3.(26-27) Seminar 6 - Science Civilization - End Slim Novel 3

Slim Novel 3 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage


26. Seminar – Science-Civilization

Tommy raps for attention then stands and speaks to fellow Seminarans. “OK, Seminar today is ‘Science-Civilization', or as I call it 'SC'.

   “SC is what we do not have: a United World - no nations or states – a world of much fewer people and all comprehensively educated. And that is not all! SC will be based on using The Scientific Method to answer social and general world questions by experiment.

   “One example of experiment is: Capital Punishment – yes or no?  In SC, the question would be stated: What is the reason to stop capital punishment? Our philosophers, whose job should be to reduce such questions to experimentally verifiable answers, would, almost certainly, determine the reason for stopping capital punishment to be reduction of murders. The experiment should be comparing the rates, in alternating 10 years, of well-publicized quick executions after sentencing versus imprisonment with rehabilitation of first-degree murderers. The experiment should continue until enough cases are completed to give the significant-figure answer to: Does stopping capital punishment reduce first-degree murder? Historical and contemporary studies of comparative murder rates in varying governmental localities would be correlated with whether or not the locality executed first-degree murderers; and also the outcomes of rehabilitation of prisoners serving first-degree murderer terms and would be done by an SC sociology council. The media worldwide would publicize the experimental result and the additional sociological studies. Then plebiscite would require 60% votes or more in favor of ending the death penalty for it to become law of Earth.

   “Such an experiment would certainly involve several decades and its idea implies a stable, planned society where, once a project has been decided on and started, the boobery's vagaries or a demagogue's power would not be a factor in stopping them, as each is today.”

Kimura is first to comment. “Is not SC impractical to set up? It seems to me it will come about only if 99% of today's people gets killed in some cataclysm and a brave new world is started by the New People.”

   Ali, adds. “Yeah! Soon's we get atom bombs! Scifi's been tellin’that sto’ fo’ years.”

   Tommy replies: “All the data tell that the present civilization is dragging our Earth to a heat death from the runaway human overpopulation unless we New People can stop it. Yes, it should mean the end of this civilization, and that may mean – at some key point – murdering it. All we can do at the moment is propagandize for SC and recruit the New People. We believe in only scientific reasoning and ultimately experimental verification. And we have no cult of person – be he the alleged god or his agents, Marx or Einstein or Freud or whomever.”

   “Violence, and subversion of governments at present is not a practical option when we count on our fingers the number of the New People. We need to gather together and convince more people to become the New People. And we cannot put limitations on the New People other than to say that Science in the form of The Scientific Method will be our final final-arbiter. When the present society will flounder and shall be unable to protect and feed its burgeoning billions, the woman and man on street will make revolution and destroy and then we may help them. For now our rule is to follow the laws only if we must. But as soon as our New People get into position then we set about to change the old system and revolutionize to build the new.”

   Tommy sits down and adds. “Seminar has tried to instill into you a consciousness of the New People. OK, open for questions. Lunch follows with discussion.”

27. Nothing prohibited, all uninhibited

Kimi is strongly affected by meeting these new people who are turning out to be the New People. It starts with Olga, then Kimura, then Ali and Tommy. Even Boris's few words about the new Russia are potent. She still does not understand much but she is aware of her cultural poverty and how her friends enrich her at Seminar. Not just her poverty of thinking but poverty of spirit and of senses, and she feels no longer in common with people who speak her native language but have not freed-up their minds. She can no longer enjoy what they enjoy because she has seen the enjoyments of scientific culture, its pleasures of art, literature, philosophy and above all its Scientific Method to acquire knowledge and determine truth. She no longer thinks in the same mindset as she once did; now, all is different and new. She understands that the best she can do is to educate herself up to her limit of personal excellence and she wants to live more, know more, see and enjoy more of life, with a new confidence that all things are possible – Nothing prohibited, all uninhibited.

   Twin doors to a future open before her and she passes through them with confidence. She likes the New People. The idea makes her heart skip. I shall become one of them, she thinks, and feels a happiness well up, deep within.

End Slim Novel 3.

Continue reading Slim Novel 4 “Honeymoon in Siberia”.

To start it now, click 4.(0-2) Slim Novel 4 - Honeymoon in Siberia - Sta...