A Reasonable World

As a consequence of improved geriatrics and longevity techniques, in 2007, life expectancy of male infants at birth in the United States and Western Europe rose to ninety-one years, and of females, one hundred three.

Coded stimulation of visual centers in the brain, with input from holocameras, enabled the blind to see normally. A device to monitor consciousness was developed for medical use in 2010. By the use of special lenses, it enabled the operator to see a faint pinkish glow around the head of a conscious patient. Later it was discovered by curious researchers that consciousness was shared by mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, arachnids, plants, and some stones. A new game, Chessex, combining elements of chess and checkers, swept the world in 2017. Body dyes combined with new superlight fabrics were popular in the New Sunbelt and in domed cities.

A new class of antinarcotic neurotransmitters, introduced into food and water in the remaining large cities, effectively wiped out the drug traffic in 2008. A totally effective contraceptive method for both men and women was developed in 2009. By the following year, most epidemic diseases, including all venereal disease, had been wiped out except for laboratory specimens.

Sexual intercourse as a performance art form began to gain respectability in 2012. The grand prize in the first All-Europe Tournament was awarded to a married couple from Brussels, Robert-Luc and Jeanne Dufour.

In a related development, mind-to-mind communication was made possible by computer-controlled readouts of one brain and stimulation of another. Monitoring by this means enabled the judges to be sure the reactions of tournament contestants were genuine.

A new process made it possible to recover sound recordings from the past. Most of them were banal or incomprehensible; for instance, Napoleon was heard to say, “This is inferior shit.”

In 2013, a consistent theory of synchronicity was based on the laws of chaos.

“Free systems,” artificial intelligences not bound to any circuitry, were in use by 2019.

Tailored food plants requiring no care were introduced into wastelands and abandoned cities in 2020.

All this was taking place simultaneously with the social and economic changes brought about by the McNulty’s Symbiont, to which we must now return. ...