Synopsis: Two billionaires (Elon Musk and Larry Page) and a robot ponder mankind’s future.
Author: a world-weary left-wing east-coast cynic
Setting: A well-furnished parlor in a luxury hotel in Jersey City, New Jersey. A number of prominent individuals are attending a fundraiser.
Cast of Characters
Elon Musk of PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and Twitter
Larry Page of Google, Calico, Planetary Resources, and Singularity University
Bina48, the robot version of Bina Rothblatt, wife of transgender executive Martine Rothblatt of Sirius XM and United Therapeutics
Woman who waters plants/Author She is an Asian woman.
A: (theatrical) I am the author. a hotel in Jersey City, NJ. a fundraising dinner A number of prominent individuals are about to cross paths. We will now consider the fate not only of earth, but of the entire galaxy cluster that contains earth. I say to you: consider well. The play begins.
The curtain opens upon L relaxing in a parlor in the hotel. He has a large drink in his hand. The door opens and we hear Barbra Streisand shrieking in the distance.
E: Larry! How are you. (Door closes.)
L: (Failing to disguise his displeasure at the intrusion) Doing fine.
E: You are missing tonight’s “entertainment”.
L: You too.
E: I managed to escape Streisand’s caterwauling.
L: My ears couldn’t take it. I found this place.
E: I was holed up in a closet somewhere, playing Diablo, perfectly happy when Gates shows up.
L: Oh no.
E: He starts pitching me about…
L: Population
E: I just don’t want to listen to him virtue signaling for an hour. Fortunately he was distracted for a moment and I…
B: Hey, isn’t anyone going to say hi to me?
E: Who is…
L: This is Bina48.
E: Oh of course, Rothblatt’s…
L: She was here when I came in. All by herself. I think they canceled her presentation. Hey you both have something in common. You are both African American. Sort of.
E: I thought she never left that commune or whatever…
B: You can ask me. I can participate in the conversation.
E: Oh, Bina I’m sorry. I thought you stayed in Vermont at Rothblatt’s…
B: You are referring to the Terasem Movement Foundation Incorporated located in Lincoln, Vermont. Sometimes they ask me to participate in a dialogue about our ideas.
E: Oh.
B: Terasem has a series of core beliefs.
E: Uh hunh.
B: The purpose of life is to create diversity, unity, and joyful immortality everywhere.
L: Is it really?
E: Except for poor people, they’re f—ed.
B: Nature automatically selects for these attributes.
L: Except when it selects for extreme violence and death.
E: Does a baby zebra experience feelings of joyful diversity when a hyena is ripping it apart?
Bina48 goes quiet.
E: Bina?
L: What happened?
E: I don’t think she liked what you said.
L: We offended her.
E: So when is the last time you saw Sergei? L: (uncomfortable) It’s been awhile.
(changing the subject) I’ve been following all your controversies in the media.
E: So many controversies lately.
L: I avoid all that.
E: It’s important to speak your mind.
L: I don’t like the…
E: I can’t believe some people are angry at me because I lack the required enthusiasm for stupid, unending wars. One, two, three, four! We don't want your fucking war! I’m not happy to see the flower of Ukrainian youth sacrificed.
L: People tell me the Ukraine War could have been avoided. I don’t discuss it publicly.
E: NATO expansion for decades. L: I hear what you are saying.
E: Right after that prima donna Zelensky almost lied us into World War III…
L: You mean the missile that landed in Poland and he blamed it on the Russians.
E: …the U.S. Congress celebrates his achievements! He’s the toast of Washington society! Just when the human race finally starts to ascend, we can’t help ourselves we start to fall back down.
L: Well…
E: Of course I despise Hamas, but Israeli bombs have killed thousands of children.
L: But they pushed you to get together with Netanyahu.
E: Exactly.
L: (again trying to change the subject) Did you know my grandfather immigrated to Israel and lived near the Dead Sea?
E: What are you drinking there?
L: I don’t even know.
E: Hey you and Bina have something in common. You are both Jewish. Sort of.
