A Saucerful of Secrets

If the title of this post sounds familiar, it's also the title of a song and an album released in 1968 by Pink Floyd. If you don't remember the lyrics, don't worry -- it's an instrumental.


In this space and elsewhere, I've written about how technology will inevitably change our society -- becoming a great equalizer as it nearly eliminates the need for human labour. The ability to manipulate matter at a subatomic level will revolutionize our lives and effect a major turning point in human history...


A review of how this will work:

With this technology, anything and everything can be brought into existence from an equal amount of base matter -- any refuse will do, so first of all we as a race will be able to clean up after ourselves. Another bit of technology we'll gain will be the long-sought-after 'free' energy, and so nothing, not even the energy we'll use, will cost anything at all.

How can that be? Everything -- even the matter manipulation machines themselves -- will be able to be brought into existence in this manner, and everything that uses power will be able to be effectively self-powered. The only limit to how much can be created is how much base matter can be supplied, to be dematerialized and rematerialized in a new form.

What does this mean? There will no longer be the need for any kind of monetary system. There will be no reason for this technology not to be shared universally, at least to the point of making sure everyone has what they require...

Of course this will be a major adjustment for everyone to make. There will be the temptation to create all sorts of useless things, just because we can. Some will want to create weapons to use against others, so we'll have to find a way to deal with that issue...


...and perhaps our propensity for homicide is the very reason we don't already have this technology.

Left to ourselves, we might have already developed the tech (some would argue that we've already developed 'free' energy, in a few different forms, and that it's being kept from the public). Maybe we have made strides toward it, and maybe "the powers that be" have hidden it away because it will end their reign. But maybe there are more advanced beings out there watching us, and maybe they are willing to share the technology, when and if we demonstrate our readiness.

If you think about 'aliens' and what kind of technology they must have, you quickly realize that it must go far beyond anything that would make interesting science fiction. Authors may indeed have thought of what I have outlined above, but found it difficult to write stories around. With everything so dramatically different, how would the reader relate? How can anyone even think of something to write about in such a scenario?

We don't have to believe we are not alone -- this technology does not necessarily have to depend upon 'aliens'. We'll reach that tipping point all on our own, eventually. However there is much to suggest that intelligent life must exist elsewhere, and once we accept that possibility we must also accept the further possibility (or indeed, the likelihood) that some are much more advanced. Even further, we can assume that some must be so advanced that they can defy the limitations that our own primitive science places on physics. Maybe we can't see how anyone could travel interstellar distances quickly enough to make it practicable, but maybe to those 'others' it's a walk in the park.

AND, maybe our development of nuclear fission put us on their watch list. That's a big milestone, for with just a few more developments we could become a nuisance -- and for that matter, with just that one, we've become a threat to our own existence.


Now, take a look around you. Do we, as a species, appear ready? Wouldn't our governments seize the technology and use it as they see fit, cloaked in secrecy? Have they already done so? How would we know?

We are currently too divided and too dependent upon the governmental systems (and other factors) that perpetuate that division. In general, we do not see ourselves as one people -- yet.

Maybe, with our ever-increasing connectivity and ever-increasing ecological awareness, we will indeed soon be able to collectively recognize how we're all in the same boat, and how important it is that we find a way to get along.

And maybe that's what it will take for us to be considered to be ready -- or ALMOST ready...


Theoretically, one 'alien' saucer would be sufficient to spawn the transformation. A single matter manipulation machine could begin the process, and before long they could be everywhere. Do you see how careful those more-advanced beings have to be? If we were to get our hands on that level of technology before we're ready, we could cause a catastrophic amount of trouble.

Remember, along with the ability to materialize things comes the ability to DE-materialize them. That, right there, is potentially the most formidable weapon imaginable.


You don't hand a chainsaw to a chimpanzee.



Phil Smith
April 16, 2007


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