Iskandria
Timeline Background Mechanics Bookstore
Timeline: bridging the gap between now and when my science fantasy is.
And the World Changed...
1979
- Apple Computer is incorporated, and manufactures the first
'personal computers'. Over the next five years, Mr. Wozniak, Steve
Jobs, and Bill Gates accidentally annihilate all pragmatic
motivation for converting the U.S. from the English system of
measurement to the metric system of measurement. [George Fisher's
explanation]
1995
- HTML is invented, immediately leading to the creation of the
Internet on top of a communications network originally designed to
function after a limited nuclear war. The social shock is so severe
it will a priori take at least three generations to fully adapt to
this technology. The public education system as we know it
accelerates its (slow) decline.
Near Now
- Abstract of Ezra
Tashizin's M.S.(?) thesis in philosophy. [©1999] I cannot
write the body of this thesis convincingly. First, I do not have
the philosophical expertise required. As if this was not enough,
Ezra Tashizin has a very different belief system than mine.
- Please email me if you think you can write an early draft of
the body of this thesis. If I find the results sufficiently close
in spirit to what I'm fantasizing, I will post it here. (Of course,
the copyright belongs with the original author -- and I will remove
my posting if the author so requests.) Multiple early drafts are
welcome. READ THE ABSTRACT: I will not accept candidates for early
drafts that violate the abstract's scope, do not clearly give due
care to the issues, or that are identifiably of a different
philosophy or religion than Ezra Tashizin's. Small pieces are fine
(this thesis is fairly long...)
- The college/university is subject to literary revision. I need
one based in California, that could actually accept this as a
thesis for a degree. Diploma mills are unacceptable. Informed
opinions about the suitability of various colleges and universities
are welcome; please email me with your opinion, and a "concise"
explanation of the correctness of your opinion.
- Opinion count: no opinions received and analyzed yet.
- If you can actually judge whether this is a Master's or a
Doctoral thesis, please email me with your opinion, along with a
"concise" explanation of why your opinion is correct. If I get
sufficiently many opinions, I will use them in making an informed
revision.
- Opinion count: M.S. 0, Ph.D. 0
Ezra Tashizin's Thesis + 9 years
- Luke Isaiah O'Kohr takes an Introduction to Epistemology class
in California. The textbook is Ezra Tashizin's thesis.
Somewhen before Ezra Tashizin's Thesis + 19 years
- Red China attempts to conquer Taiwan militarily. [I have no
idea whether Red China succeeds or fails]. In retaliation for U.S.
defense of Taiwan, Red China and/or North Korea target various key
areas in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and
Nevada with ICBM's.
- The U.S. retaliates by outright annihilating key military bases
in Red China and North Korea with FAE strikes, considering these to
be just as destructive as nuclear weapons -- and having more
favorable political consequences.
- In the following decade, the electric grid in California,
Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada is reconstructed with experimental
nuclear-hardened technologies. At least one hundred universities
must be completely recreated in California, Oregon, Arizona, and
Nevada; these reconstructed universities are also hardened against
both nuclear and conventional warfare with experimental
technologies. The state of Washington does not use these
experimental technologies when reconstructing. The phone network
has a similar reconstruction pattern (experimental hardening
against nuclear and conventional warfare in California, Oregon,
Arizona, and Nevada, no experimental technology in
Washington).
Ezra Tashizin's Thesis + 19 years
- The O'Kohr Foundation is founded in California. This foundation
is dedicated to those whose severely incapacitating psychological
deviancies defy all known conventional treatments.
Ezra Tashizin's Thesis + 21 years
- Reuters blunders across indirect evidence that someone admitted
to the O'Kohr Foundation, when it was opened, is now holding a 4.0
GPA as a freshman in Electrical Engineering at Wichita. This is
suppressed because the fact the admission occurred is protected by
U.S. Federal law.
Ezra Tashizin's Thesis + 27 years
- Russia (and closely allied Slavic nations) complete their
transition to a resource-based economy (started in 1999/2000). All
Slavic currencies cease to legally exist. Since no Slavic currency
has been printed or minted for the past decade, this is a minor
legislative cleanup. Hard foreign currency has been used mainly for
international trade for at least five years. The Slavic
implementation of a regulated capitalist economy flourishes, freed
of the distortions imposed both by the quest for profit, and by
central planning of the economy.
- The former freshman is now working on his M.S. at UCLA. His
unofficial (as in fringe science) project gets the attention of
M'yashin B'Torah, an ultraconservative Jew who is fearful that
Daniel's Seventieth Week is about to begin.
