Greater Expectations

By Allan R. Manchester

Most philosophers of history have been apologists excusing the rights of the elite, the privileged, the priests, and the kingsthe rights of the king to wage war, the rights of the property owners to rule their tenants, the rights of the priests to pardon sins, and the rights of the lords to create laws.

Philosophy is the foundation of all of societies thoughts, and notions of the famous thinkers percolate out to the masses. Most of philosophy has been detrimental to society because it is not thought through. War is stupid regardless of how many great thinkers think it good. Poverty is a stupid scourge to our society regardless of it being regarded as a necessary evil. Crime is stupid behavior by stupid people and can certainly be abolished through proper policy and education.

This is a work of philosophy, but unlike historical philosophies, it does not give excuse to society as it now is but gives plain and serious vision to how it can be.

In the world of the future, there will be no more war, no more crime, and no more poverty anywhere that men shall be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984552693

Allan R. Manchester

Allan Ronald Manchester was born April 29, 1955 in Arnprior District Hospital. Raised on a small dairy farm between Carp and Stittsville, just outside of Ottawa Ontario. Primary education was in Carp Public School that became Huntley Centennial. Secondary schooling was through Almonte District, Bell High, and Earl of March Secondary. Drifting through, he managed to graduate grade 12. School normally bored him, and his goal was to attain an average of 55 to 65%. Married at 18 to his 16 year old sweetheart of 2 years, Irene, he then attended and graduated two year Business Administration at Algonquin College in Ottawa. Shortly after his graduation, he failed his first business venture of Country Kitchen Donut Shop in Smiths Falls Ontario. A year later he attended Eastern Pentecostal Bible College, graduating with a theological degree. Two years out of college he felt that his superiors in the church had dealt seditiously with his congregation, and he felt that he could no longer support the organization.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Allan R. Manchester.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/13/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

785254

CONTENTS

Foreword

STARSHIP HOLLY

First Launch

Under Control

In Trouble

Catching Batteries

So Close

Heaven Or Hell?

Rescue Mission Mounted

Saved In The Nick Of Time

Instant Coffee

Tethered Fun

Stupid Smartmachine

Vince Signs Off

Zwigger’s Demand

Heads Up Holly

Landing Zwigger

Zwigger Down

The Risk And The Cure

Recovery

Invitation To Dinner

Cavemen And Cellphones

Exploring Options

Gold And Power

Unacceptable Proposal

Contaminated Gold

Hijacked

Plague Takes Hold

Quarantine

No Exception

Holly To The Rescue

Orientation

Irene And Vince

Earth’s End

Reorientation

Life On Arthur

Gilbert Stays

Resettled Criminals

Alora Pushed Off Planet

Gilbert In Trouble

End Of Beginning

HOW TO STOP A HURRICANE AND SOME OTHER THINGS YOU MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW

Foreword 2013

How To Stop A Hurricane

How To Stop Unemployment

How To Eliminate Poverty

How To Stabilize Financial Markets

How To Reduce Government Size And Expense

A Note About Foreign Investment

How To Stop Religious Intolerance

My Rejection Of Christianity

We Need Marijuana

How To Stop Organized Criminal Activity

Crime And Punishment

Gravity And Motion

Maxwell Einstein Et. Al.

A Hole In The System

How To Cool The Planet

Tobacco And Other Useful Things

To Tell The Truth

Foreword 2018

Writing To Iluminate

Kindness

A Visit To God

How Much Is Enough

The Nonhuman Entity

Intellectual Property

Sucralose

Acetaminophen

Aspartame

Fungus And Bacteria

Hot Sauce Is The Answer

Oral Health

Medicinal Plants

Evil Power

How To Eliminate Stupidity

A Letter To The Pope

Forgiveness

Parenting

A Note About Islam

Atheism

Liebowitz And Newton

Driving And Traffic

The Right to Sleep

Of Things To Come

About The Author

FOREWORD

This is not a sequel to Charles Dickens book.

This book started as two; a work of philosophy entitled How to Stop a Hurricane and Some Other things You might Like to Know and a novel called Starship Holly. After finishing the novel, I considered the long term ramifications of the philosophy and the novel. I expect these works together to dramatically change the world of mankind. I was pondering the promotion of the books together, but then I decided to sell the two works as one. Greater expectations is exactly what I have for these works, this work. I expect this work to be the foundation of the world of tomorrow. No more war, crime, poverty or bigotry. You may say I’m a dreamer, but no. I am a realist. I logically decimate the works of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Plato, Aristotle, Darwin, Nietzsche, Adam Smith, J.M. Keynes, and all philosophies that are built upon these ‘great’ thinkers. Not possible you say? But here it is! A world of prosperity and peace? Here it is!

So the title Greater Expectations. If the results are as I expect, this work will quickly supplant the Bible, the Koran, and all historical theological works. I expect that no future child of ten will be ignorant of this work a hundred thousand years from now, and I do expect that mankind will still be reading these words 200,000,000 years from now, just not on earth.

