Ten things we really expected by now

Right now, Right this VERY MINUTE.  I'm in the year 2013.  TWENTY FREAKING THIRTEEN!  You know that that means?  As far as Hollywood is concerned, I'm WAY in the future.  So far in the future in fact that everything they predicted about the future in the 70's already happened and we are living a life of the... (cue theramin) Feeeeewwwww-tuuuuuuuuure.  Except here I am,  still here,  going to my job,  and working like a sucker.  What should I be doing and what should I have?  This stuff:

10.  Tin Foil Clothes.  -  Seems like every glimpse into the future includes some kind of tin foil clothing.  If not on us, at LEAST on our much more advanced, fashion sense stilted alien friends.  Instead, it appears that our clothes really aren't all that much different.  Sure, a collar here, a flair there, a color spectrum shift and we've got the next years fashions, but I see no puffy hoop like skirt with glitter and silver. No pants that look like pleated tin foil What happened?!?

9. A really cool gun PEW PEW - The future according to hollywood is a pretty violent place.  That's ok, we seem to enjoy it.  But those bullets are such a hassle, what with the lead and gunpowder and all.  Of course in the future, our enemies will be dispatched by environmentally friendly laser beams.  The will do all of the dirty work of the bullet by using only power, which is of course readily available everywhere.

8. No Disease - Nope, by now, none of us should be sick.  In fact, by now, we should have little nano-robots that rush about our bodies busying themselves with the task of making us immortal.  Of course the robots would replace our own disease fighting robots the white blood cells, but honestly we all saw that coming anyway.  The white blood cells are no match for the latest bird flu, bubonic plague or bout of consumption.  Our little nanobot friends will identify all hostile alien mico-bodies and search and DESTROY (very likely with lasers).  Then they will transmit the information to fellow nano-bots floating around just to make sure it doesn't come back.  We aren't even close to this one.

7. Flying car - The Holy Grail of future achievements.  If we can't have anything else, we want flying cars.  Of course our cars appear to be taking a turn for the better with self driving.  When all cars are self driving, I won't care if we are trundling, flying, or digging our way to our destination, I will be busy playing candy crush.  Nope, no flying car, and honestly, none on the horizon.  Except for one, which is interesting because it looks cool and flies fast, but it's a bit pricey and nobody really wants it to work because if you get a fender bender in the air, it will probably mean more than a trip to the auto body shop.

6. Solar Powered everything - Energy really needs to change around a bit.  Our batteries are our dear friends, but someone needs to make them do some pushups or something.  I'm waiting for my cellphone to get an app that will pirate energy from neighboring cellphones!  YARRRRRR!!!!  By now everything should have been ambiently powered by our good friend the sun.  We just walk out to our car and it just starts up when it feels the heat of brave Helios' rays.  Sorry.  we are still on fossil fuels for the most part and our batteries have enough toxic chemicals to make any Despotic Dictator bent on country wide destruction green with envy.

5. Space Vacations -  We are close on this one.  Sure, you gotta pay millions, and your destination is actually back on earth.  So we aren't QUITE there.  I"m talking space Disney complete with artificial gravity and a Pluto that gets more respect.  Instead we hop up into the stratosphere, say 'Wow, everything looks so peaceful from up here' and zoom back down for a landing and you get the feeling you've been had.

4. No More Pregnancies - We won't have babies the normal way anymore, it's too inefficient and too dangerous to both the mother and the fetus.  Instead we will grow them all in incubation bins and they will all come out perfectly because they are only the best of each parent's DNA. A recording of their mother's voice was played throughout their gestation for good bonding.  They will be perfect human specimens.  Hasn't happened yet.  Nope, the good old fashioned way by farming the cabbage patch is how we are getting them babies right now.

3. Robots do everything for us! - This one is on it's way, it's just not here yet.  The problem is that during the transition, there will be more and more people out of work, not because they are ill educated or because they lack skills, but rather the robots are doing everything for us more accurately and cheaper.  Eventually the capitalist system falls apart because production does not require labor anymore.  Only more machines.  Not really there yet, but some evidence is there.

2. One world government - Looks like it's gonna be China eventually.  Not yet of course, but in the distant future, the one world government will be run quasi-democratically with nation states influencing heavily any actual policy decisions.  Everything will have to be ratified by other nation states of course, but population will sway lots of opinions.  It's ok, when there is one world government, everything will be easier and better right?...RIGHT?  Well, at least we are not there yet.  In fact, the way the world is, we've still got quite a bit to get there.