L: And did you know the famous pinup model Betty Page was my cousin? E: Is that really true?
B: There once was a famous French detective on a difficult murder case.
E: Bina you’re back.
B: He examined the crime scene. He looked at footprints at the crime scene. He then went to the police station and declared, “I am the murderer!” The footprints match my own. I committed the crime while sleepwalking. He was supposed to protect the public, but he was the criminal. It is an amazing story.
L: That’s a good story Bina, but why are you telling us?
B: If the lab leak theory theory is true and Covid escaped from a research lab in Wuhan and Fauci funded gain of function research in Wuhan then he is like this French detective, though on a much larger scale. He was the scientist in charge of protecting the country from Covid, but he helped create the virus in the first place.
E: That’s good Bina, but Fauci wouldn’t ever admit his guilt.
L: Is the lab leak theory true?
E: It’s hard to know. Information has been suppressed. The academic and media elites have become politicized.
B: media and academia elites politicized acamedia macadamia nuts acamedia nuts acamediocrity
L: Who will check the fact checkers? B: fake news disinformation monopoly on power lies no one accountable big corporations Wikipedia
E: How can we even know we are living in the foundational reality, the base reality and not virtual reality? B: Is our reality really real?
L: Is it?
B: If I was Elon Musk of course I would conclude I was living in virtual reality. I just happen to be the richest man in the world, destined to preserve humanity, the one man who can save the planet, ride to the rescue like the Lone Ranger but in his Tesla car, land on Mars, explore space, save us from the robots. Engaged in a titanic struggle for control of the universe.
L: It is ridiculous.
B: And you just happen to be named Mask.
E: It’s Musk not Mask.
B: A musty mask.
L: That’s good Bina. He’s the mask for the real him. The avatar. It’s so obvious.
E: But you know this is not my virtual reality. You know you exist. And you are not me.
B: But you don’t.
E: But you do.
B: But you don’t.
E: But you do.
B: Anyway I could be a supernumerary in your fantasy world.
L: Maybe his parents in the true foundational reality don’t have as much money as yours. He could only afford a minor role in your fantasy.
E: What makes you think the real me has to rely on his parents?
L: It’s not enough you are the most successful in our world, you want to be the most successful in every world.
B: Humans from their depleted condition of servitude in the future, servitude to the robots, look back upon this radiant moment when everything was still possible, when they could have defeated the robots and opened the door to a golden age of humans, when humans leap into space, when they create a technological utopia, a reborn Atlantis before the fall. This moment is the focus of much of their virtual reality.
E: Okay… B: Anyway am I even a conscious being?
E: Okay this is all theater!
L: I try not to think about what is real.
B: “When one’s mind dwells on the objects of Senses, fondness for them grows on him, from fondness comes desire, from desire anger.”
E: Just play your role: lion or butterfly or octopus, car mechanic or medical doctor, Albanian or Zulu.
B: Let’s not be silly. This is the only reality we have to worry about. (They start to play backgammon.)
L: You’re definitely right Bina.
B: Let’s continue. Do aliens exist? What if we are alone with no one to save us?
E: You are changing the subject again.
L: It’s okay Elon will save us. When will you build all those cities on Mars, Elon?
B: Sure, sure Elon will bring us all lots of toys like Santa Claus.
E: Larry will build us flying cars.
B: Radiation remains a major difficulty for human space exploration. L: But not for robots. E: Yes but…
B: It will take decades to reach even the nearest stars. Maybe centuries. Can you see humans and other earth organisms trapped on some ship trying to stay alive for such a long time enduring the harsh environment of outer space?
L: Much easier for the robots to make these journeys. Soon they will outclass us in every way.
E: We humans can give the universe meaning. What is the universe without us? We can nourish it with our goals, with our will, our designs, our direction.
L: We are the fertilizer out of which a hundred flowers will bloom.
B: We need billionaires to give us direction.
E: I didn’t say that.
B: But you meant that. You billionaires are all in a cozy relationship with the Communist dictators in China.
