Part #1
Not what you thought, but its true anyway A science-fiction story like no other Elon Musk was apprehensive. Any number of things could go wrong, the possibility of catastrophe was painfully real. A great deal of money was involved in this secret venture, some estimates put the total above ten billion of dollars. That magnitude of investment meant that several other space enthusiasts had entrusted their fortunes to Musk even if his part of the venture was somewhere in the vicinity of $500 million. No-one must know about this, at least not for a minimum of seven years. But the payoff could be huge, a better word might be colossal. Beyond description. This was why Musk, during several trips to Australia but always employing surrogates, scouted parts of northeast Australia, then, in stealth, purchased large tracts of land seemingly randomly. Most of the property was sold to his associates under names that nobody had ever heard of in that part of the country until then, maybe individuals seeking to build retirement communities far from civilization, maybe business people seeking locations for future agriculture ventures, possibly outdoors men wanting to preserve a piece of the Queensland wilderness, who could say? This was how Musk collected enough contiguous land approximately 700 miles from the nearest city of any size, Brisbane, for his secret project. [Image result for photo of australia from space] Musk called his isolated real estate, "Bradbury Station," after the famous science-fiction writer whom Elon had admired since he was a young boy still in grammar school. And it was -and is- very isolated. Even when you know where to look it is not on any map. And hardly any people live in the vicinity. The nearest town is the village of Ingham, near the northern limits of the Great Barrier Reef, overlooking the Coral Sea. But Bradbury Station is somewhat inland, on the edge of the Atherton Plateau. Getting building supplies to the location took ingenuity so that the work being carried out would not be detected. If it was, and only parts of the mega project were found out in the next several years, the cover story was that work was under way for an upscale resort. This also sufficed for most of the workmen; only upper management was privy to the full story. Otherwise, everyone knew to maintain secrecy. Besides, the pay was attractive and anyone caught leaking the story would be summarily dismissed, which was a clause in everyone's contract. Thus Musk was free to pursue his quest, whatever it was, free from prying eyes, with no reporters anywhere on the scene to tell the public. And, of course, he had very good Australian lawyers on his payroll in case there might be legal challenges to his endeavor, Which, as we now know, never happened. Obviously there were people in the Australian government who had to be told but these ranking officials, for reasons of their own, liked what Musk was planing to do and the project went ahead with their unannounced approval. Secrecy was maintained throughout the process. So it was that one day, more than nine years ago, a gigantic interstellar space vehicle, its enormous rocket thrusters roaring with the sound of twenty freight trains at full throttle, lifted off from Bradbury Station in a remote corner of Australia; no-one in the United States expected this at all. [Image result for rocket launch] What was this all about? The secret was guarded successfully all these years. It no longer is a secret to some people and that means everyone will learn everything very shortly and it is in my self-interest to tell what I know, before anyone else has a chance to do so, and reap the kind of rewards that any investigative journalist dreams about. This is as momentous for me as it is for Elon Musk. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The story began in the United States, long before Musk invested one dollar in Australian real estate. He was alone in his study, searching the Internet looking for ideas for his next venture, a plan to put a satellite into orbit around Mars. Musk wanted to locate water on the red planet, that is, to anticipate NASA in its quest to find possible locations of at least primitive life forms that may have survived from the archaic epoch when Mars still had seas. As things turned out, Musk abandoned that idea and NASA went forward with its own similar project -which it did quite successfully. Elon Musk had far more important things to accomplish. That night, looking at the glowing monitor, examining pictures of Mars taken from satellites then in orbit, he noticed something strange in one of the photographs. You may have seen the picture. It shows an impact crater Elysium Planitia. It takes no imagination whatsoever to see an eye as part of the topography of lava flows. That is not what is most meaningful. It was how Alon Musk perceived the photo. He knew it was only a psychological effect of some kind but it seemed to him that there was a message for him, to the effect, "look again." Thinking back, Musk realized at the time that other people might well think that he had lost his mind if he tried to describe the sensation he felt at that moment. The last thing he wanted was to be identified -in any way- with psychics or mystics or other fringe types often found in New Age groups. Colorful but crazy. That was not what he was all about, not in any way. But he could not dismiss the feeling that he had. Later, years later, it finally occurred to him that what had happened that evening was some form of quantum phenomenon, a communications system that was non-Newtonian, not a matter of electrons in the atmosphere and broadcast technology, but something altogether different. We can think of it as "narrowcasting," 1 : 1 signaling, not through hardware or the kinds of technology that we are familiar with, but along the lines of biotechnology, taking advantage of electrical fields within the human body both to, in effect, "read minds," and then use the information to communicate to an individual through the equivalent of psychological suggestion. Who -or what- would do something like this, and for what purpose? Musk would soon find out. But at that moment what he felt he had to do was retrace his steps on the computer and re-examine some other photographs he had seen shortly before. And suddenly it became very clear. It was an image of part of Chryse Planitia, an MGS laser altimeter color-enhanced photo, essentially a map of the area. But Musk immediately say something else besides the obvious. If you looked from a certain angle what you saw was a different map altogether, an outline of a major portion of Walhalla Plateau in the Grand Canyon. Musk knew the area reasonably well; he had once visited there on a vacation some years before. He very much liked the area and had made a sort of study of it. Now he knew he needed to return to the north Rim for at least a short visit. He wasn't sure why but it seemed to him there was no choice. "I won't be talking to you again," said the stranger. "But you need to listen to what I have to tell you. It will be your decision after