Name: Donald Zuckerberg
Date: January 24, 16 A.O.A.
Class: 8th Grade
Subject: History
Teacher: Musk Avatar 3000
Location: Subterranean Station 775
Essay Topic: Benefits of the Singularity
It’s the year 16 A.O.A. (After Our Ascension), or, for the Neo-Luddite’s who insist on using the old Gregorian calendar, 2052, and there has never been a better time to be alive!
True enough, the scorching temperatures at the surface have forced everyone to live either underground, as I do, or on a Blue Origin Satellite Station (at least those of us who can afford it). But the stunning simultaneous achievement of Artificial Super Intelligence, Biometric engineering, Neuro-Nanotechnology and the perfection of gene manipulation techniques in the year zero (aka ‘The Event’) has, among other blessings, brought an end to the indignity of labor (aside from the writing of this essay) and enabled the entire human race (at least those of us who can afford it) to enjoy unlimited amounts of leisure time. What we used to call ‘work’ is now taken care of, here below, by the lesser drones of our AI overlords, and, on the surface, by those unfortunate humans who, probably as a result of either laziness or stupidity (or a combination of both) foolishly refused any and all of the many available biometric implants, genetic improvements or positronic enhancements. For those of us here below, or way up above, life has never been better!
But by far the greatest gift of our age is the gift of immortality (at least for those who can afford it). Long Before I was born, when people’s bodies wore out, people would just…die! Can you believe it! Now, we can extend human biological life for decades, all the way up to the age of 125! And when a person’s body wears out, we just download their brain data to our Advanced Afterlife Machines (AAMs)! From there, people can live on and continue to interact with their friends, family, and world in digital form forever. This is our new heaven! In the words of that ancient trumpeter and balladeer Louis Armstrong, ‘What a Wonderful World!’
Nowhere have we been more blessed by these developments than in the field of politics. In the old days, we had things called ‘elections.’ Our AI overlords, and our long serving President, Donald J. Trump, praise be unto his name, often remind us of how horrible those days were. Before The Event, our Lord and Savior had to fight all sorts of unjust systems to stay in power. There was an alternative political party, if you can believe it, that once threatened, and even interrupted, his reign! In 2028, four years after he had wrested it back with the help of the Founding Tech Overlords (including, of course, my Dad), he needed the help of something the ancients called a ‘Supreme Court’ to allow him to hold office for a third term, and in 2032, he and the Blessed and Eternal Party (BEP, formerly known as the GOP), had to formally abolish the wicked and nasty Constitution (something they had already by and large achieved by 2026) to hold on to power. But since the event, we have never had to worry about elections again! When the year Zero came around, they were simply called off, and our Lord’s brain was simply uploaded into the first AAM, from which he has ruled and reigned ever since! Now he is everywhere! Watching everyone’s every move! Sharing the joyful meanderings of his very stable genius mind with the masses, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Oh, how we have benefited from his surpassing wisdom! Thanks be to God (that’s him now) and to the armies of AI Droids who enforce his will at every level of society!
The future is just so bright now (especially on the surface). There is talk these days of uploading all of us into the AAM in a few years, decades before our projected natural deaths, that we might live whole and free, interfacing with the essence of our eternal leader and all the greats who went before us (at least those who could afford to be so uploaded). Aside from the obvious benefits, this will save us all from the daily risk we face of having our lives cut short by all the flying bullets fired from the plethora of automatic and semi-automatic firearms that exist in our society (everyone owns them, even in the space stations, they kept that part of the Constitution of course) or by the marauding unwashed hordes from the surface who raid our tunnels from time to time in search of food and water (thank the Lord and Savior for his army of defense droids!).
Until that glorious upload comes, I will grow and mature as I continue to receive implants and genetic modification treatments to help me endure the radiation that somehow manages to seep down into even the lowest levels of our subterranean paradise, rest assured that my well-being will always be first and foremost on the mind of our great leader.
There has simply never been a better time to be alive!