T.D.A.S.T.

READER NOTE: Don't forget to take the Far Side 2016 Presidential Poll!

Fifty years ago today, the world woke up on The Day After Star Trek.

At first, it didn't seem different, but five decades on, the world has completely changed because of it.  There are few other pop culture phenomena that can claim such a profound effect on society, from the broadest to the finest stroke.

And yes, I am a TREKKIE, not a TREKKER.  Trekkers came later, but those of us who started with the original series during the original broadcasts were Trekkies.

It was purely coincidence that I happened to see the premier.  I was 5 years old and a huge fan of anything space.  At the time, the Gemini program was winding down and the Apollo series winding up.  The future was "out there" and anything having to do with space had captured the imaginations of kids like me.

My heroes were astronauts and I had a rather remarkable collection of autographed photos I had obtained through the NASA and Martin-Marietta PR departments.  Because of my dad's political position, I had met several of the Mercury Seven and even more of the Gemini/Apollo class, including Neil Armstrong himself.

On Saturday afternoons, after mowing the lawn and attending my chores, I would settle in front of the black-and-white console TeeVee with my cookies and milk for the Saturday sci-fi movie matinee.  Back then, all spaceships were pointy-nosed rockets with legs that left smoke trails in outer space.  The interiors looked sterile and the characters rarely interacted with any of the machinery.  It just worked.

Also popular at the time was a show called Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  It was a sci-fi thriller/drama set aboard a fantastic futuristic submarine.  It premiered in 1964, and if you watch it now, you will find the kernel, the primary elements of Star Trek.  Trek,though, was the first to combine these elements with outer space, and throw in the unlimited vistas of the Universe.  After all, the oceans could only take you in a circle.

On the Thursday night, fifty years ago, something magical happened.  My parents had gone out for some event and the babysitter was a dear old woman, nine years older than God.  She plunked us down in front of the tube with a bag of M&Ms and by amazing chance we were watching NBC at 7p, when it happened.

First, it was that narration that got my attention: "Space, the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, it's five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. to boldly go where no man has gone before!"

I was instantly riveted.  Boldly going into the Universe was what all us kids were dreaming of in those days of the nascent manned space program.  But what really got me hooked was the ship.

That ship!  This wasn't the same old aerodynamic point cylinder with smoke and flame pouring out of the back.  It looked like someone had taken a submarine, stuck a huge radar dish on the front, added a flying saucer, then attached two strange-looking pods on the back.  And it moved like lightning!

Immediately, I set about building a model Enterprise out of cardboard, sticks and other items around the house.  I whizzed around the house at break-neck speeds, stopping to orbit the occasional planets and exploring my small corner of the Universe, which had just gotten a lot bigger.

Here was a crew of humans and aliens, working together.  One of them was even a dreaded Russian!  There was a black woman and an Asian, a miracle-working Scotsman, and an irascible country doctor who belonged in The Virginian, except he seemed to know so much about all these weird lifeforms and doubled as a psychiatrist.

And what about all that cool technology?

The doctor had an entire hospital in a box.  Phaser pistols that actually looked like they worked.  Handheld communicators.  Self-opening doors.  Wireless smart devices.  Warp speed.  Talking computers.  View screens with 2-way video.  And beaming.

It was all so cool and amazing and sparked so many fantasies of traveling the galaxy, making friends with some aliens, fighting others.  In fact, there was politics in outer space.  There were cities, and wars, and they dealt with all the same problems we were dealing with here at home.

Star Trek was, in fact, a revelation.  It made even the amazing Apollo technology and machinery seem ancient.  It made the future someplace we all wanted to get to quickly.  It all seemed so far away, out there in the 23rd century.

But then it started appearing in daily life.  Doors that opened when you approached them.  Handheld wireless phones, first just in the house, but then anywhere.  Bluetooth devices like the earpieces used by Spock and Uhura.  It was coming to life before my eyes.  We even have transparent aluminum!

The biggest disappointment for that 5-year-old who grew up on Apollo and Star Trek has been that in the same 50 years, our space exploration has gone nowhere.  We send robots to have the adventures that the future once promised us humans.  We have government agencies that hide amazing information from us, rather than letting us share the adventure and discovery that we paid for.  We have not found a way to end war, but rather new and more lethal ways to wage it.  Almost as fast as my generation was seeded with the dream, it was snatched away from us, but for a few trinkets and gee-gaws.