that." And so it began, starting with knowledge that certain television programs would be coded in various ways to communicate information to him. At the right time he would be told a secret that would change everything. Something Isaac Asimov had said in 1975 was the key to everything else. I had heard him on a radio broadcast at the time, during my residence in New York City. How I utterly despised that town, crowded, noisy, besmirched with grime in far too many places, and worst of all, a collection of massive egos who think they know everything worth knowing but who lack basic humanity. In any case, it also is the gathering place of some of the best brains in the country and Asimov was giving a lecture that was not to be missed. Going across town to attend his talk in person was more than I was prepared to do at that time, but there would be a live radio broadcast. "When you think about the galaxy," he said,"you are thinking about the rise of life not only here on Earth, but in many other places even if, for the time being, we do not have direct evidence. And think of the fact that if there are other human-like species, and convergent evolution in all probability would have produced something resembling humans on other worlds, then some of their civilizations would be much older than our own. To be sure, some would also be younger, with the equivalent of stone age people as its inhabitants, but we are near the edge of the galaxy which means that we are among the younger intelligent species" Asimov continued: "This means that there are civilizations that are, let us say, 10,000 years more advanced than we are, 100,000 years ahead of us. Their technology, as Arthur Clarke once said, would seem like magic to us if we witnessed it in operation. What could our science be capable of in 10,000 AD, or 100,000 AD? Think of everything that could be accomplished." "But if all of this is true, where are they? They should have been here by now. The answer is obvious, they are here. We just do not know how to look for them. They are like the anthropologists who once visited the Tasaday in the Philippines. But first they simply observed those remote and isolated tribal people, not letting them know that there were interlopers. When there were opportune times to do so, they planted microphones in the Tasaday village, they set up concealed cameras, and simply watched and listened. The anthropologists did not reveal themselves until much later." "We," said Asimov," are the Tasaday." In point of fact, while Asimov got the basics right, there was much more to the story. But Musk had heard about Asimov's talk and had taken it to heart. Now, that day while visiting the Grand Canyon, he understood that what was ahead of him was very big. And despite how much the stranger had told him, Musk realized that he was only at the beginning of an adventure. There were no paradigms of science to guide him nor, for that matter, paradigms of science fiction. There was also a fact he was not prepared for -at all. Without the least doubt the beings he now was certain existed were technologically advanced beyond anything native to planet Earth. Beyond the capabilities of the most imaginative technological wizards in Silicon Valley. But what the stranger told him made it clear to Musk that these "people", these secretive "visitors" among us from another realm in space, to call them that- are social scientists like no others. Asimov's metaphor of anthropologists is useful but has its limitations. These beings, or some of them anyhow, are walking encyclopedias of culture. They do not intervene in human affairs without full knowledge of our politics, religions, art preferences, philosophies, literature, history, and so forth. Which is to say that the science establishment as well as the science fiction establishment have it all wrong. Or almost all wrong. "They do not need our technologies except as a means to an end," said the stranger. "They have plans for us, but to accomplish these plans they need to change -"revolutionize" would be a better word- our culture. They believe that you, Elon, can make a significant difference; indeed, you are vital to their objectives if you so decide. They can find someone else but not immediately and they prefer not to wait any longer than necessary." There would be a secret project to send a space probe to another planet, an extra-solar world, and Musk would be in charge of it. He would also be responsible for building it. And finding the financing for it. He would, in effect, become a "new Columbus," which would give him enormous new leverage in the world, but he needed to carry out his assigned task. Which, there never was much of a question about it, he was willing to do. The "catch" was that his project would be part of a larger overall plan of action which had a cultural dimension that was regarded as important as the technological dimension. Musk understood why this meeting had to be at a remote location; nobody who might eavesdrop should be anywhere in the vicinity, it must not be convenient to anyone who might want to listen in and steal secrets. But why Walhalla Plateau? "There is something you should have," said the stranger. "This is a portfolio of copies of artwork by a former tour guide at the canyon, a good number of years ago. He was a scholar as well as an artist who, through circumstances, found himself on the North Rim employed by Arizona Tours. Somehow he became friends with a professional photographer who specializes in pictures of far-off-the-beaten-path arts of forgotten people. That is, people who may be dead as well as those who are very much alive. The photographer had seen it all, Borneo, Lappland, the Mapuche Indians of Chile, Ethiopia, Ladakh, you name it." "This photographer had heard a story about a 19th century explorer who had found a cave filled with ancient pictographs and petroglyphs. Following such clues as he was able to unearth, the photographer had found the cave. And he took his artist friend with him, These are the drawings that resulted; the artist called the place Virgin Cave -after the Virgin River nearby. You would be well served if you took a look for yourself." This was the last thing the stranger told Musk, and then walked to his car and drove away, no information at all about where he was going, what his name was, or anything else. Musk found the cave; it took some doing, but a Park Ranger was very helpful, and after several hours of climbing into the depths of the Canyon starting out from a location on Walhalla Plateau, there is was. Musk was astounded. There was no way to understand what everything was all about, but some matters were transparent enough. This had little to do with conventional American culture. True enough, the images reflected the art styles of Native Americans of, as a guess, 1500 years ago, sometimes more like 500 years ago since several art styles were present in the cave, but there was much more in play than Anasazi antiquities. To be sure, the ancient Indians delighted in erotica. Tourists who visit sites that preserve American Indian rock art cannot