Looking Forward by Kenneth Jr. (snow like ashes .txt) 📗

that this amount of money in the mid-twentieth century would have commanded fifty years of work from a million men and women! In the free world of the twenty-first century, people can no longer be bought—either by the head, as in slave times, or by the hour.

Now that people are no longer burdened by work, they find labor interesting! For it is not the type of activity that makes something “work” or “play,” it is the motivation of the person. The same task may be either burdensome or fun, depending on the interest of the individual. And most of the time people in the twenty-first century are glad to find ways in which they can supplement the cybernated machines. Although the machines can handle almost all the work of the world, there is still a minimal need for the watchful eyes of the human masters they serve—a little supervising here, lending a hand there, and occasionally offering suggestions to Corcen.

Workshops and Labs

As people were freed of the daily grind, they learned to use their time for creative and challenging activities. The arts, sciences, and crafts became a vital part of the daily lives of men and women. The largest portion of the Cultural Center contains enormous workshops and labs that are used around the clock.

How would you like to experiment with a hundred-piece orchestral effect? Music synthesizers are on the tenth level. Would you like to test your reading speed and comprehension? The computers are on the first level. Would you like to weave a tapestry? The hand-looms are on the fourth level. Would you like to build a table? Metal workshops, eleventh floor; synthetic materials workshop, twelfth floor; woodworking, thirteenth floor. Would you like to build a boat? The boatbuilding workshop adjoins the lake. Do you enjoy electrical engineering? Do you want to invent a new gadget? Have you thought of a new game? Materials, machines, and space are there for your use.

Often, people spend more time in assisting others than in working on their own projects. Each person is interested in what others around him are doing, and he identifies with the activities of his neighbors. There is a blending of individual and group effort. A new dimension of selfless human interaction takes place in these workshops. This has probably been made possible by the elimination of the inferiority complex and the resultant calming of the human ego.

The Museum Section

Humans get so used to their surroundings that museums showing folkways of the past are always interesting. The Cultural Center has an excellent set of exhibits dating from the time man split off from his primate ancestors. The twentieth-century exhibit is particularly complete. Although near in time, it is distant in spirit. The display on money is a curiosity. “How peculiar,” thinks Hella, “that you needed these small metal discs and printed paper to acquire food, clothing, shelter, or anything else!”

Hella feels that the gleaming automobiles look somewhat contemporary. But the illusion is destroyed by the description that explains that they were built to last only several years and seldom went over a few months without repair even when new. And they needed fuel after about 200 miles! Such incompetent engineering can hardly be understood by people who feel that even one repair in twenty-five years is excessive. The description of the exhibit states, “This approach to transportation is a product of a society of scarcity that treated cars as status symbols. They deliberately withheld efficiency; they actually planned obsolescence! The millions of people killed and maimed by such vehicles is even more barbarous than the Mayan ritual sacrifices of virgins!”

The implements of the previous century appear odd to Hella. The stoves, refrigerators, washers, and dryers—what a cumbersome way to do things. She smiles at the high heels, thin stockings, and girdles. Such an incredible array of devices and nostrums people used to have! Medicines, toothbrushes, toothpaste, cosmetics, soap, brooms, vacuum cleaners, light bulbs, typewriters, dictation machines, books, magazines and newspapers, plus thousands of other paraphernalia. There was hardly anything produced for consumers in the twentieth century that is still useful in the twenty-first century!

Although Hella came to the museum early in the evening, she finds that by three o’clock in the morning she has covered only a small fraction of the displays. She dozes as she relaxes in a living contour chair, listening privately to music she has selected that is focused toward her ears. The cybernated sensing mechanisms insulate her from outside sensations that would disturb her sleep. She wakes the next morning with a feeling of expectation.

13. The Cybernated Industrial Complex

With a group of companions—everyone in the twenty-first century world is considered a friend, and those near you are companions—Hella takes an aircraft to the nearby industrial complex. It has been found that six industrial complexes are adequate to serve the needs of all of the inhabitants of the globe. In previous times isolated factories were scattered all over the world. This made sense only in a primitive economy where each city had to have its share of jobs to survive. In the past when a car was assembled, it was necessary to correlate the flow of parts and materials from hundreds of different factories spread over areas as far as a thousand miles away. Now everything is efficiently coordinated in a large, continental industrial complex.

The six industrial complexes in the world are connected by high speed tubes twenty feet in diameter. This permits the propulsion of automated carriers at speeds up to 250 miles-per-hour. If the industrial complex in Southeast Asia was running low on manganese, and there was a surplus of this material in an ocean processing plant in Africa, Corcen could direct a hundred-thousand-ton shipment of manganese to the Southeast Asia complex. This would be performed automatically, and probably no human being would know of this enormous shipment. Only in the remote event of some problem would humans be notified.

There are no stores or salesmen in the new world. All goods are ordered