Fun excerpt from The Zeitgeist Movement Defined, Essay 16, p. 282 A Day in the life You rise to a generally quiet hum of mild traffic, with maglev trains whisking about the city. Having a love for high views, you get out of bed on the 20th storey of a simple yet elegant, mold- extruded apartment complex that converts all sunlight into energy through photovoltaic paints on its outer shell. You have a fleeting moment of marveling at this reality as the sun bursts through the windows, forcing increased alertness out of your early morning stupor. As you emerge, you are also reminded of your cousin having taken part in that global, university driven initiative about two decades ago, which sought to perfect this paint technology to a degree of efficiency never before seen. In just a few years of collaboration, this PV paint achieved 90% energy efficiency, making it workable in almost any structure. You remember the joy and satisfaction your cousin felt when his team was on the front lines when this breakthrough for humanity was achieved. It was like the elation felt amongst soccer teammates after a goal has been scored. Slowly gaining focus as your pupils find balance with the invading light, you glance out of the window and notice an enormous machine, suspended from a crane of sorts, slowly adding a new section to the very building structure you are a part of. Almost like magic, the machine is able to form, from what first appears like a kind of liquid plastic, a new apartment configuration and appends that form onto the existing structure. Quietly, safely and oddly with very few parts, there is no technician in sight, even though likely someone is monitoring the process from somewhere. Blinking and scanning sensor lights on the huge machine appear to suggest that it understands everything about the surrounding area and what it needs to do. Glancing further around the citys skyline, there is an immediate sense of synergy with nature. The city has no awkward concentrations or imbalance. The slick transport systems that zoom by, which are high-tech indeed, seem to merge seamlessly with the greenery, lakes and canals. Suddenly, a picture on the wall next to the window catches your eye. It is an old archival shot of almost the same perspective, but taken many, many decades before, during what modern folk now call the “last dark age”. In this shot a sense of tension, congestion and strife is felt. A long stream of automobiles is seen on a strip of crude concrete highway backing up all the way out of frame. You remember from your history education years ago that back then a monetary practice created great duress and discord, with people piling into cities to gain employment and hence to gain the money, in order buy things and survive. You then think of how things have changed indeed, feeling rather sorry for that primitive culture and happy you were born when you were. Of course, realizing that you too live in a fleeting era as time marches on, you further try to imagine what aspects of your life today will one day be considered outdated in the future. Feeling hungry, you enter into the apartments kitchen. It is a fairly new design you hadnt seen before. While the systems concept and the interest to combine and unify industrial design was mentioned prolifically in your educational materials as an engineering student, you notice the advanced degree of efficiency now achieved. The kitchen is one unit. The dishes and ware are designed for the washing and placement process, which is directly built in. Once a plate is dirty, it is set into a compartment that already understands the nature of the pre-designed plate and processes the plate with a kind of cleansing steam and a UV configuration that also sterilizes it. Automatically, the plate is then returned to the proper disperser location in the shelf for the next use. It was as though the kitchen was one big, unified machine. However, checking the refrigerator, you realize you have forgotten to pick up provisions for your short stay. You ponder whether to do go down to the lower level to pick up such provisions and come back, but you decide it is time to get going and you will grab something at a café on the way. As you exit the apartment, you swipe the access key into the control panel to confirm your final exit and then glance at the control panel to find the “clean” button. After a bit of frustration, you finally realize the apartment has been designed with a time-based motion sensor system to clean itself automatically when no motion is detected. You then notice the CF6 robot in the corner and take pause as to the amazing technical feat it is to have this robot understand the exact nature of the space, where things belong and where they do not, all programmed with absolute 3D spatial awareness of the apartment to clean and arrange. It is hard for you to imagine what it must have been like to maintain such daily drudgery generations prior. Exiting the apartment, which is actually a temporary access location you “rented” through an online service, you then enter the hallways and almost collide with a fast moving older man who drops a small laptop. You realize he is one of the managers of the apartment complex. You help him pick it up and he apologizes profusely. “Very sorry!” he exclaims. “We have a problem with the CF6 on level 12 and I need to reboot him!” “Good thing we always have a few backups for each room!” You thank him kindly for his well-kept place and continue on your way, with a brief reflection back to that historical photo in the room you just left. Long ago, peoples sense of contribution was always associated to money. They had jobs, as they were called. Today, peoples vocation is a matter of choice, facilitated also by a basic sense of social responsibility. Our society is designed to take care of us as one, so why should we not take care of society itself in return? The man who passed you maintains that building because he enjoys helping others and since he, himself, only needs to work a few hours a week at this role, he views his volunteer time as valuable and without burden, happily assisting others who very much appreciate the contribution. It makes him feel like he is more a part of the community. Exiting the building, the street is bustling with motion. You notice an artsy looking, retro French café on the corner and laugh to yourself at the pointless, yet cute nostalgia. You enter and sit at a small corner table, smiling politely at the family across the way. Realizing you are running out of time since you have to catch a train to attend a conference a couple hundred miles away, you tap a simple order into the kiosk menu in the center of the table. Tea and waffles. Once submitted you cant help but notice a mild vibration occurring behind your head. Since your grandfather was an engineer who helped design the original automated kitchen system, this is curious to you as the usual tradition was to put the processing facility above and center in the space. It appears there was some restriction in this narrow area so they hid it to the side. About two minutes later, a red light appears on the table to alert you that your order is ready. A glass door opens that is perpendicular to the table-top and a conveyor extends to reveal your tea and waffles. You grab the tray and rush to finish in the hope not to miss your train. Once done, you slide the tray back into the opening and it closes for cleaning. As you exit the café, you cant help but notice a decal with the silhouette of a female form with a tray, bending over what looks like a table. At first the image confuses you and then you remember that at one time in history people were slaves to others in this very way. Before the automated restaurant, people actually