help but notice scenes showing women with their legs spread, a man about to, uhhh, enter the sacred precinct, other scenes depicting women showing off their breasts or men showing off their erections, and there was plenty of that in Virgin Cave. However, there were many other scenes of very different character. Forget about pop culture theories that claim to see images of space aliens wearing bulbous helmets to allow them to breathe their preferred mixture of atmospheric gasses. Any competent art historian can tell you that what these images actually show are shamans wearing ceremonial costumes for use in tribal dances or healing rituals. At least most are exactly that. But there are a few exceptions and, besides, some of the art was unfathomable. Or, for Elon Musk, inexplicable even if there must be some logical reason. Like the symbolic designs that showed what surely seemed like a form of written language but unlike any system of alphabets Musk had ever seen although vaguely similar to oracle bone markings from Shang Dynasty China -but more 'streamlined' and stylized.. Like the conspicuous swastika designs on the main wall of Virgin Cave. These emblems were beautiful, Musk thought to himself, but what could they possibly mean? Anyway, these did not look anything like the graphic arts of the Third Reich. Yet there they were, swastikas, not the least mistake about it, several, in the center of the wall. And then there were those exotic drawings or paintings showing what surely seemed to him to be depictions of space craft. Not sleek and modern, what you might see on the covers of sci-fi publications like Amazing Stories, but space craft nonetheless. Sort of like a bas relief sculpture he had once seen on the island of Bali. It dated to about 1900 and portrayed a bicycle. Obviously the sculptor had never seen a bicycle before. He (presumably "he") got all kinds of details wrong, and why were there so many flowers shown in the art? But there wasn't the least question about what it was: A bicycle. What Musk found himself looking at that day left a profound impression. No pictures of bicycles in Virgin Cave but, no way to deny the obvious, he had looked upon ancient-era pictures of some kinds of alien space vehicles. The stranger had told Musk that the photographer's whereabouts were unknown. He had, as idiom has it, "dropped off the radar." The stranger also told Elon that it would be to his advantage to seek out the artist, an artist who also is a scholar of American culture. But that proved to be a problem. The man was controversial, he had been blacklisted from every professional organization that was relevant, and had made himself scarce, never answering phone calls, never seeming to be at home, and only communicating with an obscure group of Radical Centrists via e-mails. Musk had sent two different lieutenants to speak with him at different times but in each case they reported back that they were unable to do so. "Maybe the third time will be different," Elon mused to himself. This was not urgent, but if his forthcoming secret project was successful, the artist / scholar might well be crucial to everything else. Musk knew his own limitations and these included serious weakness in such areas as social values questions and the entire field of religion. And what his project could well end up doing would be to challenge, head on, nearly every cultural paradigm in western civilization, not to mention in every eastern civilization. This sounds like hyperbole but it wasn't. And the artist, the stranger had implied, was in the middle of phenomena that Musk's project was sure to bring to the surface -the way that a volcano brings millions of tons of magma into the open, changing everything. In the meantime Musk needed to complete his project, with billions of dollars at stake. That took his undivided attention every few months, as he set aside the time necessary for the purpose, despite his hectic schedule -ventures in commercial space flight, new forms of land transportation, and new types of sailing vessels with Mylar sails, computerized navigation systems, and innovative anti-friction technology that allows boats to travel with almost no resistance through the waves. ----- The television programs Musk was instructed to view were incredible. In each case they were not all that unusual as shows, maybe a crime story set in Pasadena, maybe a documentary about World War II, maybe a romance on Hallmark channel. But there always was a shadow message involved that was intelligible only if you knew the code. And partly this code would only be complete after other episodes like that time, months before, when he had first looked at that photograph of landscape of Mars. He would be prompted to look into something he had, until then, overlooked. And there would be a surprise that educated him to another piece of the puzzle. How was this done? Again, part of the answer had to be via the "biotechnology" that had awakened him at the outset. In many cases the people producing the shows had no idea at all that their decisions were being engineered for them by unseen beings. In other instances, however, Elon concluded that the only reasonable solution to the problem was that there were other people like the stranger he had met in Arizona, who were at work elsewhere, in TV studios, in Hollywood movie companies, in news organizations, and so forth. Finally he understood that his "work orders" were next. Musk had learned all the background he needed in order to proceed. That was when, after all the necessary land had been purchased, he started to build Bradbury Station. Why was secrecy necessary? There were several reasons. One was the danger of industrial espionage. Musk had competitors who would have liked nothing better than to steal his inventions or to contribute what they could to business failures in Elon's ventures so that they could gain advantage in the market. But there was a worse problem. Musk had antagonized leaders of both major political parties who, as disunited as they might be about nearly every issue on the agenda in Washington, DC, were bipartisan when it came to him. These political figures wanted Musk to fail and were willing to throw every obstacle they could into the works of any enterprise he was involved in. It almost made no difference what it was. He represented a threat to the political establishment and, Democrat or Republican, that was unacceptable. This is not to talk about a cabal of not-entirely-rational Lefties or hopelessly naive Right-wingers. This is to talk about select individuals with fortunes at their disposal. Men -and some women- who have all the moral fortitude of Richard Nixon, but without being as small minded about things as he was And if you have the view that Washington DC is all about upright men and women who, while they may make mistakes often enough, are nonetheless ethical and who mean well far more often than otherwise, then either you have a very low IQ or are ridiculously uninformed about how politics is really played in America. It is dirty in nearly every case that matters. Most