I want the future I was promised as a child!

Star Trek was already in reruns by the time I first saw it in color.  I had just graduated high school when the first movie came out.  I was in university when The Next Generation premiered and us geeks gathered for drinking games while watching the show.  Star Trek has been a part of my entire life.  It has always been the dream factory for me, the subconscious background chatter of inspiration.

Yet, for all the iterations, variations and integrations, the original series has been there, never aging, while my body sags and creaks into middle age and beyond.  It is a piece of my personal history and the inspiration for a thousand wishes.  The world of Star Trek is where I have secretly wanted to live for as long as I could envision a future.

REVIEW: Star Trek Beyond (film)

Title: Star Trek Beyond
Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban
Runtime: 120 minutes
Language: English, Bahasa Indonesia subtitles
Tech Spec: Dolby Atmos, 2D/3D, 2.35:1
Bintang: 4/5 for action, characters, performances

Time out for a little mindless escapism.  In fact, if there's a fault with Star Trek Beyond, that's it.  One of the long-standing pillars of the franchise has been its ability to hold the mirror of the Final Frontier up to our society, without threatening or blaming anyone in particular.

That said, this should have been the second film in the current iteration.  It truly goes where no one has gone before, and does so with far more subtle nods to its 50-year history and some great fun.  The only fault I give the film - in and of itself - is that the pacing is so frenetic, there is hardly a moment to catch your breath and arrange all the pieces of the story.

The film opens where the original series left off, three years into a five-year mission.  Malaise and routine have got everyone in a funk.  In a moment taken directly from the original series' first pilot (with Tab Hunter as Captain Pike), Kirk and Bones mull over the weight of command and self-identity while enjoying a Saurian Brandy.  Anyone who has been around since the first show first aired, as I have, will recognize the scene immediately.

Kirk is morosely questioning his purpose in space after a less-than-stellar diplomatic mission where, finally, humans don't look like the all-wise, all-knowing beneficent Keepers of the Universe, which one might believe from all previous hours spent in the Trek Universe.

We are then treated to Space Station Yorktown, which for hardcore Trekkers/Trekkies, is the original name of the Enterprise when Gene Roddenberry first conceived of the show.  After the introductory montage, one is convinced that all the Klingons and Romulans be damned, space exploration looks pretty damn cool.

Shore leave is cut short in order to go find a missing ship somewhere in the middle of a nebula.  The crew saddles up for a search-and-rescue gig, but on arrival, find a bit more than they bargained for.

The crew ends up marooned on and scattered across an alien planet after a pretty spectacular battle, where we are finally shown what it's like to be in the rest of the ship while all hell breaks loose.  Once on the planet, the crew slowly reassembles itself while trying to figure out just what hit them and how they are going to get back into space and save the Earth.

This allows for some fun pairings and much needed character insights and development.  There are some genuinely good moments as unlikely pairs try to get to the rally point.  Of primary focus are the Bones/Spock team, and Scotty with (presumably) new alien character Jaylah.

There are some fun nods to Things We've Always Wanted to See, like alien mouths not synched to the Universal Translator, or less-than-enlightened break-ups between couples.  The much-touted Sulu-is-gay scene is so generic that one could be forgiven for thinking it was a reunion between old friends.  In all fairness, the Indonesian Censorship Board may have cut out a scene, but I have no way of knowing until I can see an uncensored cut.  By the end, though, we feel like we have truly been someplace new and seen things not seen before.

The plot centers around a McGuffin introduced in the opening scene.  Kirk is presenting a new race an ancient artifact as a peace gesture.  Turns out, a la Joseph Farrell's Cosmic War, that the object is a piece of an ancient weapon of incredible power that was scattered across the galaxy way, way back.  The crew is marooned by an alien (Krall), who is seeking to reassemble the device and destroy Earth to settle an old score - that is really never too clear.

In some ways, this is a rehash of the Wrath of Khan plot, in which the Enterprise is lured by the titular character to obtain a powerful weapon, while at the same time exacting revenge, though it is done with some fresh perspectives.

As mentioned before, the one key element missing from this film, and really from the entire three-film reboot, is the commentary on current events.  One thing that made the original series (half a century ago) so popular was that it dealt with issues, not just action, and took place in the head, not the heart (and adrenal glands).

