Looking to the future

  In 2030, when Labor Day is coming, I get a ten-day holiday from my work at the Ministry of Social Affairs. For this ten-day Labor Day holiday, I have prepared holiday coupons from the Socialist State of Hawaii for my family as gifts. These holiday coupons are in exchange for the labor points I get from my work; my life is very fulfilling, and I play my due role in my job. My family and I have socially allocated houses and cars, and of course, if I have other requests, I can submit applications as long as I have enough labor points. For now, I live an easy life, and the only problem for me is that my work at the Ministry of Social Affairs takes up almost one third of my day. Although I face a very heavy workload, the ORGA system can automatically calculate labor point for me, so it is never a concern for me that my work will not be rewarded as it should be.

  By 2070, after retiring for 10 years and nearly reaching the age of 75, I have already well adapted to my life in retirement and settled on the seaside of the socialist state of Virginia. The science and technology in 2070 evolves to be more advanced than that in 2030, but it is still based on the ORGA system designed by scientists in the scientific and technological innovation during the Great Revolution. The big data that was used by human beings back in 2010 is now being used in this system to connect people all over the world. The capital market is now completely controlled by algorithms instead of people. Everyone does a job that he or she is good at and get the labor points that he or she deserves. The virtual points allocated by the algorithm have completely replaced money and has become an integral part of one’s entire life. People work with the help of the system, and surplus of products is no longer a concern, because people’s needs can be coordinated and production workers can be guided in production through algorithm. By 2070, the government’s priority is no longer to exercise leadership over its people, but to maintain and constantly update the system, so a large number of scientists have gained access to the system and begun to lead the government, and the government has pruned its overstaffed public sectors to only one or two emergency sectors. The Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for maintaining law and order in socialist countries, while the Ministry of People is responsible for collecting people’s demands and submitting them directly to the system. The concept of country has become less important. With the exception of a few capitalist countries, most countries in the world have re-socialized and restored the Comintern. Countries no longer set up their borders and allow free mobility of their populations, share educational resources and work together to establish education systems, jointly distribute and produce resources, and people no longer has ethnic consciousness. People of all ethnic groups can communicate in real time through the system. As a result, people around the world are brought much closer and no longer feel distanced from each other. Through the ORGA chip installed on the arm, people can communicate holographically with the people in their contact list. As a builder of this socialist colossus, I feel honored and I work hard to learn the new functions of the system that are updating every year.
  By 2220, nearly 200 years have passed since the completion of ORGA, all countries in the world have completely entered the communist society. ORGA has become the third “hand” of mankind. After two hundred years of update, ORGA still exists and continues to be updated. Although it has become a “the ship of Theseu”, people are still happy to call it ORGA in recognition of the great contribution the system has made to mankind. An increasing number of people are keen on biological transformation, that is, using cell regeneration technology to constantly update their bodies like systems in order to achieve longevity, but because their brains can only store limited resources, these people have to upload their memories to the ORGA cloud for storage every 70 years, which causes them to forget most of the things after storage, unless they download the previous memories to their brains. This controversial technology has caused great controversy at the Comintern People’s Congress. However, most people still choose to transfer their thoughts and consciousness to the ORGA cloud at the end of their life, which are then stored by ORGA. In this way, although they are “dead”, their loved ones can apply for permission to talk to them when commemorating them. For me, I stick to be a traditional communist; I choose not to store any thoughts or consciousness at the end of my life.
My self-calculated score is 15 daily blogs plus an attendance score of 95, which I rate as an A

Broken Sentences

Co Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino depicts several moments of the evolution of the universe in a poetic, romantic, and dreamy writing style: the moment when the moon suddenly left the earth far behind; the moment when the nebula gradually condensed and then emitted light and heat to become the sun; the moment when the universe suddenly exploded from the smallest density; the moment when the atmosphere was formed and everything on earth began to have colors. Living beings shuttle through it, witnessing every great moment of change in the universe for us.

The stories in the book seem to be always like this: human plays carefree among the stardust on the one hand, and unable to escape the fate of being emotional creatures on the other hand. While having fun, they can't help feeling dejected. In Calvino's portrayal, human beings seem to be the witnesses to the universe: huddling at an infinitesimal point, they play in thin nebulae, mark the orbits of galaxies, use hydrogen atoms as marble toys, and keen to bet on the future.

The Earth is custom-made for us by Rats

 In the first spiral arm of the Milky Way, there is a star galaxy called the solar system. The most remarkable planet in this galaxy is its third planet because this planet is inhabited by the only intelligent life ever discovered by mankind. But ever since the emergence of “science fiction writers”, the poor planet has endured rather malicious fantasies. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a novel full of humor. Using extremely witty yet deliberately solemn words, Mr. Adams shows readers his characteristic British humor like a stand-up comedian.  

To make a joke which may potentially induce awkward silence, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not so much an excellent science fiction as a novel anthropological paper, which demonstrates to us the extent to which human beings can exert humor through a rather personalized approach.

In most science fiction, the earth is an innocent person with a guilty heart, and its blue body always attracts all kinds of extraterrestrials to plunder or destroy. Among these uncountable malicious visitors, the reasons for destruction brought by the Vogon fleet are undoubtedly the most unexpected. Chinese sci-fi readers know for the first time that evil aliens have come to destroy the earth in order to build public welfare facilities, and they have just learned why these aliens look so indecent—because their ancestors climbed out of the water billions of years ago. That's indeed a pretty good answer.

This is a very different kind of science fiction. With his characteristic cynical writing style, Mr. Adams satirizes all the authority and order of the real world to the readers who are between tears and laughter. When the unparalleled supercomputer, after 7.5 million years of calculation, announces that the final answer that human beings pursue is 42, readers who are tongue-tied like the two parties do not know what else in the world could not be made fun of.

Absurd Galactic Empire, weird president, neurotic robot… With the earth customized by rats as the starting point, the protagonist Arthur begins his bizarre roaming of the universe. In a world as bizarre as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlands, the so-called “logic” is no different from the queen’s rules of the game—even if it exists, it can be modified at will.

Things really got worse when Arthur felt that things couldn’t get any worse. There has been one turning point after another in the meaningless journey. When the protagonist found that the description of the earth was only "basically harmless" in the great Guide which contained countless materials, and Slartibartfast of Magrathea proudly told him that “the earth is custom-made for us by rats”, the world must have crumbled in his eyes like a plastic jigsaw puzzle.