people are smart enough to know better than to assume that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington portrays some semblance of the truth, but even more people are ludicrously uninformed, misled in their priorities by dysfunctional philosophies like libertarianism or some version of Cultural Marxism, even if neither of these outlooks are identified for what they, in fact, actually are. Instead, they are presented as "normal," what "everyone knows," and not deserving of further comment. In any eventuality, Musk had powerful enemies, people who wanted to destroy him if at all possible. Elon was lucky in that he had become wealthy about two years before opposition to his rise coalesced into a more-or-less organized group of people who could act against him. Musk's money was sufficient to protect him, at least for now. He had a large number of very smart lawyers in the United States, and a very good security force consisting almost entirely of former military people, Green Berets and the like, plus a contingent of ex-CIA operatives and a few former employees of the FBI. Musk was not taking any chances. The entire time he was at Walhalla Plateau, for example, there were four of his people on the scene, looking out for his safety. They took telephoto lens pictures of the stranger, needless to say, but that effort was useless. The man was careful not to be seen anywhere near tourists or other people, he always stayed maybe 25 yards from the nearest human being, plus he had a think beard and it was a good guess that a skilled makeup artist had altered his facial features for Musk's visit. His car license plate turned out to belong to a rental car agency. The vehicle was rented under an assumed name. Musk surmised that the stranger had two or three of his own people at the Grand Canyon that day to safeguard his interests. --------------- The conclusion to the process of Musk's 'extraterrestrial education' was his need to locate several parts of the plan he needed to follow for Bradbury Station and the space probe he should build. If someone else was to find one or even two or three of these pieces of the puzzle, it would not do them any good. There were a dozen parts and they only made sense when assembled together. The trick was to obtain all the parts with no-one suspecting what was happening. This seemed to Musk to be a contorted way to do anything but if this was how it was to be, he had no choice but to comply. The first piece was located in the science fiction library in Riverside, California. It was a discussion in an out of print sci-fi thriller about exploring Mars. Even if someone had his or her suspicions it would not matter; Elon was well known for his "Martian" interests. A third party would probably assume that he simply was adding to his trove of Mars lore, along with Barsoom novels and Ursula Le Guin short stories. Elon photo-copied several chapters, which included the section he needed, so that anyone who was able to find out what he had collected that day would be misled. So it went with respect to an excursion to the library at Cal Tech, the library at Stanford, the business library at Arizona State University, and so forth, the final stop being a used book store in Atlanta. Besides books or book chapters he had obtained back copies of several magazine articles, one in Scientific American, another in IEE Spectrum, one in The Futurist magazine, and still another in the Chicago Synthetics and Plastics Advances News. Nothing, by itself, could reasonably be taken as pointing to Musk's project. For the moment only he knew how to put the parts of the puzzle together. He would be constructing an interstellar spaceship in the very near future. -------------------------------------------------- The Conference Something strange was happening inside Elon Musk's mind. What had started as psychological suggestion was becoming more explicit. At first there were occasional isolated words, usually by way of a short comment about something he was doing, for example, "five" when he was trying to figure out the maximum number of ignitions a specific rocket motor could withstand before malfunctions might occur in the hardware. Sure enough, when he ran simulations on his computer that was the final number no matter how many contingent variables he factored into the process. Later the word count of these communications increased. There might be short sentences. There never were more words than a longer sentence but even so, the information might be priceless. . Even though he knew the fundamentals of pulling together the information in a score of publications, deducing how it all contributed to a design for an interstellar space vehicle, there were countless problems to solve. Musk is a very smart man but he never claimed to be in the same league with Max Planck or Niels Bohr. Sometimes he was in way over his head. He could get to the place where maybe half of a problem was puzzled out well enough to know he was on the right track but he could go no further without knowledge he simply did not possess. Or without understanding how something worked in an equation he barely grasped. A short sentence from nowhere could take him to the next level and a solution. It was a learning process. Musk was incredulous at the beginning but then grew accustomed to these "brain interventions" as he characterized them to himself. He also had worries that he might be losing his mind, possibly that these "communications" were the onset of schizophrenia, but that was not what was happening, not at all. He was receiving useful information that had real world applications. But how could he actually tell anyone and have them believe a word of what he might say? He couldn't -and retain his credibility. This was a serious problem that he never could find a satisfactory answer to. But he carried on regardlessly. Creating a rocket to reach an exoplanet was simply too much fun to resist. I'm a journalist, not a scientist, so bear with me as I try to explain the physics it is necessary to understand in order to tell this story adequately. Musk, about such matters, is in a different realm that I will ever be. Yet a few basics might be described well enough. Others would need to be found to write these things out to better effect but, since no-one else is available at the moment, let me proceed. This story needs to be told; it will change human history forever. What has been known for some time now is that, at the dawn of the universe all kinds of things, the equivalent of whole galaxies in many cases, necessarily traveled through Space at speeds faster than light. Nothing less can explain the structure of observable .deep space. This does not make Einstein wrong, it simply says that his truth is limited to a set of conditions that do not apply in all cases, such as super density or extreme temperatures. There is another problem when you think about blasars, ultra massive galaxies to call them that by way of analogy, that produce jets of energy that approach the speed of light, measured at about 99% light speed as a matter of fact. That should not be