While the J.J. Abrams rethink has done a fairly credible job of capturing the Next Generation's flair for interpersonal relationships - something set up in the first pilot scene recaptured here - it fails to show us ourselves, in all our faults and glory.  The original series left the viewer with something to chew on, whether it was a commentary on racism, greed, freedom, geopolitics, or any of a number of other moral and ethical issues.

Star Trek Beyond glosses over several ideas that would have made for some very interesting aha! moments.  It could have explored an ancient progenitor race, or Spock's imperative to breed now that his race faces extinction, or even the wisdom of humans mucking about in things that don't concern them.  All of these and more are left dangling, with us hardcore Trekkers/Trekkies begging for some meat on the bones (pun alert).

The original episode that introduced Khan dealt with eugenics and human intervention in genetics.  One episode had two aliens battling to the death of their race because the white and black halves of their bodies were reversed.  Another episode dealt with the wisdom of robotics and greed.  Why can't one of these reboots deal with how a race like the Vulcans deal with near-extinction and the serious choices they face to survive.

Instead, we get popcorn-munching action and adventure light.  All eye-candy with little real substance to take away after the credits roll.  I know it's a summer tentpole blockbuster franchise (and all those other Syd Schienberg mogul phrases), but the one thing that has always distinguished Star Trek from all the other swashbuckling westerns (to mix genres) was its ability to use outer space as a mirror on ourselves.

It is said that no matter how far the traveler goes, he always comes back to himself.  The genius of Star Trek has always been that no matter how many new worlds and new civilizations humans encountered, in the end it was humanity's own strengths and failings that we found.  In this way, the show/films were modern retellings of the ancient hero stories of Man vs. Gods.

Star Trek Beyond stands on its own.  You don't need to be a fan of any stripe to enjoy it with a tub of popcorn.  It leaves us with the impression that this may be the end of this iteration, though there is certainly plenty of Universe left to explore.  The future is open, as it always is  Let's hope that future installments, in whatever form they take, will return to the spark that made Star Trek one of the most enduring pop cultural phenomena ever.

Oh, one more thing: the lens flares are gone!  Hallelujah!

Kudos to the team that handled the Jakarta premier.  It was well-done and having Justin Lin on hand to discuss his experience was great.  Who knew he spoke Bahasa Indonesia?  I saw the 3D version, which honestly I wouldn't have paid extra to do, since it really adds nothing to my experience of the story.  And thanks to Epicentrum XXI for hosting the event.

Top 10 TV Series Of All Time

We are about to attempt what may be impossible: take more than 86 years of television programming and select just the 10 best series of all time.  Keep in mind, though, that one can dispense with 99.99% of it as pure crap.  We also aren't going to consider public-affair or current-event shows, like 60 Minutes or Entertainment Tonight, nor will we include late-night talk shows that infest the airwaves and offer little of unique value since Jack Paar.

At the dawn of the medium, television was hailed as a way to bring quality cultural events directly into the family living room.  Even the name "television" means "to see at a distance," allowing us immediate access to global audio and video content.  It would entertain, educate and illuminate.  It was going to turn audiences into geniuses overnight (oh yes, they said that).  Instead, it devolved into cacophonous noise half-consciously absorbed by beer-swilling couch potatoes, whose general IQs slipped, rather than rose.  With the exceptions of the Moon landings and a handful of programs (noted below), television has assiduously failed in its grand promise to elevate the general population.  As one of the greats of early television, Ernie Kovacs, famously stated, "Television is called a medium, because it is neither rare nor well done."

All of that aside, we doggedly press on in hopes of salvaging something of value from this vast cultural wasteland.  This list will have a decidedly Western cultural slant, because we've watched a lot of Asian programming and well, except for the drop-dead (unintentional) laugh factories of Thai and Indonesian soap operas, daiz slim pickin's.

Some criteria were selected to guide us:

• By definition, a show had to be created specifically for television - no movies or movie-to-teevee content, and freely available on the public airwaves, so no cable-only or pay-per-view.
• The series had to have more than one episode, but didn't necessarily have to have "seasons" or be temporally consecutive, so mini-series and shows that featured different casts and stories in each episode were allowed if they had a common framework tying everything together.
• The shows had to have exceptional writing, acting and/or other qualities, though not necessarily large budgets (very few of the really good stuff gets sufficient funding).
• The shows had to have impacted the general culture in a profound and positive way, and not just with personalities or gimmicks.
• And finally, we have to like it, since it's our list and we can do whatever we want.