1. Aliens - What future would be complete without our green and gray friends from outer space (or inner space?)  They should have been here by now helping us with our complex social issues and eating our weak.  Instead, we still just have movies about them.  Some are friendly, some are mean.  All are fantastic and not really here...yet.







Well, I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our wishful future tense as we thought it should have been about 40 years ago.  I'm longing for a future where income tax has been eliminated.  Not bloody likely.

10 little pieces of evidence that the Government is about to tell us about Aliens

This sounds far fetched I know, but I'm bored and thoughts of extra terrestrial life amuses me.  Here is my hypothesis:

If we look at a technological time line of our advancements as the human race, there are a few things that really don't fit very well.  It seems that we went for thousands of years with precious little advances in the sciences beyond say the wheel and then written language and then BANG!  Within about 120 years or so we have surpassed our forefathers to the point that if we told them about our current lives, they would ask when heaven dropped on the earth (or at least the civilized earth, I realize there are a lot of sections of the earth that are still outdated and living near dark age lives).  How did we come across this broad spectrum of technology?  Human spirit?  Taxes?  Governments?  Or is it aliens?  If it was aliens and they were getting ready to kill us, we would have known about them by now.  If it's friendly aliens here to help us, then I think the Government waits until the people won't cause a fuss with the knowledge.  I think that's the answer and here are my reasons why.

10.  UFO Stories and their denial - Crazy people say lots of crazy things.  It's what sets them apart from the rest of the semi-sane world.  Normally when you hear a crazy person say something crazy, you just ignore it, or at best you put on your best 'dumb animal' look and nod and say 'yes of course!, what an interesting story.   I hope it all works out'  At which point the crazy person will either move on to another crazy subject, or attack you.  UFO stories for a long time were denied.  When the Government denies things it seems like most of the time they are just covering up.  Now the Government is much more cagey and just doesn't acknowledge anything.

9.  There's a pill for EVERYTHING! - Chemistry and Physics are two interesting disciplines.  One deals with the molecular structure of things and the other deals with objects interactions with each other.  Yes this is simplified and yes it's not complete, but pull it down to it's elements and that's what they are.  So we used to go around tasting roots for medicinal purposes and grinding up tree bark and putting it on wounds.  Doctors were no more than local con-men that promised some kind of cure in exchange for a horse or perhaps a summers worth of eggs if they managed to be there when a life was saved.  Now, we have real drugs that do nearly everything.  The only reason we don't have a lot more drugs around is because companies are too busy trying to find out ways to lengthen the treatment so their profit margins can billow.  But where did all of this information come from?  Tree bark?  Dowsing rods?  hmmmm...I'll bet that someone that has the technology to travel across space would have a pretty good grasp of chemistry as well as physics....hmmmm.

8.  We didn't make all these TV programs for nothing! - People wonder why aliens would be interested in us at all.  The truth is, we have good TV.  At least we do in America and to some extent other countries around the world.  We have been beaming the transmission of these programs into space for DECADES.  Aliens are coming because they saw Battlestar Galactica and thought we are probably ready and they wanted to help us with those pesky Cylons.  They really weren't sure what to think about Space Balls.

 7.  When you see a science fiction show with an alien in it, how favorable is your reponse? - At first all shows depicting aliens were the same.  Aliens were here to take over, probably kill most of us in the process.  Then we started getting shows about friendly aliens.  Heck, even the Aliens that were controlling Robo-Bigfoot in the Shark-Jumping episodes of The 6-million Dollar Man were just mis-understood.  Now, aliens are just like us.  They have many human qualities and there are good ones and bad ones, just like us.  It's pretty consistent with our species.  You might say 'yes, but Mark, there are still shows about aliens taking over and rubbing us humans out'  Sure there are.  This is used to gauge our response to the original "bad, they are ll the same" alien over time. Through constant exposure, we can become used to just about anything that we originally thought was horrible. 

6.  These cellphones are just like Star Trek...wait a minute! -  You have got to be joking.  The moment Cell-phones started looking like Star Trek Communicators (except MUCH smaller and more effective) I thought we were going to be introduced to our Alien benefactors.  It just seemed like it was too obvious.

5.  So we can see a license plate on a car from space?  Interesting... - So our Satellites can read a license plate on a car from outer space and yet the DMV still has trouble capturing you looking like anything but how you look early in the morning.  Where is the disconnect here?  Aliens gave up the notion of displaced identification a long time ago.  Pictures are used only to capture past events, not as a means of evidence.  Their technology on that path on the other hand is pretty useful on our satellites.  They're waiting for us to figure out that just because you can track a population, doesn't mean you can control it.

