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98 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
98 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
from TIME Magazine, April 18, 1988
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inside front cover
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Special Advertising Section
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A Letter To The Next Generation
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From Gene Roddenberry
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the creator of STAR TREK
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Text copyright (c) 1988 by Gene Roddenberry and shamelessly reprinted here
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without permission. I suspect Gene won't mind, given the context.
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"Good wishes from a television dramatist who lived a hundred years before
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your time. I create science fiction tales set in your 21st century and
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beyond for television and movie audiences. These are tales which reflect the
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affection and optimism I have for the human creature. I welcome this
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opportunity to share my perspectives with you.
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"For many living now, today is a time of fear and even despair. Some
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believe that life has become too complex for us. Or too artificial. Or that
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this era's nuclear missles, its waves of hysterical nationalism and
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quarreling superstitions, perhaps mean a violent end for the human creature,
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as soon as the close of our present century.
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"I believe the complete opposite to be true. The present tumult in our
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world is the natural and understandable result of a vigorous intelligence
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moving out of the savagery of our life form's childhood. Instead of
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humanity's demise, our era seems to be filled with evidence that we were
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meant to survive and evolve much further.
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"For example, a recent flood of remarkable human happenings includes a
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primal invention as revolutionary as the discovery of fire, the wheel, and
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language. We call it the COMPUTER, an astonishing device which handles
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information at near-light speed and in ways suggests humanity has been gifted
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with the perfect servant. Next, largely because of the computer, we have
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begun to recognize that the human brain is an equally astonishing device
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whose TEN BILLION or so neurons appear to interconnect into a potential of
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TRILLIONS of thought patterns. Rather than being unable to handle the
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complexities of today, the combination of computer and brain appears to be
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doubling human knowledge every six or seven years, leading us toward
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knowledge and ability our ancestors would have considered godlike.
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"Which means that the human future is not for the fainthearted. The
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most dramatic happening in our era has been our first efforts to move out
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from our home planet. Our first moon visits are remarkably similar to the
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early sailing craft that visited the American New World. Bold children both!
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Those early sea voyagers found a wilderness as forbidding to them as the
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moon's landscape seemed to us much later on.
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"I find it equally remarkable that, so far, no other intelligent
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life-forms seem to exist on those other worlds overhead. In fact, everything
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about our sun and its planets proclaims 'RESERVED FOR HUMANITY.' What a
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lovely educational arrangement for the offspring of our fertile Earth-egg
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planet! Having left childhood behind as we move out from our home planet,
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humanity is ready for the stretching and learning of adolescence.
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"What better place to evolve into adulthood than in our own solar
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system? There exists, out in our own 'backyard', an incredible treasure
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house of eight other planets, plus dozens of moons and other raw
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material--plus the almost inexhaustible energy of our hydrogen furnace sun
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with which to shape those materials to our needs.
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"All of which makes it interesting that the galaxy's other stars are,
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for now, inconceivably distant. Even traveling at light speed, most range
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from thousands to millions of years away. In its own way, this fact is as
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heartening as the apparent absence of other intelligent life on the worlds
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circling our own star. If our universe is a gigantic life- and
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intelligence-creating machine as some believe, what better way of protecting
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life forms than a system of natural laws which protects them from one another
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until they become adult and capable of understanding the master plan?
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"One obstacle to adulthood needs to be solved immediately: We must
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learn not just to accept differences between ourselves and our ideas, but to
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enthusiastically welcome and enjoy them. Diversity contains as many
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treasures as those waiting for us on other worlds. We will find it
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impossible to fear diversity and to enter the future at the same time.
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"If the future is not for the fainthearted, it is even more certainly
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not for the cowardly. One of the saddest spectacles of our time is to watch
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the leaders of Earth's nations meeting together clumsily and embarrassedly
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exchanging slogans containing grains of friendship and understanding, yet
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fearful that this might constitute some awful blasphemy. Those who insist
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theirs is the only correct government or economic system deserve the same
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contempt as those who insist that they have the only true God.
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As I began by saying, I am a television dramatist who lived many years
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before your time, and I realize that the human future will be infinitely more
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complex than anything I am able to imagine. I hope, however, that by your
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time some small truths will be found in the rough sketch of tomorrow that I
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offer here. If not, at least you may find this a pleasant and entertaining
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tale."
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/s/ Gene Roddenberry
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Explanatory Note: "In 'Open Forum' sponsored by Volkswagen prominent figures
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in American culture pass on their ideas and views to those who'll inherit the
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earth...100 years from now. Second in a series."n American culture pass on their ideas and views to those who'll inherit the
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earth...100 years from now. Second in a seri |