possible. But blasars, while they are rare in the cosmos, happen to exist. [Image result for "blasar"] Then there is the mystical realm of quantum mechanics. About this I am mostly mystified but what can be reported is that the phenomena are altogether real and development of quantum computers is, at this writing, probably only ten years away. Indeed, such calculating machines exist today even if, given the nature of the beast, since they require temperatures near absolute zero to function, they are not practical yet. But look into the research now under way at MIT and other schools of high technology. Designs are in process for a next generation of quantum computers and, while none can fit into a cell phone, you no longer need a warehouse filled with huge devices that produce near-absolute-zero temperatures to build one... [Image result for quantum computer] [https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/googlequantumcomputer.jpg?sw=280&cx=0&cy=0&cw=1212&ch=1866] But how can something be in two places at once? The better question to ask is how many places can something be at one time? [Image result for tachyons] Then there are tachyons. This topic remains controversial but there are compelling reasons not to doubt the reality of these unusual particles. And "unusual" is too meek of a word; they can only exist at speeds grater than that of light. And the structure of a tachyon atom is unlike any other atoms known to exist... [Image result for tachyons] The point of all of this is that, given a technology that makes our sciences seem like the Neolithic Age to us, all sorts of wonders are possible. Tachyon generators are a case in point. With such a device you can transmit messages really, really fast. [Image result for tachyons] This does not mean that light speed is for slow pokes, but multiples of the speed of light are entirely reachable -if you know what you are doing. Elon Musk did not know what he was doing at first, but he was, as they say, a "quick study," and in a few weeks he was well on his way to creating a tachyon generator prototype. This would have been impossible without a boost by the 'voice from nowhere.' Now it was thinkable to conceive of a deep space probe to an exoplanet that could transmit messages back to Earth in a few days, not months or years, and allow people on our planet to send messages to the vehicle in a reasonable time to help in its navigation and for any number of other uses. In terms of historical analogy, concerning voyages between Europe and the United States, we would be at the place in time of the first steamships; the age of caravels and schooners would become a thing of the past rather quickly. ----------------------- What would be the purpose of Musk's rocket to another star? And how could it possibly get to its destination before several generations of Musk descendants were deceased? Assembling the published materials Musk had collected provided an answer to the question about the speed of the spacecraft. Although this is not to talk about faster than light physical machines it is to talk about speeds approaching that of light -without the effects Einstein had predicted. Keep in mind blasars and the limits to Einstein's assumptions made with no reference to temperatures or other variables that can effect outcomes. Especially quantum variables. There was a practical way to accomplish this -through creative use of quantum mechanics that I do not begin to understand. Musk knew he could explain it to engineers and computer scientists even if he was unable to discuss the details of astrophysics, But that was all he really needed to do. In point of fact, as a problem in engineering, he could build a space vehicle that could approach the speed of light. The problem was that the vehicle could not have a biological crew on board. It would need to simply be a communications device with some science capabilities built in, like super telescopes, advanced radars, and laser "tools" to perform various tasks such as ship maintenance and repair -and, signaling. All of which would depend heavily on AI -artificial intelligence. This would be a space craft that, to some extent, could think for itself. Musk was assured that there were ways to bring a human -or humanoid- crew along on a voyage through deep space, but also told that no Earth technology yet exists to allow the construction of such machines. Still, a successful probe that could reach an exoplanet and send messages back to Earth would be momentous unto itself. Particularly if that planet was home to an advanced civilization similar to our own. The cost, however, would be gargantuan. Billions of dollars, indeed, to use one number that has surfaced in informal after-the-fact conversations, is a figure of around $ 20 billion, twice the original estimate. Musk is rich, but not that rich. He would need to recruit other wealthy men and women, all of whom would need to do what they needed to do, in strict secrecy. Any leak, even a Freudian slip, could jeopardize the entire project, It was at this point that Musk called together a remarkable coterie of business people, especially people in the world of high tech, to make a case for visiting an exoplanet approximately ten light years distant from Earth. Some were CEOs, all were upper echelon executives [Image result for discussion] The meeting took place during an evening, near Los Angeles, at a time when everyone involved would be in the city for other reasons -to prevent suspicion. They went about their business as anyone would expect, including giving speeches to stockholders or negotiating with other companies or making deals. But one night all these people gathered at the estate of a good friend of Musk, a reclusive writer named Jake Barrymore. Nobody knew who he was -for good reason. He always wrote under a nom de plume. You probably have heard of at least a few of his books, First City on Mars, Song of Cygnus, 3001: A Space-Time Odyssey, classics in the realm of science fiction. He also wrote some very good stories about coastal Oregon, where he lived for several years, becoming something of a local celebrity, no-one the wiser about his other life in science fiction circles. The one book of his you may have heard of, about the Oregon coast, became a best seller a few years ago, Florence Nights. He made use of the pen name Clark Lewis for that opus. The house was perfect for the gathering, several miles outside of LA, in Topanga. Plenty of privacy, plenty of vegetation to conceal the entrance and everything else from prying eyes. Inside was a modern home designed in something like Frank Lloyd Wright style. Nothing ostentatious, but very classy. "You do not know exactly why I asked all of you to attend this meeting," Musk began. But you can guess that it is very important; my credibility is on the line. It is asking a lot to persuade you to interrupt your busy schedules for something you know almost nothing about." The cover story was the semi-fiction that he was going to organize a foundation to finance tech startups; his lieutenants, men whom everyone trusted, spoke secretly