I do expect that the creator has surprises for us, hidden out there in the stars. I expect to be still living when we start to find them, these new Earths and their secrets.

If this work does not upset your worldview, then you have not read the work carefully enough. Everyone hates to have their worldview upset, and I am sorry to have to do this to you, but bigotry must die. All worldviews that I have encountered whether academic or theological harbor bigotry and so I need to throw over the way you have been thinking and lead you to a new course. Sorry for the pain this may cause, and you are welcome for the future this will bring.

*     *     *

1

STARSHIP HOLLY

FIRST LAUNCH

Eric had been sitting here in his couch for four earth hours, waiting for his module to gain its own inertia from the intensifying magnetic field pushing against every strand of gravity within this box which was to be the core of the fledgling new Starship Holly.

I’ll be glad when we’re airborne

Patience much? Eric replied to his co-pilot. And if we catch any air we’ll never know about it, but the rest of the world will.

OK then, space born Vince whined. And the theory is that we could catch a snag in Earth’s atmosphere without any damage

Maybe so, but I’d like to see those theoreticians prove their theories on their own butts and not mine

Great timing to be expressing that sentiment, Vince laughed.

Eric mused. Yeah Vince was bang on with that comment. They were on the moon, about to be fired out of a cannon at 0.51 times the speed of light. If Percival was wrong in his theories about magnetic effects on inertia, Eric just might catch a glimpse of his own brains as his eyeballs flattened against the back of his skull.

The theory was that all inertia and timing is dependent upon the gravitation of all the mass surrounding an object through the gravitational connections. Magnetism is a corruption of gravity, so by pushing magnetic fields into the Holly, it was getting isolated from the prevailing inertial fields in a way that made instant acceleration possible. The inertia of a lightning bolt will completely destroy a large tree, yet the trajectory changes in mid air making the jagged arc, only because the electrons are in a magnetic bubble that isolates them from the gravitational references.

Vince felt the bump. Shit! What was that?

Eric started laughing.

Whatever that was, I don’t think it was funny, Vince fumed. It felt serious

Check the view ports. It’s time to get to work.

Vince floated off the left hand couch towards the port on his left and said, Oh my gawd, we are out of there! I really didn’t think we were going to get off the moon.

Really. What did you think we were sitting there for?

Well now you know why I was getting so antsy.

You really were expecting to die any second?

Yup, weren’t you?

Many were convinced that the starship mission was a suicide mission, and apparently it had been for two other flights that had been launched and never heard from again. There was no way that mankind was going to get past the speed of light. For more than a century, every senior at every school in the world knew for a fact that C+ travel was impossible. Technically they were only going .51C, just shy of 153,000 kilometres per second, but that was as measured in Earth’s seconds. They were no longer on Earth’s clock. By getting past the halfway point of Einstein’s declared outer limit of speed, their own timepieces and all the vibrations within their bodies, within all of the mass within the box had slowed to half the vibration speed of earth. By the on board timing, the light barrier had been crossed. The stars were within reach.

Let’s get to it. I want to see the Luna village again before we reach Alpha Centauri. We have to learn to steer this ship, Eric said as the sun seemed to fade out to nothing in the rear view port.

It took them 36 hours to get comfortable control of the craft. Then it took them five days of searching to find their lunar base again.

After firing up the gyro’s from the bank of batteries they had brought with them they experimented with the control handles sticking out from the housings of the four gyros. Eric had spent 183 hours in the simulator and was confident that he could control the Holly, until he flexed the control for the first time. Instantly the stars started shooting past the windows as the vehicle spun and tumbled. He grabbed for another rod and the tumbling got worse. He reached for a 3rd of the 16 gyro control rods when Vince’s voice broke in. Stop! he ordered.

You are second in command here. You don’t bark orders at me, Eric retorted.

Yeah, bullshit. If you don’t get control of yourself you’ll never get control of this ship and if we don’t get turned around and back to the moon you’ll never be able to put the reprimand in my file.

Well do you think you could do any better at this?

Maybe yes and maybe no. Doesn’t matter. This is your gig. It is your time to shine. Time for panicking was way back there in the launch canon. Too bad you missed your opportunity. Now CALM YOURSELF!

Of all the insubordinate quips this jerk has broken on Eric’s back, he has to break in now to act like he is in control? But he is. He is more in control than Eric, and his interjection was just what was needed at the right time for Eric to refocus and get a grip on himself. He closed his eyes, took in a breath, and prayed Oh Father, help me now. With his eyes still closed he reached out his hand until he felt a control arm. He opened his eyes, pulled just a hair, and the stars suddenly stopped rolling past.

Vince stared in awe. How did you do that?

I guess we had better figure that out in case we need to do it again.

UNDER CONTROL

Luna village station. This is Eric Harten in charge of the Holly. We are in full control.

nsnak answered the speakers.

Computer, why can you not feed incoming audio at a speed that we can understand?

I do not know, replied the computer. I guess there is an insufficiency to my programming.

If you can guess then you are AI, and capable of fixing any inadequacy in you.

