Alphir floats on the edges of their vision. ‘Hey, Sigris, how’s it going?’
‘Oh, you know. Fine. Feeling a little overworked to be honest. Discovering that new quadrant introduced a bunch of new cases which we’re processing at the moment. Struggling to move some of these old cases which isn’t helping, so I’m tempted to discharge some of them.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Can I help in any way?’
‘Well, some advice would be welcome. What would you do if a case wasn’t going anywhere?’
Alphir taps one of its appendages, a gesture of contemplation. ‘Hm. Do you have an example?’
‘Er, yeah. Sure. Take this one for instance. Sol III, that race of mammalian bipedals. Call themselves “Human.” They’ve been sat on my desk for centuries and I just can’t get them to meet the criteria for introductions, never mind integration.’
‘Why, what’s wrong with them? Are they post-scarcity yet?’
Sigris sighs. ‘Well, this is the thing. They’ve had the capacity for post-scarcity for about two hundred years, but haven’t gone for it at all. Like, made no effort whatsoever. And don’t get me started on environmental management or resource equilibrium.’
‘They’re post-industrial?’
‘Way past that, well into the digital era. They’ve started developing rudimentary machine intelligence.’
‘Huh, but no post-scarcity?’
‘Nope.’
‘Post-nationalism?’
‘Nope.’
‘Gender neutrality?’
‘Alphir, they’re still getting past ethnic differences.’
‘Oh, goodness.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well,’ Alphir crooks its body, a gesture of deep thought, ‘it is certainly an unusual development, but not insurmountable. Remember the Rodas? They developed machine intelligence just to help them synthesise new ways to eat each other. Are these Humans especially violent? It may be a case of inhibiting some of those predatory instincts.’
‘Not particularly. They rank as average as far as aggression goes. They’re actually highly adaptable creatures and, when they feel like it, they work together as good as some hive-consciousness species. They’re a social species and thrive in well-connected communities. They have an unusually high desire to create art and seem to go to great lengths to do so. In many of their nations, they work at a million-fold level to ensure education and medical care is available for all members of their society. At times, they have even made unions and pacts to uphold international laws and prevent future wars.’
‘Hm, well they certainly have the capacity for empathy and cooperation and so they sound like they should be at post-scarcity by now.’
‘And yet…’
‘I see your problem.’
‘Do you want to know the most frustrating thing?’
Alphir does its equivalent of a smile. ‘Go on.’
‘They actually understand post-scarcity and have scholars who have worked out how to achieve it. But a majority of their population actually takes pride in being economically vulnerable and overworked.’
‘Is that a cultural thing?’
‘Yeah, they call it capitalism and they really can’t get past it.’
‘Hm. Shame. Well, discharge them then, if they’re not getting anywhere. They’ll probably end up destroying themselves with war or climate collapse.’
Sigris leans on their desk. ‘But that’s the thing, Alphir. I don’t want to yet. I’ve still got hope. They’re close, so very close, to getting there. They just need to see it for themselves, and on that front, I can do nothing.’
Alphir does another smile-like thing. ‘Well, let me know if they manage it. I think they’d like it up here.’
Paddy Dobson
30th January 2021