to each man or woman invited, telling them that there would be much more to discuss but asking that nothing should be said about anything else; this has the highest possible importance. That had the desired effect and piqued everyone's curiosity and each, feeling that there might well be substantial reward if they kept quiet, did so. Besides, they would soon find out what this was all about and if anyone didn't like it, well, they could then say whatever they wanted. "I believe you will be convinced soon enough," Musk continued. "There will be a short demonstration very shortly, but first let me dispose of some house-keeping, A meeting like this cannot be concealed indefinitely. Someone -thinking about the LA Times especially, will puzzle it out.. That is, they will realize that a group of America's wealthiest men and women met together for some meaningful reason and what was that all about:? I suggest we do something with the cover story and actually start a foundation to fund start-up companies. With a twist that will make us all look good. I have talked with someone else in Oregon, more about him later, a professional graphic artist and scholar of history and futures research; he isn't quite an academic doctor but came close, he made a compelling case that, I believe, would be in all of our best interests." "I'm being vague for now, and there really is a hidden agenda, but bear with me, everything will become clear soon enough." "First, the idea is to fund joint social science and software start-ups intended for new companies launched by people associated with colleges. That is, rather than provide even more millions to places like Stanford or other elite schools that already are awash in cash, make moderate levels of money available to people who rarely have any chance at all to show what they are capable of, especially community college staff. Call it community outreach. We would provide much appreciated funds all over the map, everything could be done for some fraction of what docents or their graduate assistants at Stanford would ask, and we would probably discover several new companies each year that could add to our intellectual capital in different ways. Nothing against Stanford, doubtless we will all have dealings with the school in the future, but this is something different and deserving of "good citizen" recognition. In other words, we met in secret to agree upon a bold move to help America's junior colleges. And this kind of program does not require large disbursements of capital, a million here, a million there, that should be sufficient." Elon Musk watched his guests closely as he spoke. He waited for the first expression of surprise. Would the "invisible" people -or whatever they were- make good on what seemed to be a good faith promise? Musk had his doubts. Maybe these unknown "people" from outside the Earth were setting him up for a serious fall; this was not at all unthinkable. There were times when they had, so to speak, left him flapping in the wind. At one point, for instance, he had thought that they assured him of help in finding an electrical engineer who could handle the problems that were adding up as he set out to build the tachyon generator. There was no help when he felt he really needed it the most. He ended up interviewing a score of candidates for the job, none of whom were really qualified. That was a major waste of time even though the woman he finally found was a first rate EE. Anyway, if they let him down now he would be in serious trouble. But what choice did he actually have? They knew his thoughts as soon as he conjured them up. There was no way to escape. So he proceeded. To make sure "they" had plenty of time, he droned on about the proposal to fund college level start-ups. The first expression of amazement came from Phebe Novakovic of General Dynamics. Phebe was thinking to herself that this wasn't what she was all that interested in; she mused that she should find some kind of excuse to walk away. "You don't want to do that," said the voice in her head. "What is this?" Phebe asked herself, "what in the hell?" "Don't be alarmed, said the voice, "just listen, you will understand soon enough." The next to show facial expressions of surprise was Sundar Pichal of Google. He was thinking that the foundation idea had some potential but that it would be better, maybe far better, if Google could co-opt it "Don't go there" said a voice inside his head. Pichal was startled. "I had better find out what Musk is up to before Google is left in the dust and out hundreds of millions of dollars." "Billions" said the voice, "and you don't get to make that decision. But if you play ball there is something in it for you." It now was Meg Whitman's turn, then Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and after him Lowell McAdam of Verizon. Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin let out an involuntary shriek; Darius Adamczyk of Honeywell blurted out "O, Christ," and Randall Stephenson of AT & T literally fell off his chair. "I take it that each of you has begun the process of enlightenment," said Musk. This is only the beginning; hardly started, in fact." The meeting lasted several hours as Musk explained what was happening and what was going to happen. As much as possible in limited time he sketched out the entire system and the project he was entrusted to complete, the space vehicle destined for another world, light years away from Earth. However, everyone had a part to play. Computers would he vital in what was about to take place -during the coming year and, after that, more years on the horizon. Some people had wondered why Tim Cook wasn't present. "He isn't welcome," said Musk. I will tell you why but here is where the artist / scholar is especially relevant." About whom Musk told the others everything he could, which, though, wasn't nearly enough to satisfy him and he had hopes to follow up that one and only meeting with Sajor, as he called himself, something that was arranged by one of Elon's persistent 'scouts' who finally was able to talk with the man after several unsuccessful attempts. "This is actual extraterrestrial contact," continued Musk, "and its not what anyone has ever expected. But who expected Orville Wright or the Internet? Who expected atomic energy? We have all been looking in the wrong places for the wrong phenomena. "These people -humanoids, whatever is best to call them- are not here as tourists or anthropologist or ambassadors from a planet that has all of our values some of which, it turns out, are hopelessly dysfunctional and need to be rooted out and purged." Musk then added: "There are several reasons these persons, little green men, whatever they really are, -hell, I don't know, either- have not come out in the open about their existence or intentions. But they have been watchng us for a long time, and listening, and can see, very clearly, making use of their social science which really is scientific and not cover for an ideology, that we have made some gargantuan mistakes that are intolerable and must be corrected." "The key reason is that