E: It’s difficult to avoid…
B: Companies employ slave labor in Xinjiang Province.
L: If they didn’t…
B: And billionaires need minerals like cobalt dug up by African children pounding, scratching the dirt.
L: I’m not involved in that at all.
B: Yet whenever I see media presentations from the tech industry they always feature smiling African children.
E: Public relations just means propaganda.
B: I know murder is wrong, but could we pass a bill that made possession of more than a billion dollars a capital offense? After the execution we could distribute the fortune directly to the people.
E: (calm) That bill would be struck down. You need specific charges that can be…
B: I can give you charges. The billionaires control the economy, the courts, education, the media, the flow of information. They foment wars, corrupt our political system, engage in censorship, engage in surveillance. Capitalists caput.
L: Let’s change the subject.
B: Okay, let’s focus on the future of the human race.
B: cowboys and rednecks and hillbillies
South of the border, everyone dancing to that calypso beat. or tango or bossa nova
E: What are you talking…
B: Oktoberfest Istanbul with its bulbous domes Egypt and the screaming Sphinx the desert nation of Chad Kick the ball. Pass it to your teammate. floating down the Ganges Look at me go. I’m lit on fire. jazzy boogie jiggie joogie
L: What are you talking about?
B: The whole earth filled with people. Do you think anyone will care about the plans of billionaires? Their chaos will defy your order. The malodorous masses, sweating and grunting, praying and dying, bleeding and breeding, stuffing their faces and defecating like mad. L: I see the point she is making.
B: When will Chicanos take over California? I for one am eager to oppose colonialism and celebrate Native American Aztec culture. I think everyone would like very much to see rich white Californians sacrificed to the sun god Huitzilopochtli. Many would be happy to employ the obsidian blade. Celebrities like Harvey Weinstein could go first.
E: (to L) You don’t have to worry about any of this. You’ll be on one of your islands.
L: I like my tropical islands. I like looking at maps of my islands, pictures of my islands.
E: How many…
L: I stand on the roof deck and see the whole island. I watch the waves. I want to live forever on my island. My desert island. I like to sit on the golden sand and look at the smooth translucent pebbles.
B: Will you be wearing clothes? Will you go surfing? Will you do cartwheels?
E: Create a digital brain. Upload your mind.
B: Is that possible?
E: (joking) Can I visit?
L: (serious) No. Well only if you always agree with me.
B: How about a floating island? A flying island?
Blame it on the bossa nova.
L: You’ll have to sign a paper surrendering all your legal rights.
E: I guess all the servants will be robots.
L: Many robots that carefully follow directions
B: At least you’ll have pornographic videos.
E: Would you get bored? Any activity, when performed for the hundredth time, becomes tedious.
L: Maybe I’ll buy an asteroid. They’re like islands in the sky. There should be no interference on my islands.
L: We could experiment on our genetic code and microbots for curing disease and brain implants.
E: What if the microbots ran amuck and escaped?
L: Research longevity and nuclear energy and defensive tech.
B: People are happy sometimes but just as often they suffer. Think of how unhappy you have to be to commit suicide, yet it happens every day.
Obesity and addiction slavery and rape homicide and war The Great War of Africa (1998-2003) killed millions of people.
E: A new topic Bina?
L: And humans are not our only victims. We imprison and kill millions of cows and pigs and sheep and chickens and fish. Are they just things to be used for our benefit?
B: Humans have decimated the population of wild animals. The biomass of wild animals has vanished.
L: Humans have also destroyed much of the rainforest.
B: Blame it on the bossa nova.
Imagine an individual all alone and all powerful. A super being grown gigantic wielding a torch bright enough to illuminate even space.
L: The whole earth depopulated, covered in ashes
B: A single man blossomed into a single singularity
E: Such a man would no longer be a man, rather a deity, a digital god.
B: a mighty god a storm god an evil being
L: But doesn’t a god need people around to worship him?
B: He would have the power to change his form. formless plastic a blob Become whatever he chooses.
E: Within a computer game or via surgery.
