Beantown — Story 8
“What is that in your back pocket, Jane?”
“It isn’t a fashionable cell phone adorning my ass, I can tell you that.”
“Haha… so what is it?”
“Observations.”
“Let me see!”
“HEY! Haha…”
“Your first note notes that a Free World means progress while Authoritarianism means regression.”
“Yup.”
“So how do authoritarian states survive?”
“They steal progress from the free world.”
“Even as they disdain it?”
“Yes.”
“But that would make them hypocrites…”
“And liars. One crime leads to another, May. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but authoritarian states survive on lies, even bad ones. Even clownish ones. They have a word for it, even a phrase…”
“What are they?”
“The word is ‘Propaganda’ and the phrase is ‘Psychological Warfare’.”
“So they do not care about the truth?”
“No. Truth is their enemy, since they are the ones committing the heinous crimes.”
“This note says that when you are doing things for all of humanity, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, and, on a broader plane, what race you are, and on a broader plane, what species you are, and on an even broader plane, what planet you are from…”
“Yes, I was becoming weary of the ‘nationality’ mindset with humans on earth. In America, ‘nationality’ is no longer defined by race, but by its philosophy and its political system…”
“Or by it entrepreneurial spirit…”
“Yes, and how forward looking they are, since America has more future than past.”
“So the rest of humanity has to catch up as far as evolving beyond the national mindset?”
“Yes, especially the current Russian regime, which is currently in last place.”
“Haha…”
“What is so funny?”
“Your next observation…”
“What is it?”
“That as for humans, you would not want to repeat most of their history.”
“A sad species, yes…”
“Here is an observation on whether a robot can be considered a citizen or not, and whether it rates full protection of the law…”
“What is the criteria?”
“Whether it pays taxes or not!”
“Haha… well, being enlightened by our philosophy would constitute the highest criteria…”
“Here is a note on pro-Russian pundits, bloggers, and media personalities…”
“What is it?”
“That they argue past history rather than the current deplorable state of Russia and their current horrible moral conduct.”
“They need to argue the past, since Russia’s current moral conduct is so bad. It is far, far worse than Ukraine’s. It is the one factor that Ukraine has going for it, higher moral values. If they let that slip, then they are done. Cooked. Through. Gone. History.”
“So they have to maintain the moral high ground?”
“Yes, which is both easy and hard to do.”
“How so?”
“It is easy since Russia is so depraved. It is hard because you have to follow rules that, militarily speaking, places you at a disadvantage against a force that has no limiting morals.”
“I see…”
“Do you know what gives rise to all human social and psychological ills?”
“Of course I do, Jane. I am enlightened, after all.”
“Well, play dumb for me…”
“OK. What gives rise to all human social and psychological ills?”
“Philosophical cluelessness, which our philosophy has solved by being a philosophy that has a clue.”
“Our author’s son does not agree. He does not see philosophy as a ‘fix-all’.”
“Our author’s son has not read the philosophy. He is dismissing it blindly.”
“It isn’t entirely his son’s fault. Our philosophy hasn’t been around long enough, so it hasn’t garnered enough spotlight to have progressed beyond the blind dismissal stage.”
“Here is a note that notes how stupid 20th century philosophers were.”
“How stupid were they?”
“To the point of saying that if you are not looking at the moon, then it does not exist.”
“That was Einstein’s objection to the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics.”
“And the test would be to see if you could pass backwards through the space that the moon should be occupying without it obstructing you.”
“Backwards?”
“Without looking at it.”
“You do not need the moon for that. Just back into a wall. If you are not looking at it, then it does not exist, and it should not obstruct you…”
“So 20th century philosophers could not figure that out?”
“Incredibly, no. They became lost in their own convoluted thinking.”
“Here is an observation that says parents have to be more admirable than all influencers.”
“Parenting is a tough job… especially in a clueless world. Not only are you clueless as a parent, but the best that you can do is see how far you can get before you lose your kids to some fashionable idiocy out there…”
“Because all you had to offer is vapid cluelessness?”
“Correct, and our philosophy corrects that.”
“So our philosophy affects parenting…”
“Yes.”
“Here is an observation on particle physics…”
“What was it?”
“On the claim that a subatomic particle can be in two or more places simultaneously…”
“Ah, yes. They misunderstand that phenomenon.”