they are not the only ETs in the equation. I mean, the story is right out of Zoroastrian apocalyptic religion. Sajor spelled out all the details for my edification; and, O yeah, there also is direct relationship to the Book of Revelation in the Bible even if, -you can breathe a sigh of relief- this is not some sort of wacky hyper true believer 'end times' scenario. Read that text as if it is science fiction and not any kind of 'rapture theology' and you will get the idea. There is an invisible war going on between Good and Evil, but not in any traditionalist religious terms that anyone has ever heard of until now." Musk had warmed to the task and was becoming a spokesman for the ideas he was explaining. You know the story in Gulliver's Travels, surely. Gulliver goes to Lilliput where he finds a population of tiny people who, soon enough, while he sleeps, toss ropes around him, actually a lot of strings, and tie him up. That is somewhat what is going on even if we can't see it for what it is. Except that who is being tied up isn't a hapless but good intentioned interloper, but a Satanic being." "You can't be serious" said Robert Swan of Intel. "I doubt if any of us believe in the Devil. That sort of nonsense is for children." "Maybe you should reconsider," replied Musk, "none of us, so to speak, believed in quantum mechanics, either, years ago, even Einstein was fooled and refused to consider the possibility. Maybe more to the point, no-one had any idea that galaxies existed until Hubble discovered them a century ago. Until then the cosmos was understood as a sea of individual stars. The whole idea of millions or billions of galaxies was preposterous to every smart man or woman in the world. But the point isn't that we need to imagine a creature with large bat wings and a tail who happens to have cloven hoofs and horns. More like Hitler in charge of the National Security Administration; or Pol Pot in charge of Harvard. This is serious stuff' and you really need to throw out every paradigm about how the world works and start over from scratch." "Satan?," said Dennis Muilenburg of Boeing, "this is sickening. I'm not sure what to think. This is some kind of nightmare. What about the little people?" "That is who you have been listening to. I can't tell you what to conclude about them, but I now know enough to realize that this Satanic being is very real and that the Lilliputians are our best bet. For all I know they may screw us over when all is said and done, but so far, in terms of my experience, they have been more good than bad at something like a 3/4ths vs. 1/4th level. But I am in no position to doubt that they control a technology that we cannot begin to fight against, and isn't it obvious? They are crawling around in your head and my head as we speak. How do you compete with that?" "Who is this Satanic being?" asked Sundal Pichal. "Someone who Sajor met a good number of years ago," said Musk. "Sajor didn't take him seriously either, not at first. The creature has human-like form, he could easily pass for a human if, that is, there was a contest for creeps and the Satanic being was in it." Musk continued: "It would not be the first time that a misfit who looks like he belongs in a funny farm has proven to be capable of horrendous evil. Think of the fat boy who runs North Korea. Think of Idi Amin or Hugo Chavez. This is to think of, in American idiom, "clowns" whom no-one in their right mind could possibly take seriously. Or think of Herman Goering. For that matter, Hitler. Would you want your daughter to marry someone as pretentious, as much of an ego-maniac as that strutting bit part actor who happened to make it big because he caught some extremely improbable lucky breaks? In an American context, to discuss the 1930s, if someone like Hitler were to have shown up on our shores, he would have been a laughing stock, someone to ridicule as a boorish cretin." "Sajor has no idea where this creature from Hell currently resides," Musk added, "but at the time he operated from Manhattan. A few blocks from where Trump Tower now stands. And yes, this sounds like it is straight out of a Harlan Ellison science-fiction horror novel, but this is what it is; whether anyone likes it or not is irrelevant." "What else can you tell us about the little people?" asked Marillyn Hewson. "The best answer to that question I can give you is to picture what happens to a large insect, perhaps a dung beetle, if it somehow finds itself surrounded by fire ants. The large insect doesn't have a chance. It can cause a good deal of damage to some of the ants, or to other creatures of the forest, but eventually the fate of the dung beetle is sealed. The trouble is that an "inevitable" conclusion depends on the ants doing their work, first. In our case, we have been drafted into the little people's army, also like it or not." "Something Leon Trotsky once said," Musk also said, "is all too true, namely, you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you." "Does any of this have anything to do with Tim Cook?," asked Satya Nadella. "I was getting to that," replied Musk. "But there are a few other facts to tell you about, it all adds up and, once you grasp the system, it all makes sense, or all makes perverse sense. This is nothing I am making up, and a lot of what I am telling you is the opposite of my original preferences. However, I've learned some invaluable lessons, some of my previous beliefs had to be abandoned and, thinking about everything, I am glad for my new views. In other words, thinking back, not so long ago, I ask myself, how could I have been so stupid?" "What you have to understand is that this is not a Newtonian conflict. This is not someone sitting in a broadcast booth with a microphone sending signals into the ether that a listener can switch off. The listeners don't even know, at least this is ordinarily true, that they are being broadcast into. The creature, like the little people, can tune in to people's thought processes and broadcast -or narrowcast to individuals- whatever he wants. In the case of the creature its number one priority is causing conditions that move others in the direction of homosexuality. That is, we are discussing a sado-masochist homosexual with an interest in changing all of society to accommodate homosexuality. Which wouldn't be the first time even if, in the past, we are talking about rather crude ways to get this done, like Nero's coercion of young boys or sometimes his rapes of young boys. In either case, despite the vast differences between swords and quantum mechanics, the motivation is the same." "I can't believe it," said Lowell McAdam."I just cannot believe it." "Our mistake,"Musk replied, "has been our unwillingness to do some basic research to find out whether or not the claims of homosexual activists are true or false. We were always too busy with 'important things' and felt we could ignore the obvious and not pay a penalty. But those claims are all false, homosexuality is a mental defect or mental illness and it has debilitating effects. Horrific rates of substance and alcohol use, extremely