- About six months later, this GTA's "observer sensor network"
provides the definitive, replicable, objective evidence required to
convince the Israeli Prime Minister to renege on his plans to sign
the first Mideast peace treaty to have a chance, ever.
- The Six Minutes War ensues. After this, all hostile Arabic
Moslem countries are now conquered by Israel. While Israel was the
defender in the Six Minutes War, it seemed unreasonable to the
Knesset to formally expand Israel's borders. Instead, Israel tries
to reconstitute the conquered nations with more favorable
governments, and creates an area organization: JHVH's Domain. [Yes,
this reorganization takes at least several years, possibly a
decade.]
JHVH's Domain + 2 years
- One family is so impressed by the effectiveness of the O'Kohr
Foundation's mental discipline treatment for their 14-year-old with
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD], that they tried it
on two younger siblings that were also affected. It worked equally
well. [Ritalin had recently failed on the 14-year-old because of
his age.]
- The objective of the O'Kohr Foundation's mental discipline
treatment for ADHD is to teach the affected person to coordinate
his or her multiple attention tracks. At least, that is the
rationale for this highly unorthodox treatment methodology.
- It turns out that Henschle's gyri are the brain's attention
center...and that a medical abstract in a Cambridge CD-ROM database
[in or before 1997] documented that prenatal thyroid hormone
resistance was fairly reliable at inducing ADHD, with a significant
chance of physically duplicating the Henschle's gyri in women as
well as men. (Of course, my extrapolation of this is highly
unconventional, and is neither medical nor psychiatric advice! I'm
certain that if you have access to the CD-ROM database in question,
you can find this abstract: I made a hard-copy printout once. I
think I got it by querying the Cambridge Life Sciences database on
"Attention Deficit Disorder".)
- The mental discipline treatment's objective is to enable
above-normal functioning that relies on ADHD. That is, treating
ADHD pharmacologically becomes a medication-induced mental
disability!
- The family proceeds to Web-publish the O'Kohr Foundation's
mental discipline treatment for ADHD, as explained for their
child's instance. The medical establishment backlash is horrendous.
After the dust settles, the O'Kohr treatment paradigm is accepted
as generally effective (and the advisable first treatment) by the
State Boards of Health in California, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona
-- in defiance of the Federal agencies' denial of this.
JHVH's Domain + 7 years
- Fourth Reich Enterprises incorporates in a nation that is corporate-state friendly. Fourth Reich Enterprises
immediately establishes diplomatic relations with JHVH's
Domain. Their corporate charter definitely favors positive
eugenics, biotechnology, and environmental augmentation -- and is
anti-racist with a vengeance....
JHVH's Domain + 10 years
- Slavic medical care attains First World effectiveness. The
Slavic nations are a functional international political unit, known
as the Slav EconZone. Areas bordering the Slav EconZone start
exploiting the easy access to preventive vaccinations.
JHVH's Domain + 13 years
- In an effort to deal with a particularly terrorist sect of
anti-genetic engineering environmentalists (which is coincidentally
almost entirely Sino-African), the FBI initiates a sweep targeting
Sino-African U.S. citizens. This sect has managed to totally shut
down three different farms, in the span of three hours with FAE
explosives, four days before the sweep starts. These farms were
used to breed infertile corn, wheat, and rice (respectively) by the
corporation that currently has licensed (or holds) this
biotechnology patent (developed in 1999-2000 by Monsanto).
- I know this doesn't comply with the U.S. Constitution. Neither
did the McCarthyist hunt for Communists in the 1950's, nor the
imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in detention camps in WWII.
"There is nothing new under the sun." It should be noted that the
state of war did impair the application of the U.S.
Constitution in WWII -- but there is officially no such state of
war at the time of this incident.
- Very early in the sweep, a critical person for one of the
electric utilities placed a call to his supervisor i.e. CEO -- and
left his mobile phone software-locked on. His CEO was able to
provide a live feed of the arrest warrant being read to this person
-- immediately documenting that the warrant was
unConstitutional.
- Since the effective implementation of this warrant would shut
down most public utilities, and many county governments, the state
police immediately start to shut down the FBI arrest attempt. The
U.S. President construes the effects of the warrant as an act of
war against the United States -- making serving the warrant
treason, and equally the authorization of the warrant. The War
Powers Act is invoked; the U.S. Army is deployed to assist the
state police in shutting down the FBI arrest attempt. Chaos ensues,
but the military eventually succeeds.