wasted their potential by waiting on each other and manually bringing food and taking orders. Once again, you are happy you were born when you were. Emerging back outside you realize you have a fairly long walk. Pondering jumping on the maglev trolley, which constantly circles about the city like a giant worm, you decide it is probably going to be too slow. So, you make your way to the street parallel, which is where the automated cars zoom around in their custom paths. Pulling out your cell phone, which has a special application linked to the regions transport system, a white cab quickly notices your call and stops on the corner. You enter the front of the cab and verbally describe the address. A voice confirms your request and you are off. Arriving at the train station, you exit the cab and begin to make your way. Gliding along you notice a person with a very large bag next to you, strolling it along. This perplexes you. It appears so arduous and unnecessary. You ask yourself why anyone would need such a large bag when the basic things everyone needs can be found in any city in the world, on demand. The idea of luggage seemed awkward and strange. Yet, before you have a moment to ponder this any further, the man in front of you suddenly collapses to the ground. Instantly a large crowd begins to form to see if they can assist. Being the closest to him, you notice the characteristics appear to be of a heart attack. While extremely rare in the world at that time, they still occasionally occur. Pulling out your phone you text emergency number 331 with the word medical. This sends instant notification of an emergency to a local team of volunteers trained in medical practice, along with the location via GPS. Within minutes a team arrives and works to save the mans life. With the man still breathing, he is placed into an automated emergency vehicle, which zooms off to the local hospital. Concerned about the fate of the poor man, you collect yourself and continue on, even more late than before. Finally making it to your train, you enter and sit. Within moments the doors close and you breathe a sigh of relief. In your seat is an entertainment center with has on demand media. As the train begins to accelerate, you suddenly remember that your nephew produced a feature film about whale migration recently, but you cant remember the name. Given this media center has a link to literally all media ever produced in human history, digitized and contained in one accessible database, you balk at the idea of searching for it amongst the millions of films. Then, it comes to you! So, you enter the title and there it is. However, your remember your trip is only about 275 miles so you know you wont get far as this maglev train goes about 3000 mph. You will be lucky if you get 8 minutes into the film. So, rather than spoil the experience, you decide to go over some notes you brought for the conference. The subject of the conference is terraformation. Great interest is being shown by humanity to further explore the idea of inhabiting space, and this conference will address the potentials currently available. However, before too much thought can be done, you arrive at your destination. You exit the train and enter the station. You realize you need some equipment for some program work that will be addressed at the conference, so you make your way to the local technology library. You need a versatile laptop and a series of storage cards to bring your notes and work with you after it is done. You enter the library and feel a buzz on your phone. You pull it out and a curious notification welcomes you to that regions technology center and asks if you need search assistance. This perplexes you at first but then you remember that the library network in that region has recently been updated to allow for a universal recognition system, facilitated by a phone application you had installed prior, while using another library in the same region years ago. You had forgotten about this. “How convenient!”, you think. You describe the laptop and memory cards and it returns the product profiles. You find that it is correct. Once confirmed, a visual map of the library appears that shows your location and the location of the area with the goods you need. You navigate to that area and check out the items. Then, you exit the library, retrieve an automated cab, and you are off to the conference. A number of hours later the conference ends. You are inspired, exhausted and hungry, having forgotten to eat most of the day. You decide an Italian style meal sounds good. Luckily, you notice just such a restaurant a few blocks down and start walking. Your phone rings. It is an associate from your hometown. He states there is a problem with one of the food production manifolds and he is unable to respond due to his own personal emergency. You state you will go online and check the system status and get back to him. You quickly enter the Italian restaurant and take a seat at a small table. It is a pretty busy night so it is noisier than you would prefer. You whip out the laptop, which has a satellite-based Internet connection at all times, and navigate to your regions technical mainframe to check for status errors. Sure enough, there is a power problem in sector five of the automated vertical farm structure in the northeast region. You bring up a digital image of the physical layout, which, by a kind of color-coding, reveals a severed cable line to a power converter. Having seen this problem before, since you have been overseeing your regions food production for about eight years, you gain a sense of relief, as the problem is very simple to fix. With a few keystrokes, a CR9 modular robot is now under your control in the farm. Through this remote control ability you are able to guide the machine to the problem area and explain the issue. This robot, like the one in the apartment rental you had prior, has a complete understanding of all physical and technical systems in the operation. A 3D model of the plant and its infrastructural design is literally programmed into these CR9s and all it needs is a little orientation from the management team and it quickly goes into action to fix a problem. Once in place, the CR9 quickly understands the problem clearly and moves to replace the bad power cable. In a few minutes, the problem is solved. You call your associate back and he thanks you kindly for the assistance. Now extremely hungry, you whip around the menu kiosk and find the largest plate of pasta you can! You enter your order, along with a strong cocktail and some water, and wait. About ten minutes later a mechanism in the table opens from the side, elevating your now ever-enticing looking meal to the surface in front of you. You dive in! Eating away, you cant help but notice a gentle faced woman staring at you from the corner. You smile and she comes over. She asks, “How is everything?” You state “Quite good. Are you the manager here?” She nods. You then go on to describe how your grandfather helped design the kitchen system she is using. She lights up and says, “My family has been feeding people for nine generations. Sometimes I go back and cook the food myself, just for fun!” You both laugh at the nostalgia, comparing the idea to those who still manually fix up old cars just for fun. After the meal and conversation, you decide it is time to retire for the evening. Pulling out your phone you locate an available room a few doors down. You enter the building, obtain a keycard from an automated key wall, and ascend to your room and sleep. Life moves forward. -The Zeitgeist Movement defined, Essay 16, p. 282
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 04:30:17 +0000
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