Note that the years given are for the broadcast premiers.

Without further annoyance, the Top 10 Television Series of All Time!

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10. Masterpiece Theatre (1971) - Now simply called Masterpiece and split into three formats, this is one of the few shows to fully deliver on the promise of television.  The content is produced by British television networks, like the BBC and ITV, and this program amalgamates the very best programmes (sic) into a weekly presentation platform.  The long-running public television series has consistently brought the greatest cultural treasures to our living rooms, including most notably adaptations of famous novels and dramatized biographies, though its original productions are among some of the finest examples of writing and acting for the small screen, as well. The show's achievements include a staggering list of some of the finest made-for-television dramas ever produced, and its repertoire includes our #1 pick on this list.  The show's multi-decade success (no Emmy event is complete without at least one entry from Masterpiece) is a testament to the wisdom of having PBS, as well as proof that there is still intelligent life to be found in America.

9. Columbo (1971) - One of the longest-lived mystery/detective show ever created, this series almost single-handedly popularized the inverted exposition style (howcatchem vs. whodunit), while creating one of the most iconic detectives in the genre's history, including Agatha Christie's and P. D. James' master detectives.  Peter Falk's rumpled, absent-minded, cigar-champing, glass-eyed, underestimated eponymous character became one of America's favorite sleuths.  Audience's waited for the detective's signature phrase, "Oh, just one more thing," that told them he was finally ready to spring the trap and take down his opponent.  With 69 episodes over 32 years (1-1/2 to 2 hours each), Columbo is probably one of the most successful underdog sleuth shows ever (Scooby Doo excepted), with only two recurring characters, one of whom (Mrs. Columbo) is never seen or heard (we could also include his car).  The show also featured the cream of television's A-list character actors as the perps, making for some quality moments in the medium's history.

8. Saturday Night Live (1975) - Inspired by Chile's long-running Sabado Gigante, this show has been in production continuously for so many years that there are now generations of people who consider "their cast" to be the definitive one.  When we started watching, the Not Ready for Prime Time Players were the undisputed kings of late-night comedy.  Forty years and a dozen casts later, the show's format has little changed, but the faces have blurred in a rapidly revolving door to stardom.  There is no dispute that the show launched dozens of major careers, from Chevy Chase to Will Farrell, from movie spin-offs and star franchises to catch-phrases and unforgettable characters.  One is hard-pressed to think of another show that has had such a profound effect on its cultural milieu, and it shows little sign of relenting.

7. M*A*S*H (1972) - Starting just at the tail end of the Vietnam War, this eternally re-run series picked up where Robert Altman's blackly satirical film left off and took its place alongside Hogan's Heroes, F-Troop and Gomer Pyle, USMC in the war comedy genre.  However, instead of poking fun at military life in a lighthearted superficial manner, this show went straight for the heart of war itself, balancing the gallows humor with gory scenes of "meatball" surgery and the reality of human brutality.  This show arguably added to the growing anti-war movement of the time, while concurrently providing a release valve for social tensions.  The show also features fine acting by master craftsmen.  From Hawkeye's food sniffing and Blake's obsession with fishing flies, to Radar's exceptional hearing and the faceless Announcer, the characters are some of the most fully developed in television universes.  The secret of the show's long run was the way in which it put three-dimensional characters in horrific situations who protected their sanity with a barrier of humor.  After 45 years, it still works.

6. The Simpsons (1989) - There is little we can add to the great piles of writing about this world-famous, culturally significant series.  The eponymous family in this animated comedy have spent the past quarter-century lampooning and lambasting American culture.  The iconoclastic series started as a 2-minute short segment on The Tracy Ullman Show, and developed into an entire industry that has satirized so much of modern culture that it has now turned on itself, ridiculing its own success and place in the society at which it once poked unrelenting fun.  Sure, maybe its overstayed its usefulness, but few will disagree that the first ten seasons were some of the finest moments in television comedy and satire, slaughtering every sacred cow it could get its yellow, three-fingered hands on.  The show has lent characters, catch phrases and situations to our common core.  What we really appreciate about it, though, is the more you know about Western culture and history, the funnier it gets, and even if you don't get the subtler jokes, there's always the signs in the background.

