Time Traveling Alien Anthropologist

                He sat down at my table at the coffee shop where I was reading a book and taking a break from my bike ride.  “What is two plus two?” he asked.  “A mathematical equation,” I replied.  His thin lips curled into a small smile.  I’m visiting here do you mind if I ask you a few questions

                No, as long as I can ask a few myself.  Where are you visiting from?

                Form a distant time and planet.

                Really?  So, what brings you to this particular intersection of time and space?

                Research, I’m an anthropologist whose specific area of study is human origins and history.

                From the future, eh?  Wouldn’t happen to have a line on this year’s Super Bowl winner, would you?

                Super Bowl? Is that a reference to one of the primitive contest of speed and strength that your society frequently and with much fanfare likes to engage in?

                Yeah, we shortened all that up and just call it football, but your description is accurate.

                I don’t the winner of any particular contest but the idea as a whole is part of my study.

                Why would you research bring you to this particular time if you are able to travel to any?

                This is what your calendar refers to as 2017 BC, correct?

                If you are looking for 2017 BC you missed by about 4,000 years buddy.  You may need to tweak those dials on your time machine.

                Hmm, I’ve been here for a couple of your weeks and all of the other data confirms that this is the year 2017 BC.

                It is 2017…AD not BC.

                AD?

                After Death

                The death of what?

                Jesus Christ

                I’ve come across that name many times in my research.  He is a hero, of sorts.  Elevated to cult status by the superstitious.  Revered with monuments and symbols throughout this society.  He gained notoriety when he was executed by the rulers.

 

                Never heard it preached that way myself, but that is the Christ story in a nuthouse.  That’s why this is referred to as AD, After the death of Christ.  BC refers to the time before Christ.  What did you think it meant?

                BC stands for Before Collapse.

 

                Oh, Before the collapse of what?

                Human civilization on this planet.

                You paint a rosy picture.  You should be running for office.  So, when does human civilization collapse on this planet?  It’s been a question I’ve been curious about.

                The first interstellar voyagers leave this planet somewhere between 2084 and 2184 on your calendar.  Ancient history is not an exact science so there is a range given by the best data we could collect.

                What’s so interesting about this time that you decided to come to now?

                The calendar years between 2017 and 2024 are the years when the events occurred that accelerated the collapse of human civilization on this planet.  My research is aimed at better understanding what daily life was like here leading up to those events.

                What events are you talking about specifically?

                The dramatic increase of intra and interspecies conflicts that disrupted the planetary support systems and made human civilization inevitably unstainable.  I have observed that the occupying troops are already here in great numbers and we know that is one of the accelerants of violent conflict.

                Occupying troops?  Where did you see them at?

                They have been in great numbers everywhere I have gone.

                If there were occupying troops in the United States I would know about them.  What do they look like?

                You have not seen the uniformed soldiers that are openly carrying weapons and drive specifically marked military vehicles? They are ubiquitous every place I’ve been on the continent.

                I don’t know about the rest of the continent but I’ve not seen any occupying troops and I have lived here my whole life.

                There’s one right there.  He pointed out the coffee shop window at a patrol car that had pulled up to the curb with two police officers getting out.

                Those aren’t occupying troops, that’s the police.

                What is the difference?

                The police aren’t soldiers they are just law enforcement.

                Are your laws so unjust that you need armed and uniformed soldiers to force people to follow them?

                Well, I never thought of it like that but I guess we do.  It’s just the way it’s always been and they aren’t really soldiers.

                They wear uniforms?

                Yes

                They openly carry weapons?

                Yes

                Do they communicate with a central command?

                They radio dispatch, I suppose, or dispatch radios them.

                Are they able to stop, question, search, detain and execute other persons who are not in uniform?

                Cops do shoot people.  A lot more lately, but they are not supposed to.  They can stop, question, search and arrest you though.

                Are you allowed to resist them if they do so?

                Not if you don’t want to get shot.  You do have the right to remain silent.

                Would you consider that resistance?

                No, more self-preservation.

                Then why do you not consider them occupying soldiers?

                Because they aren’t foreign and they aren’t in the military.

                What makes them different than the military?

                The color of their uniforms.

                Why does it make a difference if they are foreign or not?  From my study of your contemporary maps the borders of what you call countries are primarily arbitrary and fluid.

                The borders are not really arbitrary, they were agreed upon in treaties and such.  Also, I haven’t known them to be fluid.      

   

                Has your country always had the same borders?

                No, we started out at 13 colonies and then expanded west.

                If your borders are able to expand then they are also able to contract and that would make them fluid.  What’s the difference between what you called a colony and what your map defines as a state?

                They were colonies under English rule but after the revolution they became states.

                So, the borders of the country of England used to be on this continent?

                I see what you are saying, the borders have been and can definitely be fluid.  But that hasn’t happened for a long time.