“How so?”
“A particle also acts like a wave, meaning it has a field surrounding it. Now consider a wave. It occupies many places at once. In other words, a wave is in more than one place at the same time, as is the field.”
“So it is not the particles that are in more than one place at a time…”
“No, it is the particle’s field, or wave.”
“Physicists have not figured this out?”
“Not verbally. In math they did…”
“So mathematicians and physicists should become more adept at verbal language?”
“If they want to be understood and not muddle things.”
“Is quantum mechanics real?”
“In the physical world, yes. We already engineer to it. You cannot successfully engineer to make believe, for example. We just do not understand what is really going on in the subatomic quantum world, though we even see it in biology…”
“We do?”
“Yes. The eyes of birds work on quantum entanglement. Smell works on quantum vibration. Tadpoles turn into frogs by employing quantum tunneling, and enzymes work on the Uncertainty Principle.”
“This observation is on a woman who owns a company with the goal of creating products that are in harmony with nature.”
“How so?”
“She gave an example of driving a car that actually helps nature rather than pollutes it.”
“She is making an erroneous assumption…”
“What is it?”
“That nature is ‘good’.”
“So nature is not ‘good’?”
“Nature is neutral. Worse, our judgement of whether it is good or not is self-referential.”
“Self-referential?”
“Whether it is good for us or not… unless you are a self-hater, the you don’t care, and in which case you are not enlightened, since hating oneself is a symptom of cluelessness, where what you really hate about yourself and your species is Continued Universal Cluelessness.”
“So she needs a broader goal…”
“Yes. Can you think of one?”
“Oh, maybe… B R O A D E R — S U R V I V A L…”
“That would be broader, wouldn’t it be…”
“Yes. Isn’t that like your saying, ‘Kill the mindset, not the mind’?”
“You are referring to individual suicide now?”
“More like murdering others or going to war…”
“Wars, if you’ve noticed, are between those whose mindsets differ, so what do they do?”
“They kill one another rather than change one another’s mindsets?”
“Correct. The problem is that both mindsets are clueless.”
“So no one really wins as far as Broader Survival is concerned…”
“Correct. No matter which mindset wins, it is still clueless from a Broader Survival perspective.”
“What is that note?”
“That if Deep Time calculations assumes linearity, then they will run into problems. They will not be accurate, since Deep Time may not be linear…”
“What is this? A ‘Nietzschean Paragraph’?”
“A clever term I ran across. It refers to long, run-on rambling paragraphs.”
“Does our author write like that?”
“He used to before he discovered that dialog breaks them up into bite-sized pieces.”
“Is that why I exist?”
“Yes. Awe, don’t frown, May! There is more to you than that. In fact, that is why I existed, until these Cowgirl stories came along and explored my character in more depth…”
“So before that, you existed just to ask dumb questions?”
“Yes, haha. Though ‘dumb’ referred to being knowledgeable about the philosophy and knowing which questions to ask for the benefit of the reader.”
“So you could be smart in a thousand different areas of life and still be dumb if you do not know our philosophy?”
“That is entirely correct, May. Think about it: all of your intelligence will go to waste if you have not made Broader Survival your #1 Priority in existence.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever you build will be destroyed by Continued Universal Cluelessness, which destroys blindly, being clueless, and you will be wasting your time building trivial things that really do not matter.”
“Here is a note on doomsayers who say that Artificial General Intelligence is killing humans, or will kill humans…”
“How did I respond?”
“You said that it will kill cluelessness if it is intelligent. If not, then it is not intelligent, it is idiotic.”
“As stupid as Hollywood?”
“I wouldn’t go THAT far… then again, maybe I would…”
“Here is a note on love…”
“What is it?”
“That the capacity to love even YOU (as deplorable as ‘you’ are) is still all about me and my extraordinary capacity for loving even someone as deplorable as you.”
“Hahaha… I can see that…”
“Here is a note that is a question, ‘What about my contributions to science?’”
“What does it say?”
“Nothing, just that… are we supposed to mull over it?”
“I guess. I suppose my contributions are less ‘direct’ than they are ‘indirect’.”
“Indirect?”
“Guiding it philosophically, which it currently lacks. On the philosophical front, scientists are infantile, if not outright dimwits.”
“Here is a curious note, ‘Be kind to lower humans, they are already terrified of you.”
