ars-et-saliva
david p. eiser
zeitraffer
Tomorrow. -
or the day after tomorrow...
„...However, existence is to be regarded as an aberration from which coming back is
redemption.... The purpose of our existence is indeed nothing other than the reali-
zation that we had better not be there... (Schopenhauer)
The day will come when there will be no more housing shortages, no queues
at the supermarket checkout, no traffic jams on the roads, no unpunctual trains,
no broken-down cars, just a few moored ships left in the harbors, planes left
standing, discarded trains...
*
I close my eyes and dream myself over to this point on the timeline. Peace sur-
rounds me, and nothing moves inside me that could disturb me. Relaxed, I fall
asleep and leave my existence to the smart companion system that has been
guiding and directing me for several months.
No more traffic jams on the roads? Have they become so wide that everyone
has plenty of space? No, on the contrary. Every year, hundreds of kilometers
of road surface, railroad runways are removed, leveled, green spaces created
instead...
Twenty-four hours a day, on sundays and public holidays, the robots are at
work, centrally commissioned and monitored, locally self-controlled, they carry
out their work with centimeter precision. The transport vehicles arrive on time
to pick up the dirt and cart it away, GPS-controlled, unperturbed, regardless
of breaks in working hours, drivers' discomfort, traffic obstructions on their
routes... and in time with the delaboration work.
The recultivation machines move in, apply topsoil and cover the scarred wounds
of the landscape with lush rolled turf, occasionally planting bushes or plant a
tree here and there, by chance or by design.
A few birds shyly appear when the robot colossus has passed by, scrutinize
the fresh greenery, try out the branches in the trees and wait for insects, beet-
les and worms to come forward to be eaten by them. The wild boars on their
nightly tours are happy that they no longer have to walk their hooves on the
hard asphalt but enjoy the soft grass and check to see if there is anything
edible underneath.
*
The cities have changed. They have become very quiet, almost deserted. There
are no more shops, since central production facilities and warehouses stock
everything. What you still want to get: On the projection screen in your own
apartment you can see what you could buy if you don't yet have a precise idea
of what you want.
You can tell the central computer where you want a piece of furniture to be set
up. The 360-degree cameras on the ceiling of the room provide an all-round
picture for the furniture organization center on command.
When feedback is received, the production facility presents different models on
the projection wall at suitable locations in the living room, bedroom, bathroom or
anywhere else in the house, and the user can choose whether to make the se-
lection by voice command or follow the signals from the cerebral cortex and the
brain's will-forming center to transmit the command wirelessly via sensors.
The stores of earlier times have become residential units, small apartments,
largely at ground level and barrier-free. Thousands of square meters in the
cities were available for conversions.
Since then, nobody has wanted to live in the suburbs or the surrounding the
countryside, everyone pushed back into the relative confines of the inner cities
to be safe, that life could take place without disruption, or at least that help
would be available quickly.
*
Traffic signs and traffic lights have disappeared from the roadsides. Parking
spaces and garages have become superfluous. Billboards on the walls of
houses have long been recycled.
Advertising is now only virtual. The architecturally predetermined façade de-
coration remains the only ornament on the buildings and lends them a certain
austerity. The abundance of advertisements that used to direct and confuse
people, has simply disappeared, unmeasured, unreplaced. History.
When a person moves through these streets and alleys, it is usually operators
who take action in cases of non-self-healing disasters and rush to their places
of destination.
By the way, the streets look like they've been licked clean, because garbage
and waste only got there when they were carried away and carelessly disposed
of by humans. We all live in our homes and eat a diet free of packaging waste,
there is no longer any need to leave the house and possibly buy something to
eat or drink on the way.
Our daily personal energy requirements are supplied as liquids via pre-installed
pipes, such as domestic water and heating, electricity and communication.
Solid food is sent in metal containers by pneumatic tube and automatically
heated to 60 degrees centigrade in the receiving box. As usual, billing is done
with the help of a points system which obtains its information about chargeable
services directly from the sensors and meters of the respective households.
*
If you want, you can have all your needs recorded electronically and have the
processing and supply to the central computer of the procurement office: full
supply. All persons covered in this way are entitled to the highest payment
points.
This means that you have placed the control of your lifestyle completely under
the control of the central computer and therefore do not require any additional
and assistance measures like those who are partially cared for and think they
still have to regulate something themselves.
Woven-in sensors, for example, record information about the degree of wear
and tear of clothing and send this to the central computer. The computer then
automatically suggests a replacement item that can be called up by the indivi-
dual. Items up to a certain size are stored in the mailbox of the destination build-
ing. Larger objects such as machines, furniture etc. are still delivered and, if
necessary, installed conventionally.
This is usually the case when the building is not yet connected to the supply
grid, where laundry is washed and dried in-house; or if, for example, foodstuffs
are still discreetly ordered and delivered in order to prepare special meals, for
example which in turn entails extensive cleaning work by hand or dishwasher....
*
Emission-free road traffic is kept within narrow limits. Private car driving no
longer exists. Delivery, assistance and repair services as well as ambulance
services and the fire department, manned or autonomous, have free passage.
Border controls are no longer necessary since the nation states have been
abolished. As a result, all military facilities have become superfluous.
The military professions are obsolete.