4.  The United Nations is anything but. - Ever notice how the United Nations really doesn't have much to do with anything practical?  They have lots of committees and throw around condemnations like they are going out of style, but this body has precious few teeth.  Why hang around as one body and try to homogenize the earth?  Because if we can get everyone to settle down, then we can introduce the aliens, but they don't want to talk to a bunch of little countries, they would much rather talk to a leader.  So the conspiracy theorists that go on about a 'New World Order' are pretty much right.

3. How can computing power double every year?  How is that even possible? -  Moores law states that computing power will double every year.  What kind of moron would make a 'law' like that?!  That's hardly sustainable, UNLESS you knew the distance between the first computer technology and the eventual resulting technology.  If you are controlling how quickly information and technology is being doled out, it's EASY to determine how fast the technology will grow.  Where will it end?  when specific computing power will not be measurable because everyone will be connected and share overall computing power and then we won't care about Moores law.

2.  Festivus is actually an alien holiday and they are just using Seinfeld reruns to throw up a trail balloon. - Festivus isn't the only one, there are LOADS of made up holidays that don't make a lot of sense.  I won't tire you with them all, but the fact is, when Aliens live among us, their holidays will be based on their calendar so who knows, maybe they will celebrate birthdays 3 times a year, or maybe once every 20 years.  Hard to say.  How do you test that out?  You introduce some goofy holidays and see if it sticks.  Festivus was made up and unashamedly so.  Still there are followers of the Festivus 'faith'.  We as a people appear to be pretty open to new holidays.  But it's just another weight on the alien side of the scales.

1.  No space travel outside our inner orbit since the moon landing.  hmmmmm - We go to the moon, we plant a stiff looking flag, we come back and bang.  It's like the hot looking girl in high school with no personality.  Once you've gone out with her, you figure there's really nothing there, so you don't go back.  Seriously?!  Either we never made it there in the first place (Capricorn One anyone?)  Or we did and were WARNED not to disturb the blind.  The aliens are using the moon as an observation point.  That's why we and everyone else are discouraged from going there at all.




As you can see, the evidence is pretty convincing.  We've got aliens, and they are probably friendly, which is good news.  The bad news is, they would like to borrow a cup of sugar in the form of our rich mineral resources and naturally occurring chemical compounds, and come over for a barbecue.  They haven't been living among us, but maybe they would like to.  Just to see if we'd invite them over for a game of Canasta (which as chance would have it is played in exactly the same way on their planet and was the first piece of common ground in our negotiations with them).  Soon the Government will announce them to us, and then this blog will seem downright prophetic.

Top 10 Characteristics of Extra Terrestrials (assuming they exist)

Halloween again.  Time for scary, gruesome fun.  Kids walking around begging for candy dressed up as favorite celebrities or supernatural entities.  For some reason, Extra Terrestrials get lumped into the same columns as ghosts, vampires, and werewolves.  While the latter have no chance of actually existing, Extra Terrestrials on the other hand certainly exist.  That's right, I said it.  CERTAINLY.  I have no doubt whatsoever that there is 'life' as we can define it that exists outside of our planet.  If we only look at the odds of life happening in a universe full of BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of solar systems, then factor in our absolute ignorance concerning life and it's components.  It's very safe to assume that there are MANY places in the cosmos that probably have life and some of those could very well be intelligent life.  This really isn't about that.  It's more about what the characteristics are of extra terrestrials if we were ever to see them here.

10.  Unless they are immortal, they really are only interested in our resources. -  Sorry folks, Aliens would not come here to do anything else, but look at the WEALTH of complex chemical compounds that comprise our planet.  They would easily be able to come and take samples of what they want and leave.  Later they could come back to harvest anything they deem useful to them.  I know this sounds like I am projecting our harsh history on external entities, but really, if they are mortal, then they deal with time and living in the same way we do.  Survive, reproduce, try to gain the illusion of security.  Wherever there is scarcity, there is monetary exchange and there are rich and poor.  Therefore they could be a business like entity that would harvest what they want from our planet.

9.  If they ARE immortal, they would use blinds to observe us - Immortal Impossible you say?  Well check out my blog on transporter technology.  Any race that has technology sufficient to cross the cosmos, probably has transport technology.  Why observe us then?  When you are immortal, your motivations for doing things are very different.  The only thing that is truly scarce to you is new experience and new knowledge.  They would study us out of immortal curiosity.  The blinds of course would be so they could observe us in our native habitat.  Any large city could have several blinds created to observe us.  I've always wondered how sears stayed in business.