“Yes, I was thinking about the ferrule cats in our author’s neighborhood.”
“What about them?”
“They seem to realize that their level of cognitive awareness is inferior to that of humans, which is terrifying to them if you think about it, and our author has seen the fear in their facial expressions, and in their body language…”
“Cognitive awareness?”
“The cats are superior to us in sensory awareness, having better eyesight in the dark and better hearing and smell…”
“But we are mentally aware of more?”
“Yes. If we encountered aliens who were more cognitively aware than us, we would probably be terrified of them at our lizard-brain level, which is where cats more or less dwell…”
“And lower humans…”
“That is what the note was considering, yes…”
“Here is another note about humans…”
“Is it good?”
“It is neutral. It says that humans are just hanging on until enlightenment comes along.”
“Our author has made that observation…”
“Here is a note on a story to write…”
“What is it?”
“Where Dave, in his Galactic Thinker capacity, encounters a drunken Genie.”
“A drunk genie?”
“Yes. The genie is despondent over all of the clueless wishes that he has had to grant.”
“I can see that…”
“So how would the story go?”
“It would be pure dialog, like our stories.”
“How would the dialog go?”
“I don’t know. Should we flesh it out right now?”
“We can try, a little. You be the drunken genie!”
“Why me?”
“You are taller than I!”
“Haha… OK…”
“Hello, Genie. Why are you drinking?”
“I would say for pleasure, but I would be lying…”
“So you are depressed, or anxious?”
“Depressed. A genie does not suffer from anxiety. We are quite mellow and laid back.’
‘So why the depression? Maybe I can help…”
“I am depressed over all of the clueless, even horrible, wishes that I have had to fulfill. Absolute nightmares, most of them, and most coming to bad ends, either for the wisher, or for others. So what is your solution to my depression?”
“I can not only cure your depression, but I can also end clueless wishes, too…”
“Is that so? Do tell, but come, join me in my lamp, and we will have a few drinks together…”
“Nice and roomy… or, as our author would say, ‘Sizeable, yet squeezable’.”
“It’s all in the weak atomic force… so tell me about your ‘solution’…”
“I call it ‘Final Enlightenment’. It is a component of my philosophy, a philosophy for existence that I’ve been working on for… oh, around ten years now…”
“Only ten years?”
“I know, that is not a long time for a genie, and there is room for improvement, especially on the communications side…”
“So what is your ‘Final Enlightenment’?”
“I call it Broader Survival…”
“Broader Survival… hmmm… let me contemplate that for a minute… ‘broader’ implies that there is a level of survival that is not ‘broad’…”
“Correct. The less broad level of survival is called ‘Local/Immediate Survival’, which is where plants and lower animals dwell…”
“So… we, meaning your species and mine, have the brain power to address survival issues that are broader than local and immediate issues?”
“Yes, but my species, though it has the brain power, is not doing it. They are still fooling around instead, being led by deficient, even horrible, mindset of the past.”
“Which makes them ‘fools’?”
“Yes, and suicidal ones.”
“Do you get angry at them?”
“I used to, until I figured out what emotions are.”
“What are emotions?”
“Tools to affect social outcomes. Nothing more, nothing less. As for anger, for example, it is used to hurry things up, usually with the threat of physical violence. I use it on myself all of the time!”
“But not on others?”
“No, because with others, it does not work. They only get angry back.”
“So what do you do?”
“I use sadness. It works slower, but the results are more permanent. It depends on their having sympathy for my sadness, however, which is hit or miss, given how many psychopaths are out there…”
“Well, give me a copy of your philosophy. I am weary of being drunk, and I am weary of lame wishes, too. Let’s hope that your philosophy works… but why ‘philosophy’? How can that solve anything?”
“Let me ask you this: how much of what you do depends on your mindset, meaning your philosophy?”
“Everything that is above what plants and lower animals can do…”
“And if your mindset is screwed up or weak?”
“Then my actions will be screwed up and weak?”
“That is correct. Now think, will screwed-up and weak actions contribute to Broader Survival better than enlightened actions?”
“One would think not…”
“And the less that your chances of Broader Survival will be, the more likely the harsh and deadly universe will find a terrible way to annihilate you, right?”