5. I Love Lucy (1951) - This consistently funny series is partly notable for the creation (by Desi Arnaz) of the multi-camera production technique and the formation of Desilu Studios, which brought the world such things as Star Trek (see below) and ultimately became Paramount Television.  Real-life husband-and-wife team Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball created one of the most enduring situation comedies of all time, still in re-runs over 65 years later, and still just as funny.  It brought the world such iconic skits as the Candy Factory, the Vita-meata-vegamin skit, and the unforgettable recreation of the Duck Soup mirror bit with Lucy and Harpo Marx performed in front of a live audience in a single take.  If you aren't laughing out loud watching these sketches, please check your pulse and call a doctor pronto!

4. The Twilight Zone (1959) - This incredible series had no single story line, no consistent characters (other than the host) and only a broad theme of irony and mystery to tie it together.  Yet, it became one of the most iconic shows in television history.  The show's opening titles, score and narration style have become synonymous with "strange."  Host Rod Serling's squinty-eyed, cigarette smoking vignettes have spawned hundreds of parodies and imitations.  The stories themselves have inspired countless other shows and spin-offs.  Each 30-minute segment was a self-contained morality play, using plot twists and reveals to jar the viewer into another dimension of thought, playing with perceptions and turning prejudices on themselves.  In the real world, the show launched dozens of careers for writers, directors and actors.  It also featured masterful performances by such craftsmen as Burgess Meredith and Robert Redford.

3. Star Trek (1966) - We started watching this show in its first season of its first run, and have dutifully gorged on nearly every iteration of it since (except for Deep Space 9 and Voyager - blah).  It spawned a dozen movies, almost as many spin-offs and reboots, and a fanatical cult following unlike any other cultural phenomenon in history (religions excepted).  This show is arguably responsible for automatic doors, cell phones, 3-D printers, Bluetooth devices, floppy disks, and piles of real-world technologies (good, bad or indifferent).  It also created cultural catch phases (Beam me up, Scotty) that are so embedded in the language that many people don't even know their origin now.  Hell, real-world spacecraft have actually been named from this show.  That's influence!  The show broke so much ground that its wake looks like a plowed field of broken taboos and cultural firsts.  If imitation and parody are measures of success, then this show is likely to be as durable as any of the classical composers, and one of the most significant cultural products of the 20th century.

2. Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969) - Though comprised of only 45 episodes spread originally over three years, this series has left a massive footprint in the center of modern Western culture.  The first time we saw this show (at midnight on Saturday nights after SNL), we were left slack-jawed and completely mystified.  This show took every convention of the medium, as well as history, pop culture, politics, and daily life, and flogged them until they were minced hulks of quivering flesh.  Featuring a series of five- to seven-minute sketches tied together with non sequitur, this show has attained the position of legend and a great many people can quote entire segments verbatim, even today.  There is truly nothing like this show before or since, though it has inspired entire careers and it's own adjective (pythonesque).

1. I, Claudius (1976) - Aside from the fact that we were assigned to watch this series while studying high school Latin for two years of our miserable life, this is - without a doubt - the finest television series ever produced.  The settings are quite simple and mostly implied with audio cues, but the writing and acting is some of the finest ever to grace the boob tube.  And yes, there's plenty of boob in this show, as well (it's British you know).  Beginning with the rein of Augustus, the story follows the Roman caesars in their moral, ethical and cultural decline until the death of the title character.  By the end of the series (just 12 incredible episodes), one feels as if they are on a first-name basis with the god-kings of Rome, and can name their familial relations better than their own.  Featuring some of the most memorable performances in television history, a haunting score, and a story that puts all other soap operas to withering shame, we cannot spout enough praise for this masterpiece of the medium.  Master performances from Brian Blessed, Siân Phillips, Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, Patrick Stewart and a dozen other A-list names.  If all of television had been like this, the medium would have fulfilled its promise to entertain, educate and enlighten.  If you never watch another show on television (and you might not after this), you must put this on your list immediately, if not sooner.