8.  They will not know how to 'heal' us - Sure they've got scads of technology, That won't help me with my bad knee.  Life evolves in different ways in different places and our brand of life will be so different from theirs that they will have no way of knowing anything about our life systems.  It is much more likely that our environments will not at all be compatible, so they would only look at us to learn more about us.  We will be as entirely odd to them as they appear to us.

7.  They will not care about our environment - We don't care about fish poop in the ocean.  It doesn't matter to us at all.  Aliens will see us as beings on the top tier of our food chain.  They will likely view us as intelligent as we view dolphins or other simians.  We look at army ants and how they wipe out everything in their path, we do not consider them to be 'destroying' their planet, we have a MUCH wider view of their surroundings.  Aliens will look at us in the same way.  A part of the planet doing things in a way that benefits us the most with little regard for our surroundings.  Sure, we recycle etc.  So do ants and bees and lots of other social animals.  Others don't recycle at all and don't care.  Still we are all part of the planet.

6.  If they are mortal, they will come from a part of the cosmos where they do not represent all forms of their particular species.  -  There is no reason to believe that even the slightest differences in environment will not effect the same kinds of changes amongst any species in existence that we experience as humans.  Mortal aliens will represent only their governmental form from where they hail.  Mortality breeds a sense of scarcity.  scarcity in turn creates fear and insecurity.  fear and insecurity creates a desire to gather in like groups for protection.  Various groups will create their own forms of governance and one will likely rise to the technological top and strive to explore space.   If they are immortal on the other hand.  They have likely homogenized their species into one group that survives by default and are less likely to have anything more than some kind of collective government.

5.  The only problem we have that they can solve will be one of energy - All of our other problems will likely either be unsolvable by them, or they will not have the specific technology available in space faring craft.  Energy on the other hand.  Is the one technology that can help any semi-intelligent species.  They would have to have the ability to both generate it as well as store it in order to just get here.  All of our other problems are home grown and can really only be solved by us over time.  If we look for evidence of extra terrestrial technology look for power storage and transmission.  This will be the most important discovery in any emerging species existence.  Much like our own astronauts are pros at physics and aeronautics, our alien counterparts will have little knowledge of their entertainment ,  food preparation or domestic technologies.  They probably can't tell jokes very well either.

4.  Immortal aliens will deal with governments, mortal aliens will just take over - Our government for all of it's faults is our method for communicating with any other countries or social entities that do not share our language or values.  There are a lot of things that our government keeps secret from 'we the people'.  That's probably a good thing since that's what we hired them to do.  80% of Government secrecy is genuinely for our own good.  19%  is corruption and 1% (but a very important percentage) is Aliens.  If Aliens have contacted us, it's very likely that they are immortal or posses such longevity that they are indistinguishable from immortals.  On the other hand, if we have been discovered by mortal aliens, it could well be that we are looked at as some kind of resource farm that we pay in exchange for their continued 'protection'.

3.  The good news, the Aliens speak English, The bad news, They all sound like Uncle Jesse on the Dukes of Hazzard. - All of our television signals have been beaming into space for decades.  Aliens have been watching.  Their favorite entertainment show is Dukes of Hazard.  Their favorite comedy is NOVA and their favorite science program is Dexters Laboratory.  They will learn their language from our TV like every other non-english speaking country does.  The truth is, they will talk to us with flawless English and we will believe that they have some kind of flawless translating device (you know, like Google-translate 2.0) when in all likelyhood, our Alien visitors were taught english by the Walt Disney corporation and Alex P Keaton of Family Ties.

2.  Mortal aliens probably won't go to church with us - Any intelligent mortal race will develop some kind of mythic answer to the question of life and sentience.  It's simply a matter of course.  A critical thinking race will try to answer the questions of nature with simplistic stories and mythologies at first that will then evolve into science.  This is of course unless the aliens themselves established the different religions on our planet.  That would explain a lot.

1.  Aliens probably don't look anything like us at all - We always want the ET's to have a head and arms and legs etc just like us, just variations on a theme.  Lets take a loot at bacteria.  how do they look?  wow, scads of legs.  hmmm..tons of feelers,  eyes that are sensitive to all kinds of light spectra.  There is nothing suggesting that they would evolve in even remotely similar fashions. This is good, because if they looked anything like us at all.  There would be some redneck that would claim to the first baby-daddy of a hybrid alien/semi-human.  They would live in their hover-trailer-home and would be rabid ook-mok fans which they watch on their alien 10 foot satellite dish.  Most popular sport in the cosmos.