- The U.S. Congress appoints a task force to analyze how this
social disaster happened, and how to prevent it. The task force
determines that due to severe cultural divergence, the Second
American Civil War has become a significant possibility. They
estimate that if this direct conflict between state and federal law
enforcement is not prevented, the United States could fragment into
between four and six different nations. Probable boundaries for
these fragment-nations are determined, based on infrastructure and
societal relations.
- More detailed analysis shows, however, that the strains that
could trigger the American Civil War are centralized in
California/Oregon/Nevada/Arizona. The question of whether the
Second American Civil War could be prevented by a solution similar
to the U.K.'s departure from India (and its less-successful
mirrors, 1999+ East Timor from Indonesia and Kosovo+Montenegro from
Serbia) is considered.
- Scientia is created by a series of subtle legislative maneuvers
spanning several years. The intent is to controllably
'reverse-colonize' California, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.
National-level institutions are gradually replaced over a span of
several years (by analogy with 2000-Ecuador). The U.S. Federal
District court (after gerrymandering) for California, Oregon,
Nevada, and Arizona becomes the Scientian Supreme Court. Default
citizenship in Scientia is still U.S., rather than Scientian.
Scientia's Constitution evades the question of forcing citizenship
shifts on the masses by defining the rights of U.S. citizens very
broadly. [In particular, two-thirds of Scientia's House and Senate
each must be U.S. citizens. These must use virtual
conferencing, because some physically must be at Washington D.C.
.... It is quite possible for a bill to die in the U.S. Congress
but pass the Scientian Congress.] Scientian citizenship cannot be
inherited, and requires passing a series of highly unethical exams
modeled after even more unethical 1960's psychological experiments.
[The main improvement is that the applicant for Scientian
citizenship is adequately informed of the nature of the
exams.]
Scientia + 7 years
- The Zen Scanner is invented in California. Formally known by a
highly technical name, the Zen Scanner uses advances in algorithmic
power, quantum mechanics, and general relativity to do real-time
extrapolations of space-time. Quantum mechanics requires being able
to effectively solve the differential equations of physics in
spacelike directions, as does magnetism in General Relativity. The
Zen Scanner is an FTL scanner -- as such, it is soundly rejected by
most of the scientific community as a hoax. Notable exceptions are
Scientia, JHVH's Domain, and the Slav EconZone.
Scientia + 9 years
- A combined theoretical research effort by Scientia, JHVH's
Domain, and the Slav EconZone extrapolates a warp drive from the
technical blueprints of the Zen Scanner, under the assumption of an
FTL ether. Each has a slightly different extrapolation....
Scientia + 10 years
- It proves impossible to conceal the starcraft construction
projects of Scientia, JHVH's Domain, or the Slav EconZone. The EU,
Red China, and India attempt to use their well-developed industrial
espionage networks to acquire the stardrive plans. On the other
hand, the United States spontaneously spawns over twenty
speculative IPOs out to reverse-engineer the stardrive plans.
- After all, as former CIA Director James Woolsey put it
regarding the 1994 Echelon incident around March 20, 2000: "True,
in a handful of areas European technology surpasses American, but,
to say this as gently as I can, the number of such areas is very,
very, very small. Most European technology just isn't worth our
stealing." It is much easier for America to reinvent technology
than to espionage it....
- In contrast, many Red Chinese and Indian corporations continue
to be on the U.S. EAR 774 export-control blacklist for their
remarkable ability to extract restricted technology out of
anything more advanced than a paperclip.
- The EU proves too confident of what they think 'science' is,
and cannot quickly fathom the design plans. Red China and India,
being accustomed to blending science and religion, have an easier
time -- after they recover from the initial shock that Scientia,
the Slav EconZone, and JHVH's Domain are using very different
blueprints for the interface between the Zen Scanner and the warp
drive.
Scientia + 11 years
- Two U.S.-based IPOs figure out how to build a warp-FTL
"radio/TV", and a compact artificial gravity generator -- in spite
of not reinventing the warp drive. This does not enhance the
credibility of either the Zen Scanner or its corresponding warp
drive.
Scientia + 12 years
- The race to explore nearby star systems begins. The initial
entrants are Scientia, JHVH's Domain, the Slav EconZone, India, and
Red China. The scientific paradigm shock is incredible.
- Initial design speculations for industrial, and military, bases
on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are considered. These
assume the use of an artificial gravity generator to render the
base at near-Earth gravity.
Opinions, comments, criticism, etc.? Let me know about it.
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