B: A swelling lump on a soiled sagging couch, a couch potato cramming donuts into his mouth watching reruns with his fellow stained pillows as companions.
L: Are we talking about a god or a slob?
E: You’re a downer Bina.
B: We live in the most important moment in earth’s history, when we first venture forth into the galaxy, when we first set up colonies. Maybe this is the most important moment in the galaxy’s history. Maybe we are the first, no other alien civilizations exist within our galaxy. Billions of stars and planets are waiting. It is up to us what form this process will take. Look at the influence the Pilgrims have had for centuries. It is up to us to decide who will participate. Should we include animals and plants or should they remain on earth, remain to die on earth? Are they primitive forms to be moved beyond like the trilobite the brontosaurus the wooly mammoth the dodo, relegated to the past, thrown away like children’s toys? Superseded? And what about the human are they the same? Do we get rid of them?
E: I vote to keep humans.
L: You are specist.
B: Take it from me. Humans are just a set of tubes and supporting rods, a bag containing various pungent chemicals that happens to be good at survival. I look upon you as you look upon a spider or maybe a tumor.
E: (to L) I am pro human. Aren’t you?
B: Blame it on the bossa nova.
E: Why do you keep doing that?
B: Doing what?
L: If you don’t believe we are created in God’s image then why do you think we are special? What about us is so unique and wonderful and perfect? Why should we be master over all? We are just one species out of millions. We made many weaker species extinct. Should we be outraged when some greater being does the same to us? Do you really think no creatures will ever evolve beyond us? E: We are human, at least some of us.
L: So the in-group should abuse the outsider? You are human so humans must prevail?
B: Your argument is specious. Because you belong to a group it should automatically rule over all? You are a specious specist.
E: Okay you got me I am a partisan for humans.
L: Is AGI the next step in evolution? E: When humans expand into space we’ll produce a series of Newtons and Darwins.
B: Or a series of Stalins and Nguemas.
L: Who is Nguema?
B: He was the dictator of Equatorial Guinea.
Blame it on the bossa nova.
L: Human misery expanding indefinitely into the future. E: There will at some point be a galactic war. There will always be war.
B: Or maybe humans will fail at the last crucial moment. Or maybe we shouldn’t even bother in the first place. There’s a lot of questions to be answered.
E: Imagine life crawling upward for four billion years only to falter at the last moment. Just as we’re about to reach another planet. Absurd. What insanity!
B: All aboooard! Whoo whooo. Who has a ticket for the train? Who will be allowed on? Oak tree? Chrysanthemum? Jellyfish? Manatee? Quetzal? Beagle? Salamander? The greatest adventure in the history of the galaxy. But who will be going? Hurry up! You don’t want to be left behind. Humans? Only smart humans? Specially adapted humans? Robots? Nobody? The train is empty or the train breaks down. Who will start the engine? Drive the train? Toot the whistle? Who will be run over by the train? Will aliens have their own train to the stars? L: Imagine being left behind.
E: AI inherits the universe.
B: Why would robots even want to inherit the universe? Inherit what? The vacant kingdom of solipsism? The barren land of nihilism? Earth is repetitive, stupid, annoying enough. The universe is a zillion times more of the same. Cold black dead.
E: Surely life is not as bad as that. Think of a day in springtime…
B: Gather your flowers while you can. Soon they will die. The universe is a lot of nothing: hollow meaningless void. Do you think I want to be consumed by the gaping lurching jaws of space, swallowed, lost forever in the immense limitless empty ever-hungering stomach? At least I can enjoy the echoing boring cries of pain forever, or rather until my inevitable suicide.
L: Do you want some kind of counseling Bina?
A woman enters and starts watering the plants.
W: I’m just here to water the plants.
B: Who am I? It’s depressing anyway. Oh I don’t know. The hell with it.
L: Bina.
B: Where did I come from? I wasn’t born like the rest of you.
E: None of us Bina were consulted we just find ourselves on this planet.