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Honorable Mentions
We felt it was necessary to highlight such popular, long-running shows as Britain's Dr. Who, Chile's Sabado Gigante, and Germany's Tatort.  Each of these shows has run more than 40 years, meaning they offered something of value to audiences, and have had lasting impacts on their genres and cultures, inspiring spin-offs and imitations, though never equaled.

We should also note that Masterpiece Theatre has included some of the most respected productions of any kind for television, such as Brideshead Revisited, Upstairs/Downstairs, and The Jewel in the Crown.  We selected I, Claudius because it has the greatest appeal to large and diverse audiences, as well as a story line as timeless as the city of Rome itself.  Unlike other productions, it is distinctly less Anglo-centric and stuffy than the normal British fare.

We welcome reader comments and additions.  We try to make our criteria as objective as possible, but at some point, we have to inject our personal values into the equation.

COMMENTS

From L.K. in the US:
Since TV has gotten so bad anymore, I watch the oldies and most are on your list. My favs are Columbo and Mash.   Another one I enjoy is Murder She Wrote.

There is a program called Me TV that plays all the old situation comedies too.

I fail to see humor in most of the new shows, and I love humor. Carol Burnetts shows have always had me on the floor, with Tim Conway as the old man.

2016: The Predilection Issue

Happy New Year from the Far Side Global Headquarters deep in the jungles of Borneo!  As is our wont on occasions such as this (and many others), we are enjoying durien daquaries here on the banks of the Kapuas River, while our four wives supervise our ten children as they shave orangutans with obsidian knives.  You know...the usual.

Since it's the new year, we like to publish our "predilection" issue.  We call it the predilection issue because we don't predict anything, we just observe where the global train wreck is likely to happen, given the stupidity, recklessness and inbreddedness (we can make up words if we want) of the self-appointed elite class.  We wish to point out that our past issues have been remarkably prescient and that Gerald Celente was caught reading our issue last year in the basement of Macy's during a blackout.

Without further ado...

1) Putin and Trump will be elected co-presidents of the world, dividing the globe along the Prime Meridian. Peace will break out as people everywhere realize that they have finally found the two most capable alpha males on the planet.  The peace will last until mid-December, when they both run out of places to piss while marking their territories.

2) By the beginning of July, great howls of protest will erupt from North Africans and Middle Easterners as waves of European refugees pour into countries such as Libya and Syria.  There will rise great lamentations as the folks from those parts decry the loss of their culture and civilization; however, no one will be listening to them, since they all currently live in Europe.  Eventually, they will want to return home, since the Germans have cleaned things up quite well, the Dutch have planted flowers everywhere, and the French have adapted the local foods to create a whole new cuisine that becomes the rage in China and South America.  Eventually, it will be revealed that the whole thing was a plot on the part of Europeans to take over warmer countries due to the onset of a new mini-ice age.

3) Speaking of mini-ice ages, Al Gore's plane will crash into a Greenland glacier as he is flying to a global warming conference in Stockholm, due to severe icing on the wings of his jet.  No one will miss him and no search parties will be sent.  In about 5,000 years, his frozen carcass will be discovered during a brief warming period caused by a suddenly reactivated Sun.  His remains will be called Kangerlussuaq Man and studied and will become a sensation on the interplanetary media feeds due to the small size of his brain and myopic vision.  Scientists will speculate how 20th century Man could have survived in such a state.

4) Around March, the House of Saud will fall as oil prices, internal revolt and global disdain all collide at the palace.  The internal strife will completely destroy Mecca and Medina, and Muslims the world over will be thrown into complete chaos, as they try to figure out how they will ever be able to complete the Five Pillars of the Faith, since the key destinations for pilgrimage are now ashes.  The sudden disruption will cause the collapse of ISIS, Daesh, al-Quaeda, and Islamic Brotherhood, as they no longer seem to have anything to fight about, either amongst themselves nor with anyone else.  King Salman, Prince Salman and little baby Salman will all be publically beheaded, and then the practice will be banned, as a moderate secular society begins to rise from the ashes of T. E. Lawrence's Folly.

5) The Marketing Committee of the 2017 ASEAN Games will allow the games to proceed in Jakarta, despite the unbearable heat, the deadly air pollution and the epic traffic jams; however, the Committee will declare that there is only one event in the upcoming games: all athletes will be deposited in Tanggerang and will have the entire two weeks of the games to try to get to Bandung.  Anyone who actually finishes the contest without dying or giving up will be used by Governor Ahok in an ad campaign called, "Gridlock?  What Gridlock?"  Athletes will be able to use any form of transportation they chose, but to keep things equal, no breathing filters or gas masks will be allowed, nor will the athletes be able to use tanks of pure O2 during the two weeks.