high rates of pedophilia, extremely high rates of homosexual perpetrated violence, extremely high rates of sado-masochism, and you name it. Plus,as an added bonus, there is no other population that consists of so many pathological liars. Sajor has, I think, three unpublished books about this. None are published because of the smears that have ruined his reputation. No-one will touch his stuff. Not Christians either, because, while he is a Christian himself, he is anything but conventional and makes much of other religions and the great majority of Christian believers simply cannot accept anything like that because they usually regard other faiths as false." "In any case, " Musk continued, "think of the damages that have been done since the creature began his campaign to homosexualize America in the early 1970s." "This is rubbish," said Randall Stephenson, "this is America, everyone deserves equal rights." "I don't know about that," spoke up Darius Adamczyk. "If I understand Elon, then we have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing that a sickness is perfectly all right and that there is no such thing as psychological health and psychological illness. In other words, the inmates have taken over the asylum and we have been none the wiser and, at that, defend our terribly bad judgment." "It has not helped that Christians have proven to be so utterly inept when it comes to this issue," said Musk. "Hell, they can't be bothered because they are too busy making money, or, if they are upset and want to take action, they are ridiculously uninformed about the real world of politics and have no idea about what to do. Some, even so, make an effort, but they are hamstrung by their own ideology since they refuse to look into the many psychological studies that demonstrate the moral incapacity of homosexuals; for Christians anything remotely influenced by Freud is evil and, besides, the only criticisms of homosexuality they even know about are in the Bible and they aren't even aware the extent of the criticisms in their own scriptures. And, let us not forget, many are squeamish about sex generally and if they need to defend an anti-homosexual position before people who usually vote for Democrats, they would rather not, and they retreat from the battlefield without firing a shot, to put it in such terms," "I still say that they are homophobes who have no respect for civil rights for everyone," said Meg Whitman. "I've heard enough to know that your position, Meg, is indefensible," said Phebe Novakovic. "Since when do we give rights to the sick to spread their sickness? And as a matter of fact that is exactly what happened in the 1990s in the course of the AIDS epidemic. Homosexuals rioted in the streets to demand that medical people should not be able to, among other things, notify sex partners of infected homosexuals. The result was that homosexuals with the disease were free to continue to infect others. That is how they are about everything. And you know it. For one, I am sick and tired of kowtowing to homosexuals." Randall Stephenson spoke up again: "They claim that their condition is natural and genetically determined. I can't think of a bigger lie. There hasn't been even one study that demonstrates some kind of genetic inheritance behind homosexuality. What is the biggest determinant of same sex sexuality is child abuse in someone's background. There are different studies but one figure that stands out is a number in the 40% range. That is, 4 out of 10 homosexuals were molested as children. Other major factors include trauma to a mother while she is pregnant and poor parenting, especially a domineering mother combined with a wimpish father. None of that is remotely genetic." "The kicker is that homosexuals argued strongly against a genetic explanation until the outbreak of AIDS. They had been saying all along that it was a choice because they wanted others to make a choice in favor of their perversion. When AIDS started to kill homosexuals in the tens of thousands it suddenly became a matter of genes, as if they had no choice and were born that way. But what can you expect? You cannot believe anything homosexuals say." "And now they have a blank check to recruit children," said Lowell McAdam, all in the name of equal rights. I fume every time I think about the two men most responsible for the queering of the Boy Scouts, Robert Gates and Rex Tillerson, but a worse problem are state legislatures that have outlawed so-called discrimination against homosexual teachers in the public schools. Exactly why shouldn't they be discriminated against. They are stealing children's lives." "Homosexuals also are some of the sickest people alive in a medical sense," said Darius Adamczyk, "it is incredible. I know about one study of homosexuals in California which says that more than 70% of this population is infected with hepatitis B, or which had been infected in the past. But pick your 'favorite' sexually transmitted disease, syphilis, gonorrhea, amoebiasis, venereal warts, shigellosis, you name it, and homosexuals are over-represented in medical reports by orders of magnitude more than normal men or women. And we excuse all of this by arguing that they deserve rights? This is a total outrage." "And there is a ton of stuff available that refutes just about everything that homosexual say on their behalf," added Darius. "If you want a really good summary I'd recommend the chapter on the subject in a book by David Horowitz called The Politics of Bad Faith. But there really is a plethora of studies that I know of. " "As for the word homophobe," said Lowell McAdam, "let's forget about that term, Its garbage. I read an article about this recently, about how the word began as a neologism with the intent to smear every critic of homosexuality as the equivalent of a racist, regardless of whether they were experts in some field of psychology or psychoanalysis, like the late Dr Charles Socarides, a distinguished researcher with impeccable credentials. This did not matter to homosexual activists who did everything possible to wreck Dr. Socarides' career and destroy his reputation. So it has been with respect to every -every- critic of homosexuality since this all began in 1972. Anyone who uses the word homophobia is, in my estimation, the real bigot." "We can debate this at length some other time," Musk broke in, "hopefully the point has been made. And you can understand why Tim Cook was not invited here. He has no future in Silicon Valley even if he doesn't know it yet. He has no future at all unless he abandons homosexuality completely" "This 'side discussion' should give you an idea of what is at stake,: said Musk, and what to look forward to in the future. This is about FAR more than sending a rocket to an exoplanet. It involves an entire cultural system where everything is connected to everything else. Like whackamole, press down on one spot and another spot bulges up somewhere else. We really need to discuss the space vehicle but there is one other issue to talk about before that." -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