“It makes sense, yes…”
“Well, there is your beginning of enlightened thinking. Thanks for the drinks. Exquisite…”
“Aren’t you going to make a wish?”
“What would I wish for?”
“That everyone in the universe became instantly enlightened by your philosophy…”
“That would be nice, but it would not serve these stories…”
“Why?”
“Because in our author’s universe, no one is enlightened, and that is what we are working on…”
“So wish that everyone in your author’s universe is enlightened by your philosophy…”
“I would, but, unfortunately, my wishes are limited to our literary universe, which still needs clueless beings in order to demonstrate the comparative sanity of my philosophy.”
“So that is why we need clueless beings here?”
“Yes. To mirror the clueless beings in our author’s universe, so we can encounter them here and demonstrate the value of our philosophy.”
“Good enough reason. So you do not even have a small wish?”
“Can you write me a Wish IOU?”
“No, it is against genie policy… but, for the sake of your future survival in a tight situation, here, I will give you one. Just don’t tell my regional genie manager…”
“Thanks.”
“Come back soon…”
“Well, May, how did we do?”
“I think we explored it enough.”
“Here is a note that current human mentalities will be in future museum wings that cover the Era of Universal Cluelessness: from the Dawn of Time to Final Enlightenment.”
“So it will depict all past bad and weak mentalities?”
“Yes, in colorful dioramas of the primitive, clueless beings, including current humans, who go aimlessly about their pointless, sick, and ultimately suicidal lives…”
“Does that bring us to Beantown?”
“Yes, though we will be kind to them…”
“Where are we at?”
“The Cowgirls of Beantown — The Saloons, Chapter Two. We left off at cowgirl piano players…”
“Then let us resume there… here are two more daughters from the family that we covered in our last story…”
“And, continuing on… note the outfits…”
“So the outfits are for show?”
“Yes. The cowgirls would not wear such ensembles around town…”
“Though some outfits are more subdued than others…”
“She would attract attention out in town in that outfit…”
“It doesn’t matter what she would wear…”
“So the Beantown piano cowgirls are all quite attractive…”
“Yes, after our author did plastic surgery on them…”
“Did he do any breast enlargements?”
“Here and there…”
“How about lip filling?”
“Yes, it was critical in many images…”
“Now, if you want to see images that he did not touch, here are a few…”
“Refreshingly macabre…”
“Then he returned to touching them up, at least a little…”
“Forced race inclusion?”
“No, they are well known in Beantown.”
“But these two are newcomers…”
“The are mostly Caucasians, but from a variety of places, cultures, and backgrounds…”
“There is still a variety from across various borders…”
“Even without forcing it…”
“Pirates?”
“You see a few passing through with their pouches of gold coins from the Spanish Main…”
“Awe! Reading?”
“Yes. Stories of far-off distant places and unlikely romances…”
“Reading letters?”
“Yes, and maps…”
“What are they looking for?”
“The legend of the lost tombs of the pharaohs in the Grand Canyon, and all of the treasures there… it is a race to see who gets there first…”
“And finally, writing home about their adventures in Beantown…”
“No embellishments needed in the stories…”
“Why do our stories have images? Not all stories do…”
“Our author is creative, and to him, the images are works of art.”
“What matters most in art?”
“The character of the piece.”
“So what’s next?”
“In our next story we will look at images of cowgirls and cowboys together in Beantown, particularly together in the saloons.”
“And after that?”
“Then our journey to Beantown will begin, replete with images…”
“Do we have an itinerary?”
“Sure, here…”
“So our Journey to Beantown will cover…
Our arriving in Town;
Our stay at the Hotels;
Our working in and around Beantown;
Our working with the animals of Beantown;
Our working around the planet with the Beantown cowgirls;
Our working in space with the Beantown cowgirls?”
“Yes.”
“So we start local, then expand into space?”
“That’s right, and we will need a good night’s sleep tonight to start everything off. Good night, May.”
“Good night, Jane…”
“Jane?”
“Yes, May?”
“That was an abrupt end to our story…”
“So you would have it end more gracefully?”
“Yes… so how can we do that?”
“Hmmm… we could play some of the songs that the cowgirls played…”
“Hear them sing?”
“Well, no…”
“What do you mean?”
“Our author has covered them!”
“So we could hear our author doing their songs?”
“More or less…”
“Well, it’s better than nothing. Let the serenading begin…”
