities were also the engines of economic growth and growth was seen as desirable. They centralized resources and production, allowing surpluses, which eventually became known as profit. And the natural world? Up until recently, it was treated as an inexhaustible storehouse of materials, just waiting for humans to put it to good use. In the new economy of the early 24th-century, where the physical size of a city doesn’t matter and the planetary population has diminished to a thirtieth of that of early 21st century Earth, cities were no longer necessary or desirable.

  I gave New York City the arbitrary size of 30,000. That was to show that what we now think of a small city in the early 21st century could once again be seen as a large center. But it’s a large center not for industry or commerce, but for culture and education. It also acts as a meeting place, when online conferencing just won’t do. Even in the future, some things are best done face to face.

  I have Manhattan Island underwater. Why? With our glaciers and icepacks melting and our planet going into a warming cycle, (arguably sooner than it would have because of humans burning fossil fuels) the oceans are rising. In this future world, the coastlines of the continents have changed again, just like they’ve always done over long stretches of time. I thought it would be engaging to show one of the liveliest cities of our civilization now resting with the ancient ports of Alexandria under water.

  It could be interesting to note here that, at the height of the last ice age, about 18,000 years ago, ice sheets many miles thick extended south of Seattle, Washington, Chicago, Illinois and even New York City in North America. In Europe and Asia, ice sheets covered all of Greenland, most of Great Britain and the Irelands, all the Scandinavian countries, the northern part of Germany, Poland, Belarus, and much of what is now northwest Russia. Because so much of the world’s water was locked in the ice, sea levels were as much as 400 feet lower than they are today. So, the world as we know it is not as permanent and perpetual as most people in our modern cultures think. If we are to survive, we must un
derstand the cycles of our environment.

  Why I chose the Haudenosaunee, or the

  Iroquois Confederation, as a positive 24th

  century example in The Loved and the

  Lost:

  When constructing a world for The Verona Trilogy, I wanted to show that a future civilization in harmony with the planet doesn’t necessarily have to be monolithic, or a single type of culture. There is variety, experimentation and growth, although the philosophy and laws for society’s long term survival still prevail. So, while you’ll find people who live in micro-communities of around sixty and in cities in the low thousands, you also will find regions like Haudenosaunee.

  I chose this society because I was so impressed when I studied how it had been organized. Anthropology and oral histories are at odds about when the League of Six Nations, or The Iroquois Confederation was formed, somewhere between the mid 12th and 15th century. But what is not in dispute is that there did exist an advanced, egalitarian democracy, where individual and group rights were balanced and heavily entrenched in the culture. Five and then six native nations, including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, the Seneca nations and, then in 1722, the Tuscarora, banded together under the vision of a man named Deganawida. He was known as the Great Peace Maker, a Christ or Buddha-like figure who convinced warring tribes to come together in peace. The region of what is now New York State, Ohio and the Saint Lawrence Valley of Southern Ontario and Quebec held millions of this native population. Although still a culture that had not progressed far technologically, it transformed millions of acres of land into a sophisticated balance of field crops, hunting grounds and areas of trees selected for food and housing materials. It also developed trade routes and built large settlements of long houses.