Last Chance at the Brain-Trust Hotel

Last Chance at the Brain-Trust Hotel

Simple Solutions for a Modern Age

Times have changed. Things have changed. Albert Einstein, a long time ago, told us everything has changed. Everything except our way of thinking. But time for us is running out. The human biological clock is ticking down. The extinction clock of all life on Earth is nearing some unknown alarm setting. And the precious period that remains is being squandered needlessly.

If humankind is to one day explore the far reaches of an endless cosmos, its most valuable resource must be treasured, nurtured, fostered, kept free of harm’s way and, above all else, conscripted to form a cumulative alliance. The asset in question is the small population of intellectual geniuses, young and old, who could be found worldwide in every country and enlisted from every culture. Individuals whose mental prowess exhibits a propensity for special and unique achievements. Whose aptitude for excellence yearns to realize its true potential.

Such persons, though relatively few in number, exist as a vast pool of untapped talent, who are currently allowed to live in obscurity and fend for themselves. Who, for the most part, are likely to live under impoverished conditions in poor countries. Where they will live and die amongst those who could profit most from the boundless gifts spawned of the great but anonymous minds in their midst.

The towering intellectuals of the physical and social sciences, if sought, found, funded and supported, educated and encouraged by nations united against the many sufferings of the world, and for the sole purpose of finding and implementing solutions of universal import, could appreciably accelerate and expedite the necessary exodus of humans into outer space. The colonization of other worlds offers a solitary opportunity, in all probability, of saving ourselves from certain and inevitable, less grandiose and far more dire events.

No amount of philosophizing, round-table discussions, treaties, intimidation or threats will resolve the political and religious quagmires within which all human cultures presently wallow. The time to leave is upon us. To let those who would venture forth and settle new worlds, ready themselves for the journey ahead.

The responsibilities of those who stay behind is to gather up the keenest of human minds, coddle, coerce, and tempt them, tease their appetites for knowledge with the fulfillment of dreams yet undreamt.

For the common good of all, of generations yet unborn, the overt obstacles of distrust, hatred and revenge must be set aside, just this once, solely for this cause, strictly and exclusively for those most involved and for the benefit of those least so. No nation or person need give ground or “lose face”. Everything remains the same including all feuds, disputes, and regional conflicts. Everything except our treatment of the smartest among us, and in all respects except our way of thinking about them.

Too much time is wasted haggling over the territories and natural resources of planet Earth. Sooner or later the technological equivalence of what were once known as wagon trains will, once again carry pioneers and their families into uncharted areas. Better for humankind that this migration -- this emigration -- be sooner, for it is later than we think.

Great cataclysms, both external and internal, from beyond our atmosphere and within Earth’s molten core, threaten to delay -- perhaps forever -- the ultimate departure and subsequent survival of the human species as a viable life form. The tree upon whose branch our species was spawned will one day topple and fall amid the countless other timbers that presently lay rotting at its roots. Our failure to leave the nest soon enough will spell our doom the same as were we just another twig no different from any other. That lay moldering at the roots of some other tree.

Political upheavals, famine, disputes over religion, plus a multitude of other dilemmas hover just below the horizon of a precarious status quo. All ready to rise like a black sun and extinguish the light from the brightness of humanity’s future.

A sense of urgency should bring together, if only temporarily, the wealthiest entrepreneurs, the keenest minds, and establish one or more programs akin to:

01. The hurried pace of atomic research during the Manhattan Project of WWII.
02. The joint efforts of individuals and industry portrayed in the movie, When Worlds Collide.
03. The organized social and military structures as described in Plato’s Republic.
04. The advent of new technologies as seen in NASA’s race for the moon during the 1960’s.

Ironically, it is our current preoccupation with terrestrial affairs and problems that hinders our reach for the heavens. The old fictional stories of hideous alien invaders, if suddenly true, would quickly be cause enough for some form of unbridled, unified action, where lesser squabbles were put aside at least for a while.

To the endless chagrin of those who understand the single, central dilemma that faces human civilization as a whole, namely the inability to coexist peaceably, no means seem possible by which an emergency siren might be sounded. A blaring klaxon warning that would alert, not the apathetic, argumentative masses, but the small numbers of movers and shakers who, by themselves, could begin a process that might avert the inevitable carnage to come. But one which, moment by moment, becomes ever more imperative as we continue to push our run of good luck. Amid a whirling roulette wheel of Earth-crossing asteroids, meteoroids and comets.

In the past, Prophets of Doom have been properly ridiculed. They have consistently overestimated the dangers involved, and underestimated human ingenuity, including our social and technological developments. The undetected space rock on a collision course with Earth will make no such errors in judgment. The earthquakes and volcanoes set to devastate large population centers are not interested in statistical probabilities. Nuclear terrorism, the collapse of world order, will not be halted by the scorn heaped upon latter-day doomsayers.

In all likelihood very few positive steps will be taken in the foreseeable future, certainly too few, too late, to stave off the one or more events which will halt, perhaps indefinitely, humanity's continued progress. A very real possibility exists that, via natural disaster, social chaos -- or both -- human beings will lose their supremacy over Earth, and forfeit their current ability to enjoy a destiny of choice.

In full possession of the technical skills required, but lacking the will and wisdom necessary, people may awaken one day and view a new Star Of Bethlehem in the nighttime sky. A point of light that, without further warning, will blast humanity from the face of the Earth -- forever. A dispassionate executioner which even now, is surely on its way.

Epilogue

Sometime in Earth’s distant future, a great puzzle mystifies a visiting team of alien archaeologists as they dig through the remains of strange, once mighty civilizations. Their quandaries will undoubtedly focus on why such relatively advanced beings, with a great deal of technical know-how at their disposal, failed to avoid and eliminate the celestial impact event responsible for their extinction.

Much curiosity will be aroused as to what forces had prevented these commensal entities from colonizing other planets. Especially while the time remained, over an extended period, for them to do so. Time before a wayward asteroid had obliterated most species, erasing them forever from the roster and roll-call of survivors. All but oceanic worms and microbes still found in isolated niches.

Others from the expedition suggest that the asteroid came sometime after the reigning species had already died out. They point to evidence which indicates multiple cultures had undergone a rapid decline, had plunged into anarchy long before their ultimate annihilation by a wayward space rock.

On a small, tentacle-held measuring device, one member registers a high level of radioactivity not associated with the main impact crater. Nuclear weapons, the team muses, used against one another? What a waste, the group agrees, as they continue their evaluations. To have ascended so far from their savage origins, only to fall prey in the end to those same untamed instincts.

In their travels the team has seen such losses before, on other planets, where rising beings had succumbed to the idiosyncrasies of their lesser natures. Where each had failed to act in time. The travelers know all-too-well how their own species had itself barely escaped the tragic fates that curtailed the potential destinies of so many others.

The small band of explorers will finally abandon the dig site, only one of several such places on this forsaken, burned-out planet. As they leave the atmosphere and return to the blackness of space, each looks back at the blue orb shrinking in the distance.

A final report states how the species of this world showed more promise than many. That their minds were fertile, full of imagination and creativity. What might have become of them, the foreign scientists ponder, had these beings been allowed to mature, progress, leave the womb of their own planet and journey elsewhere.

What glory indeed might they have achieved, had these unfortunate beings, endowed with so much promise, permitted themselves to survive and prosper?