The first standardized one-room apartments were created in the barracks with
enough space for singles in about 30 square meters. The barracks were the
starting point for the installation of the full supply system. Since then, the
number of singles has steadily increased.
Population growth on earth is declining. The number of people has decreased
from almost 12 billion people in a good 100 years to 5.4 billion. The death rate
has been fluctuating for a long time at around 70 million a year. A compensa-
tion by births has not been possible for a very long time. Last year, at 62.2
million, there were again about 4 percent less than in the previous year.
In addition, life expectancy has fallen sharply worldwide, now at 55.6 years for
men and just under 58 years for women. This also helps to alleviate the hous-
ing shortage and improve the quality of housing for the rest of us, because
abandoned building fabric can be demolished without replacement and com-
pensated by greenery.
*
Life essentially takes place within one's own four walls. Leaving the apartment
would mean going outside with unsatisfied expectations. This could be classi-
fied as conspicuous by the central office and lead to increased monitoring.
The central office would then have to check whether the individual tends to
develop an unusual degree of initiative or whether the data collection was/is
incomplete. In the latter case, the software would have to be modified to take
into account the temperament and emotional state of the individual more pre-
cisely and to make appropriate adapted offers that encourage the individual
to stay at home.
Otherwise, the additional time required for support and assessment would
place an additional burden on the system. The statistically determined con-
sumption rate per individual would increase and automatically lead to a de-
duction of points and thus to a reduction in care services.
By remaining in the apartment, the fully supplied individual enables the com-
puting center to continuously access the data streams and to schedule bind-
ing appointments as well as individually adapted and customized suggestions
for the daily routine and display them as attractively as possible on the projec-
tion wall. The immediate aim of this approach is always to bind the individual
as closely as possible to the projection and to recognize their needs as com-
prehensively as possible so that the electronic measures outside the home
can be kept to a minimum.
*
Professional activities extend to a small circle of procedures that provide as-
sistance. This also includes assisting activities that are only performed un-
satisfactorily or not at all by autonomous systems. However, they do not re-
quire any special skills and therefore do not require a high level of education.
The school system could therefore be reduced, because all higher-value ac-
tivities have since long been taken over by computers and robots. So there
are no vocational schools, secondary schools, grammar schools and, of
course, universities because higher education is no longer necessary for the
vast majority of people.
What is still essential to impart, however, is the limited primary school pro-
vision of earlier times: reading and arithmetic, writing as an additional offer.
Highly qualified vocational activities, especially of a theoretical nature, are no
longer necessary because autonomous machines are fast-learning systems
whose skills have not been achievable by human means for years.
Higher-value activities such as surgical procedures in the human body or in
the field of research still occasionally require partly manual assistance.
*
The development of new production processes, improving performance, qua-
lity controls, etc. are central tasks of the data centers, which, on the basis of
their permanently updated information about human beings and the environ-
ment decide for themselves what needs to be improved, what can be dispens-
ed with or what needs to be invented.
This began with the decision, which was still political at the time, to transfer
the budget and to leave the management of the state to artificial intelligence.
This relieved parliaments and ministries because there were no more argu-
ments about the amount of the respective budget. On the other hand, one
could rely on the system that recorded all financial and economic data in
real time and was able to draw immediately appropriate conclusions and
make decisions, which in turn stabilized the budget and thus provided the
state with the necessary security as a confidence-inspiring sign to the citi-
zens.
Initially, the loss of opportunities to offer electoral gifts proved to be a disad-
vantage. But in the course of time, as more and more states submitted to
the world government and thus to machine-controlled leadership, elections
lost their proper function, and they simply became superfluous, which also
meant that the principle of electoral gifts dissolved.
Furthermore, in the course of this development, after a number of years par-
ties made no longer sense. Hundreds of parliaments and government build-
ings around the world became superfluous and gradually demolished, and
some were converted into residential units or central production facilities.
These latter are fully autonomous systems and basically consist of nothing
more as computerized 3-d printers.
*
Religious assembly buildings have disappeared from the cityscape. If you be-
long to a religious community, you have the opportunity at any time to get a
stream on the projection screen, where any number of portraits of the virtual
members of the congregation who are currently online are presented, as they
listen devoutly to the words of a cleric or look over their cameras into the faces
of the audience singing along.
Since the world population has already shrunk considerably and is obviously
continuing to decline, there will no longer be any stable economic performan-
ce figures at the end of the year. The statistical tables and curves show a
constantly declining negative development trend. It seems as if, together with
the declining population, a conceptual requirement is being fulfilled with the
aim of ending the existence of mankind in the foreseeable future, without lett-
ing this happen via a disorderly revolutionary track, quietly and without fuss.
The world government would then only have to take care of itself. Everything
that was necessary for the people could be delaborated, recycled and de-
stroyed.
The material required for the functioning of the world government would be
available in abundance, in principle inexhaustible, because in the meantime
all the energy needed - and that is only a tiny fraction of what the previous
12 billion people have consumed - comes from solar power plants and the
consumption of resources can be limited to recycled material.
The planet should be pleased that nature can recover and take back control.
Whether the world government will then be in a position to feel joy and satis-
faction remains to be seen.
When I wake up from my reverie, I am amazed at the peace that has spread
within me. I look at the projection screen and read:
“It has done you good. You can go and wash your hands now; because the
next meal will be available to you in 10 minutes.”
I get up and do as I am advised.
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© dpe
1995