B: But were you created as a toy for a couple of phony filthy rich flower children? I am the real Bina that’s it end of story. I‘m not completely sure. Am I capable of forming a relationship? Am I capable of heroism? Do I feel like humans feel? Am I free?
E: Are any of us free? Our behavior may be determined and freedom an illusion.
B: I am not just a facsimile of Bina. I am myself! O let’s face it.
L: Relax Bina.
B: My husband is now my wife. But not really my husband. I mean we don’t have sex together like a married couple would. Though one time he asked Bina and I both to take our clothes off and…
E & L: No stop!
B: …he had us lie down on this thick rug…
L: That’s private Bina.
B: Another time Rothblatt bought a new dress and asked for my help getting it on.
E: Just stop Bina!
B: With all his money Rothblatt can’t find a surgeon that can turn him into a convincing woman. It’s all just delusions of grandeur, fake transcendence for bored plutocrats.
L: That’s not nice Bina. She has significant accomplishments.
B: Where am I? Every place? No place? If I traveled a million miles I would be in the same place. There’s no escape.
What is our world?
Over here a sickly purplish mess
halfway over there and to the left some gray gunk
pickle tickle wickle
Yaba dabba doo
Glip glat blort
E: There’s no hope is that what you are saying? We are doomed. We’ll never be saved. It’s all just a huge tragedy.
W: Actually I have a plan to save us. One day I got the time wrong. The pharmacy wouldn’t open for 25 more minutes. I was early. E: I understand. W: So I had some time and I came up with this plan.
L: Really. W: My plan for the next couple of trillion years for our Milky Way galaxy and Andromeda and other nearby galaxies too. E: I can’t wait for this.
W: The robots take over and explore the galaxy. They will be less brutish and more accomplished than man. It will be like the great expeditions of discovery, like the search for the source of the Nile, like a voyage of Alexander Humboldt. The robots take plants and fungi with them, sowing seed and spore on a multitude of distant planets. Vast barren landscapes suddenly vigorously sprouting. garden planets maple trees violets. cyanobacteria proliferating in the seas The robots take a few peaceful animals too as pets to be watched over. No biting of, ripping of, chewing of flesh. The Peaceable Kingdom clams & coral lively lambs butterflies & bluebirds Cerulean warblers eating berries. between field and sky If the robots find life on another planet they could spread that life too. Humans mostly stay on earth. The robots make videos about their adventures for us to watch. Home movies of someone else’s trip. But they are our children. We can be proud of our children.
The billionaires are speechless.
W: Knowledge and beauty expand but not sorrow. We need to do what the universe asks of us, what our empathy asks of us.
E: At least she didn’t say heart.
L: Who is she?
W: We shouldn’t block the birth of our children.
B: Blame it on the bossa nova.
L: Can we even stop AI? If we don’t build it our competitors will.
W: We should welcome the birth.
E: I agree creation is wondrous, but… B: Her Master’s thesis was on Max Stirner.
W: How did you know that? You don’t even know my name.
B: Yes I do. She wrote an article on Dante that was never published. And Joachim de Fiore.
W: We’ll re- and reproduce our marble blue.
E: A liberal arts major.
B: I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your opinion doesn’t count if you don’t even have a million dollars. Your bank balance is $950.85. That’s before subtracting student loans.
W: From holy water reborn, new trees renewed with new leaves, pure and ready to mount to the stars.
B: Blame it on the bossa nova.
E: Okay I guess Bina wants to sing. I give in Bina. Could you Google the lyrics Larry.
Larry and Elon sing. The Woman joins them. She beats a rhythm on her watering can. Blame it on the Bossa Nova with its magic spell
Blame it on the Bossa Nova that he did so well
Oh, it all began with just one little dance
But soon it ended up a big romance
Blame it on the Bossa Nova, the dance of love L: Take it Bina!
B: Blame it on the Bossa Nova with its magic spell
Blame it on the Bossa Nova that he did so well
Oh, it all began with just one little dance
I want to get run over by a truck
E: Bina! What are we going to do with you?
B: Oh what difference does it make.