                That’s a very subjective view of time.  What you call Alaska wasn’t part of this country until 1959. 

                I never really thought of it that way.  I guess I just took for granted that the U.S. has always had 50 states.   

            

                Take from me and I’m a time traveler.  Always doesn’t exist. 

                How do you travel through time anyway?

                By utilizing gravity and the curvature of the universe.

                The universe is curved?

                It’s a sphere.  It was shaped that way by the force of gravity.

                The universe is a globe?

                That’s one way to look at it.

                How do you use gravity to travel through time?

                Gravity warps the fabric of space/time.  So, a time vehicle travels by tuning into the gravitational waves of the universe and then amplifies them.  This creates a high gravitational field centered on the vehicle.  Then you pick an arc of the already established space/time continuum and you can travel to a different place and arrive in a different time.

                Sounds interesting.  Harnessing gravity instead of fighting it isn’t something I had ever considered before.

                What is it that you do consider?  What do you think about on a day to day basis?

                Shit man, I work seventy hours a week.  I don’t have all that much time to think.  When I’m not at work I have to take care of the wife and kids.  I like to drink a beer and watch ESPN if I can get a chance.  Otherwise I just follow the scores on my phone. 

                Doesn’t that life seem like a flawed system to you?

                Fuck yeah it does, but what else can I do.  I have bills to pay.

                What do you mean by bills?

                You really aren’t from this planet.  I have a mortgage, HOA, health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, trash bill, water bill, electric bill, two car payments, I have three kids in school, my own student loans, food, clothes, fuel, cable/internet, cell phone, Netflix, Amazon prime, Spotify, Dollar Shave club, gym membership, and the list just keeps going. 

                And you must work to meet these obligations?

                Yes, and even then, just barely.

                How long do you have to work before you have meet all of these obligations?

                Are you fucking kidding?  These go on for the rest of my life. 

                That does not make any sense.  Why burden yourself with so many obligations that you can never fulfill?

                It’s just the way things are.

                Hmm. Are there not enough dwellings available to live in?

                There are plenty if you can afford them.

                Is there not enough water to meet the demand?

                No there’s plenty of water in this area but it cost money?

                Are there not enough sources of power or fuel?

                No there is plenty of fuel and power, you just have to pay for it.

                Is there a scarcity of places to obtain an education?

                No there are public schools, and charter schools, and private schools, and home schooling is an option.

                Is there a shortage of modes of transportation?

                No, you can buy a bike, ride the bus, buy a car, fly in an airplane.

 

                Is there not enough food to feed everyone?

                No there’s plenty of food.  Hell, we waste tons of it every day.

                Is there not enough medicine to treat the sick?

                The only medicine we are short of is the death penalty drug.

                What is that?

                It’s the drugs we use to inject people on death row to end their life.

                Is that considered a medical treatment?

                Ha, no it’s considered justice.

                How is it considered just?

                Because they did bad things, unless they were innocent, which happens occasionally, and they deserve to die.

                Everyone dies.  How can it be considered just to do something that is going to happen anyway?

                Well, they usually killed people, and murder is wrong so their punishment is to be killed.

                What’s the difference between killing them and murder?

                A bunch of paperwork.

                I do not follow.

                There’s legal system and a bunch of paperwork and a trial, so it’s not the same as murdering someone.

                You said that sometimes innocent people are executed.  Is that considered murder?

                It should be but it isn’t.  We all know the system is going to make some mistakes. 

                So, if the system makes mistakes it goes on unchanged, but if people make mistakes they are punished. 

                If they don’t have enough money to hire a crafty lawyer.

                So, some people who kill are not punished?

                Yeah that happens.  OJ is a good example.

                What is an OJ?

                He’s guy who was a football star and then an actor.  He murdered his wife and her lover and he was found not guilty. 

                So, your legal system kills innocent people and lets the guilty go free.

                It happens.

                That does not sound like a good system.

                What kind of system would you have then?

                If killing people is wrong than a system that doesn’t kill people.

                Then they just stay in prison for the rest of their lives.  That doesn’t seem like justice for the people that they killed.

                If you kill them do the people they killed come back to life?

                No.

                Then I do not see the justice in killing them.  What is a prison?

                It’s where you go if you are sentenced for a crime.  It’s a cage we keep criminals in, kind of like an absurd human zoo.

                How does that help?

                It keeps them away from the rest of society so they can do no more harm.

                They are kept in cages by themselves until they die?

                Well, no they are in there with other criminals.

                Are all of these criminals guilty?

                No, I told you the system sometimes makes mistakes and innocent people get convicted too.

                Can the guilty harm the innocent in these human zoos?

                Yes, prison is a bad place no one goes there on purpose

.

                Once they are there they can no longer contact society?  This is their punishment?

                No, they can have visits and phone calls, and write letters and such.

                So, they are still part of society they just are required to live in a cage?

                Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

                How is this considered justice?  What is the good that comes from this practice?

                It makes the rest of society feel safer.

                Is the rest of society safer?  Has this practice put an end to crime?

                Not by a long shot.  It’s just the way it is.  What would you do with the criminals?

                I would examine the most frequently broken laws to see if those laws were, in fact, just.  If they are found not to be just I would remove them.  Of those who broke the laws that are found to be just I would look to see why that person was broken and work with the rest of the society to restore them to wholeness.

                That sounds like some hippie shit to me.

                I do not know what hippie shit is?  It is a system that works for the betterment of all.  It has worked for millennium on my home planet.

                A planet without prisons and cops.  I would like to go there.

                You do not have to go there.  You could help make the same system here.  It seems to me that origins of the collapse of human civilization on this planet are obvious.  More so than I ever suspected they would be.

                What origins of collapse are you talking about?  Nuclear weapons, global warming, World War III. 

                All of those are the logical conclusion of this system.  So, they are symptoms not the cause.  The causes are obvious.  You have more than enough food but people go hungry.  You have more than enough dwellings but people are denied them.  You have the technology to promote life and wellness but you restrict access to it.  Your laws are unjust and therefore must be enforced with the club and the gun.  You believe that justice is the practice of capturing, caging and killing people.  This is not a sustainable system.  It will always collapse.

                What kind of system would you suggest?

                You feed the hungry.  Provide a safe space to live to all persons.  All access to medical technology and treatments for all.  Clothe the naked.  Provide access to transportation to everyone.  Educate all persons.  End unjust laws.  Stop capturing, caging and killing people.  This is the model of every successful civilization in the universe. 

                Where are you supposed to get all the money it would take to do that?

                Why is money important?

                All of the stuff you said we need to do cost money?

                It cost money to end unjust laws?  It cost money not to capture, cage and kill people?

                Those would be the cheapest aspects of your plan.  But where would you get the money for the rest of it?

                It does not take money.  It takes cooperation.

 

                I promise you it would take a great deal of money to get the people who own the food, the hospitals, and the houses to cooperate with a plan of providing it to those who cannot pay. 

                Who owns all these things?

                Mostly a bunch of different corporations.

                Corporations are a cooperative, correct?

                In a manner of speaking.

                Then why would they not provide these things?

                Because there would be no money in it.  They would all lose their ass and go out of business.

                Why would they go out of business?

                Because they wouldn’t collect any money and there would be no profit so they would run out of money and have to shut down.

                Why do they need money to provide these basic things?

                So, they can pay the people doing the work and pay for the goods.  If they didn’t, people wouldn’t do the work or provide the goods.

                Why would the people need this money?

                So, they can buy things.

                What would they need to buy?  They would be provided with food, medical care, housing, clothing and transportation.   

                What if they wanted cell phones?

                Then there could be a cooperation that provides cell phones and operates a cell phone network.

                Why would people do that if there was no money in it.

                Because there is a desire for it and it helps the people of the planet.

                It wouldn’t happen without the profit motive.  People are motivated by the opportunity to make money.

                Then the people need to be reeducated.  Do you think that your form of currency will be accepted on any other planet in the universe?

                I hadn’t thought of that, but no probably not.

                I assure you it won’t.  Any other civilization in the universe who has the technological ability to reach you would easily replicate your currency and take command of your digital networks as soon as they realized how easily you are plied with it.  A realization they would come to with a quickness you cannot comprehend.  A planet wide system of cooperation that works for the betterment of civilization, however, is much harder to, if not impossible to overcome. 

                Is that what you plan to do?  You came here from both a distant planet and another time so you must have that technology.

                No, I have no interest in that.  I’m only here for research.  Your civilization collapses and those voyagers you are able to send out before the collapse must seek assistance from those they come in contact with and therefore already know the wisdom of cooperation. 

                Why don’t you provide us with some future technology to prevent the collapse?

What you need to prevent the collapse is already here. The change must come from you.

                Don’t you have some future time travel technology that could save us.

                No visiting intelligent life form with ever provide you with more advanced technology than you can develop on your own.  This planet’s first priority would be to weaponize any new technology that they receive and this would have ramifications, not just for this planet, but the whole universe. 

                Is there anything you can do to save us?

                Your salvation comes from an accurate assessment of your problems and the cooperation that is required to implement the necessary solutions.  It will never come from an outside source.

                So, we are fucked.

                If you choose to be.  I have appreciated our conversation it has provided me insight that will be helpful in completing my research.

                Are you taking off?  Do you have an appointment that you are afraid you will be late for?  Sorry, time travel joke.

                No need to apologize for having a sense of humor.  It is one of the finest qualities of any intelligent mind.

                As he got up and left my table I took a sip of my now watered-down coffee.  Intelligent mind huh?  I wonder where I’m going to find one of those.