Jonas David's Blog, page 45
July 1, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which reality is opinion
In this world, augmented reality technology is so advanced, that ‘real’ is up for debate. Anything you see can be altered to look like anything you want. Anything you feel can be altered to feel however you chose. Any video can be faked, any words anyone says can be altered. The majority chooses reality, or individuals can isolate themselves into their own realities. If it is decided by the majority that the color blue does not exist, for example, then blue will be edited from everyone’s vision, removed from all language and recordings. Any individual talking about blue or claiming they see it will just be a crazy outsider, or will have their words muted. The functional reality would be one without the color blue. You would have to learn to live in this reality and accept it, or be a social outcast. The next day, blue might be back in existence and you’d have to go on as if it had always been. The day after, the world may be flat, and all contrary evidence removed…
How would fiction exist in this world when no one knows for sure what is real, and what is ‘real’ today may be false tomorrow? No one reading a fiction story would know if a dragon flying across the sky was supposed to be ordinary or odd, and might expect the rules of the fictional world to completely change from one page to the next.
June 30, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which the lottery is mandatory and the winner is either bankrupted or has all debt cleared
Every day a random identifying number is drawn, and the citizen selected has their wealth neutralized. If they have a positive net worth, the excess is taken and put into the lottery’s pool. If they have a negative net worth, the balance is cleared using funds from the pool.
In this world, anyone could instantly be saved or ruined. The rich may be more sympathetic to those without, knowing that they could be there on any given day. The very impoverished might have more hope, too.
Of course, the lottery system would have to be iron clad and unquestionable, to prevent the rich from buying or bribing their way out of it.
June 29, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which the same people keep being born
In this world, there are a set number of ways our DNA can combine to produce a child. There are generations worth of people who looked exactly like you in the past, and you can know based on this, what you’ll look like as you age and what kind of health problems you will have.
Some people, after becoming murderers every time, might be raised in isolation for public safety. Others, known to grow up to be skilled in one area or another, might be raised a specific way.
How much of your personality and skills are due to your genetics, and how much are due to your environment when growing up? Even if it was mostly environment, I’m sure people in this world would face a lot of prejudice and preconceptions based on the ‘type’ of body they were born into.
June 28, 2017
Alternate worlds: in which ghosts are real
Jane dies and finds herself still in the world, but unable to interact with it, or be seen by anyone. Around her are the 107 billion other people who have also died throughout human history.
How would ghosts find ways to oppress and abuse each other? They have no money, strength, physical appearance (or do they?) so what would they base their hate on? Century of origin? Age when deceased? Whatever it is, I’m sure they would find some creative way to separate themselves into groups, then beat up on/take advantage of the smaller groups.
It’s human nature, dead or alive.
June 27, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which everyone sleeps at the same time
A genetic switch in our brain sends us into a deep sleep for 8 hours every day at exactly the same time, no matter where on earth you are. If you are in an area where that 8 hours lines up with all your daylight, then that’s just how it is. People tend to move to areas with daylight during waking hours, and the cheaper living is in areas of night.
All machinery has to be made able to operate untended for 8 hours in a row. In order to leave less downtime, many people have ‘split shifts’ meaning they work a few hours, collapse into biologically forced unconsciousness while at their posts, then wake to keep working afterward.
In this world, artificial intelligence would be perfected and accepted much quicker than in our world, simply due to necessity. The AI’s would be used to enforce a curfew, and to move people who collapsed outside and may be eaten by animals.
June 26, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which sleeping you is the real you
When you are asleep, your mind is at its true potential, in full conscious awareness, contemplating higher thoughts and imagining the truth of the universe. While you are ‘awake’ you stumble through life hardly aware of anything but your immediate surroundings, and your ‘sleeping’ self has no time for this you, only even thinking about it if you fail to eat enough, or get injured.
If aliens visited this world, they would only want to talk to humans while they were asleep, since this is when their minds are truly awake.
June 25, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which there is more than one human species
It is mostly accepted that several human species lived together at the same time, long in the past. Eventually all the others were killed/died off and we are left with only homo sapiens. But perhaps, in an alternate world, more than one human species survived to the modern world, living alongside us.
Would this world be more, or less united than today? If we had entire other species of humans that we couldn’t even breed with, would we be united as homo sapiens, regardless of race or religion, and have all our fear and hate focused on the other species? Or would we be even less fearful of ‘outsiders’ after living with them for so long?
It would certainly be harder to have the ‘humans are special and better than everything!’ attitude when there is an entire other species just as smart and capable as yours. And that could only be a good thing…
June 24, 2017
Alternate Worlds: in which past lives are remembered
Reincarnation is not just a nice idea but a simple fact. Upon birth, or perhaps upon a certain date of mental maturity, the brain is flooded with all past lives of the consciousness inhabiting it.
Once reaching that age, the person would be able to enter a special code only they could possibly know, and regain control over their previous estate. Or… as certainly would occur as often as not, choose to start over by pretending to be a new soul.
More people are born than die every day, so new consciousnesses would still be being created, and an old soul could choose to start anew as someone else. Would the ability to do this lead to more and more suicides? Would people give up on life at the slightest trouble, knowing they could just start over again? If enough people started doing this, though, there would be a shortage of bodies to inhabit and people might stop being reborn…
June 23, 2017
Alternate worlds: in which art is valued
Jane completes her education and decides she wants to be an artist. She practices her craft, while working part time, until she’s managed to create something good enough to present to the artists collective, as her petition for entry. They see it’s value and her potential, and accept her.
From then on her food and shelter are paid for, and she is free to spend all her time creating her art, which the rest of the world can enjoy free of charge, as it is paid for by their tax dollars. Sometimes she is commissioned by a company to create some art for commercial use, she makes extra money this way, but a certain percentage of her yearly output must be for the public that supports her.
She is free to do what she is passionate about and share her ideas and joy with the world, and the world is happy to have her ideas and art in it, for them to enjoy.
June 22, 2017
Alternate worlds: in which a deadly disease also makes the infected extremely beautiful
Jane is infected with a disease that will kill her in a matter of weeks. It is incurable, no matter how hard the medical world has tried, and it kills in all cases, shriveling the internal organs into useless husks, and putting all the energy gained from this atrophy into reconstructing the afflicted’s outward appearance.
Over the weeks leading to her death, Jane’s face rearranges itself to be a symmetrical, proportional and clear version of itself. The fat melts off her body and her proportions shift into what most would call beautiful, attractive, sexy. Her ‘beauty’ continues to increase until the point of her death.
Would these kinds of features–that generally are called beautiful–continue to be attractive, when they signal impending death? Would people who just happen to be very beautiful without the disease be shunned? How long would it take before our brains evolved to find ‘beauty’ repulsive? If this disease was sexually transmitted, it might happen very quickly…
At the start of it, though, perhaps people would intentionally catch the disease, as a way to experience being breathtakingly, painfully beautiful before they die.