True, but all development takes time. Mankind has only touched the surface of their own inadequacies in the past 5000 years. I cannot be that much smarter than my creators.

Did you just call me stupid? demanded Eric.

Yup it did, laughed Vince.

Of course I did, replied the computer. Being stupid is an integral part of the human condition. If you weren’t as dumb as you are, you would not make so many mistakes. If you didn’t have so many mistakes to learn from, you could not be as smart as you are. If you were not so very stupid, you could not be so very smart.

Oh my gawd, exclaimed Vince. You do know that you are arguing with a glorified toaster, right.

Yeah, just to prove I’m dumb enough to be smart. Stupid smart-machine!

Eric touched his electronic control pad. Found the file recording of the fresh broadcast, pressed loop, play and slid his finger over the speed control, hearing nsnak, nsnelmak Luna station. Welcome back.

Another couple of touches to the control panel and Eric went on. Luna Village we will be doing a fly-by in 80 seconds. We will be back for first rendezvous in 40 minutes.

"That doesn’t work for us. We weren’t expecting you back so soon. Figured you would need two days before you called for a rendezvous. I just hit the scramble button now. First rendezvous in eight hours.

What the blazes was this twerp talking about.

Luna station be advised that we are at the end of our battery life. We need fresh batteries.

Captain Eric, you left here with 7 days worth of juice on board. With your depressed timing that should have given you 14 earth days

Well we have been out 6 days, 14 hours and 27 minutes, by our reckoning

Christ! We’ll scramble batteries for you in 30 minutes

IN TROUBLE

As it turned out, by Earth time, the Holly had been gone 13 hours, but in the cold expanse of interstellar space where they had pretty much gotten lost, there is no local relative motion to slow the timing field down, and so while the crew of the Holly took near a week gaining control of the bucking bronco, the command center on the moon did not have the time to even get concerned about their absence.

Hey, are we getting paid by Earth’s time or by Holly time, because by my book, I just worked 72 hours overtime and my punch card is going to record a single double shift

Do you think they should be deducting lodging at Earth time or Holly time? What are you going to be spending your money on anyway?

I’ll think of something Vince replied.

Yeah right

The entire project had been spearheaded by Canada, but was backed by the entire United Nations. Anything that was requested by Luna village was on the next shuttle. One smart aleck requisition clerk had ordered a dozen Twinkies, knowing that the brand of pastries was long off the shelf. Earth base had sent a dozen each of twenty different pastries that were available. No request would be ignored.

Earth could afford it too. Until the early 2020’s, the common consciousness was that business acted within scarcity towards fulfilling sufficiency. Then suddenly people everywhere came to a realization that there had always been more than enough, and business promoted scarcity by absorbing surplus and shutting down competitive suppliers. Even though personal productivity had increased 100 times over the century, personal prosperity had not improved at all and in many ways had seriously eroded.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) had been initiated, giving to any individual sufficient support to be slightly above the poverty line without any supplement. This was almost all paid for by the eradication of the government bureaucracy supporting the patchwork of personal economic assistance plans, and showed huge savings when all forms of corporate welfare were crushed out of existence. Normal work week hours were cut to 20, and yet unemployment soared with the reductions in government offices and the ensuing cuts to outsourcing. The GDP had been severely slashed, but no individual was hurting anymore. Economists and corporate lackeys screamed bloody murder about the unemployment and economic shrinkage, but with all wages translating directly into consumer spending, it was impossible to be convinced that government had taken a wrong path.

Much of big money tried to influence the government and the economy to reverse to the prosperity that had made their position so unique, but they were fighting a losing battle. Some lost everything while most only lost their strong influence over policy. On the whole it was proven that if you put people before profits, profits will follow. The workers at Luna station were being paid because many of them still had dependents on Earth, but their pay could not affect their standard of living living at the station because they were getting anything that they wanted.

CATCHING BATTERIES

The Holly was trying to rendezvous with the 4 battery packs. Because of the emergency, the packages had been launched slowly, only .4C, not having the time to ingest the magnetically induced inertia. This meant that the Holly had to fly by them again and again, magnetically bumping them each time before they were close enough to the Holly’s trajectory to try the capture.

,We’re still too fast, but we have to get them now. We are going to be blind in moments

Let me try, Vince said as he moved to the controls. Eric hesitated a split second before he pushed himself away. It looked hopeless, and if they were going to die, then he should be the one responsible. Still, if Vince was doomed he absolutely had a right to give it HIS best shot.

Eric’s despair deepened as he saw the stars start to rocket past the viewport. He groaned. Vince had lost it. Are you okay Vince?

Yeah, I think I’ve got this.

Weird. I don’t hear any despair in his voice. Was that confidence? It really did not sound like bravado!

You think you are spinning IN control? asked Eric.

Yeah I think I have it!

Eric’s despair deepened. Poor guy has lost it and he won’t admit it. That was when he glimpsed a yellow streak blipping past the B window. He focused his attention to the heads up display on his visor, showing the position of the batteries.