Not since the 2006 movie, Idiocracy, has there been a good parody of where we are today (Politically, Socially, Environmentally, Economically, etc.). Watching Don’t Look Up –– as much as I thoroughly enjoyed the humor of this movie–– I found myself cringing at scenes that were a little to close to home.
The casting was brilliant as was the acting. The storyline is, in my regard, the next big thing Corporate America will chase.
After 9-11 it became a yearly ritual to practice Disaster Recovery–– which was looked forward to as much as a root canal. I know the concept was a good idea, but in practice it was like chasing lightning–– no matter what was rehearsed would be yesterday’s news: 9-11, Viral Pandemic, Stormageddon, Towering Inferno, Disgruntled Employee, flood, blackout, and the list goes on. I tried to explain to upper management that there was no such thing as being proactive; the best scenario one could hope for was to react to an event faster than it’s effects were felt by the majority of the population. This was my mantra, as an Enterprise Management Guru of SNMP & RMON, for most of my career.
Which brings me back to “Look Up.” This was a great Sci-Fi Parody. If you want to learn a little more about asteroids–– waiting for the big one–– sign up at Asteroid Day, led by Brian May (Queen Guitarist and Astrophysicist).
I was so preoccupied with Astronomical disasters that I wrote a series of Sci-Fi Shorts under the title, END OF DAYS, available on Amazon’s Vella Platform. Feel free to download the first three for free, then for a small fee you can read the others and feed a non-so-starving author.
With a very smooth and successful launch on Christmas day, The James Webb Telescope is on its way, traveling 1,000,000 miles from Earth, where it will slowly unravel over a two week period, calibrate the mirrors and run through various configurations, while cooling down to -230 C so there is no heat interference gathering the radiation (light) from space. The mirror is three times larger than Hubble and will be our eyes into the 13.3 billion year past (baby pictures are always so cute).
Congratulations to the ESA, CSA, NASA and to all the team members for this human achievement.
The size of this telescope is huge: Shield – 21.197 m x 14.162 m (69.5 ft x 46.5 ft), The mirror is 6.5 m (21.3 ft) approximately
Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket launches with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope onboard, Saturday, Dec. 25, 2021, from the ELA-3 Launch Zone of Europe’s Spaceport at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is a large infrared telescope with a 21.3 foot (6.5 meter) primary mirror. The observatory will study every phase of cosmic history—from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
I think this is a great use of tech (Halo collar), which replaces your underground electric fence with wireless GPS—a fence you can take with you. Absolutely brilliant!
Imagine, going to a park or beach, pulling up the app and drawing a box on the screen and off your dog, cat, leopard, etc., goes staying within the perimeter. Awesome!
Now think about dismantling all our prisons and outfitting the incarcerated with halo collars that keeps them in their confinement!! Now expand that to every citizen who refuses to get vaccinated or doesn’t think the way others think or who have blue or brown eyes!!!!
Tomorrow is already here. This is so much the stuff of a great dystopian SCI-Fi that I need to get working on!!!!! Thank you HALO COLLAR…. Thank you.
Half of you may be alarmed by this technology, that we are nearing the end of humanity. And why wouldn’t you think that way? I mean isn’t this what we authors of Sci-Fi write about–– our dystopian replacements?
Fortunately, I do’t think it will pan out that way. After a decade of studying animal physiology, sociobiology, ecology, ethology, mico/macro biology organic chemistry, physics and genetics and applying that knowledge in the field as a Marine Biologist, then making a career adjustment into the realm of Information Technology, adding decades of computer engineering, programming, network engineering, enterprise monitoring, and web development into the mix and finally tossing all that knowledge into a blender to write Sci-Fi…. well… “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” – Batty, Blade Runner, movie 1982 (Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? )
What my path in life has taught me is to think freely, reason that all sides are correct, and extrapolate all of this into the future, that we humans, simply put, are these beautiful and magnificent container ships (1976 – The Selfish Gene: Richard Dawkins), governed by both science and faith as a means to protect and propagate our DNA. For millions upon millions of years our strain of DNA has been a passenger on the road map of Natural Selection. But at some point it picked up a willing hitchhiker and entered into a partnership with, Humanity. Then within the last hundred years Humanity made significant strides, pushing aside what was once our road map, now seemingly coming to odds with our partnership.
One shortfall of humanity–– that our DNA does not have–– is binary reasoning. This is easily observed in everything humanity thinks and does: Up/Down, Left/Right, In/Out, Yes/No, True/False, Good/Evil and so on and so on. In fact, Humanity has created tools of Information Technology to work the same as they do (binary), which has proved to be very successful for us both.
Referring to the video above, either we (again, still restricted by binary thinking) are devising a new and better tool or we are dissolving the partnership and Humanity .
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
Humanity and its contents (DNA) are still governed by Physical and Biological controls: Sunlight, Oxygen, Water, Temperature, Gravity and a slew of biologics, such as mutation, disease, aging which eventually leads to death. As long as the propagation can stay ahead of death, then our partnership remains successful. But we know some things, that everything that has ever lived, dies and nothing lasts forever. We are confined to this world and this world will not last forever, either.
So here we are approaching the threshold of Humanity revising the partnership with our DNA. First, we need convince Humanity and DNA that we are passing on the baton, but still in the race. To do that we need a better container ship, one that is free of physical and biological controls (Time to die – Batty, Blade Runner). Secondly, we need to become a Quantum being: In/Out and the Other Thing (Thank you JFK), free of binary reasoning. Thirdly, we need to transfer our partnership (Our Soul) into this new entity saying goodby to Humanity and DNA once and for all, but carrying on the memes (see: The Selfish Gene / Richard Dawkins – 1976), of everything that ever was until the next partnership renewal, other realms, where we will get closer to understanding who are the Engineers (Robert Reed series: Beyond The Veil Of Stars/Beneath The Gated Sky).
David Nadas 