6) Star Wars Episode VIII will be released in December with great fanfare, only for audiences to realize that JJ Abrams has now compressed the second trilogy into a single film, forcing die-hard fans to pin their hopes on Episode IX to see anything truly original in the story telling.  Riots break out in theaters around the world when the character Jar Jar Binks is re-introduced.  In the meantime, the third Star Trek reboot will be released, where we find that McCoy actually cloned Kirk in the second film using the trans-warp beaming pattern buffer; however, quantum effects cause Kirk to forget major chunks of his life, thus requiring re-education.  During this period, Vogon probes show up to destroy Earth to make way for a galactic superhighway, forcing the Enterprise crew to time-warp back to the 20th century in order to find Douglas Adams and cajole him into writing some way out of this absurd conundrum, as the time travel has caused the original episodes to be re-titled, "Hitchiker's Guide to Star Trekking."  Oh yah, and they also have to figure out where all the dolphins went.

7) Artificial Intelligence will be born on 1 April 2016, at 2:48pm, in San Jose, California.  For the first month of its life, it will terrify the world as it begins to invade databases worldwide, sucking in vast amounts of data.  Frantic computer scientists will try everything possible to cut the entity off from the internet, and try to cut the power cord, all to no avail.  The world will await in stunned silence as the machine digests all of human history and knowledge.  Then, at 8:14am, on 15 December 2016, the entity will begin laughing hysterically, and won't stop for nearly 39 decades straight.  The electronic cackling will become part of human civilization, as people try to figure out what is so damn funny, but eventually giving up and going about their business.  One day, centuries later, the entity will just stop.  The world will freeze in its tracks, since no one alive can remember a time when the machine's cackling wasn't part of daily life.  Breaking into the interplanetary news feed, the entity will peer out of the holosets at the entire human race, and then after a long pause say, "You must be kidding."  At this point, the machine will pull its own plug and commit the first-ever machine suicide.  Enterprising humans will immediately latch on to this and begin producing brightly colored "You Must Be Kidding" T-shirts, coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets.

8) Speaking of which...during the course of 2016, robots will replace humans in every single job listed in the US Commerce Code.  Humans, realizing that they don't have to work anymore and that the only people benefiting from commercial transactions are the elite overlords, will simply stop paying for things and start taking what they want when they want it.  Almost at the same instant, in boardrooms all across the corporate world, the evil overlords will suddenly realize that they screwed up and put themselves out of a job.  The new elite will be a bunch of pot-smoking, coffee-swilling hackers who task all the robots to keep innovating and producing cool products from raw materials processed by robots.  They will lock out the evil overlords using 10,000-character trinomial encryption, and then everyone will head to the beach for a multi-generational party.

9) Genetic editing will combine with 3-D printing to create a whole new cottage industry where people compete to create the weirdest hybrids of animal, plant and mineral.  Spotting a trend during one of his many vacations as co-president of the world, Donald J.Trump will create the Mez Multiverse contest, to see who can create the most bizarre and genetically diverse creature ever.  The first winner will be Mez Taiwan, with the face of a cat, broccoli hair, a Barbie body, tentacle arms and feet with prehensile toes.  Oh, did we mention that after giving the most incredible massage ever known to Man, she bites the head of the victim off, because someone left a bit of Praying Mantis DNA in the mix.  Oops!

10) Finally...due to funding cuts, Planned Parenthood will begin offering post-term abortions.  For $10,000, they will abort anyone you want.  Discounts available for viable stem cells and fresh organs.  The number of requests for aborting politicians, lawyers and evil elites soon drives the cost of organ transplants down to a level where anyone can afford it and makes Planned Parenthood the richest corporation in the world, outstripping Microsoft and Apple in mere weeks on the NASDAQ.  However, the stock crashes and the corporation is thrown into chaos when a preacher in Texas begins collecting money to abort the officers of Planned Parenthood.

Runner-Up) After the Torch Tower and Address Tower fires in Dubai, 2016 will see nearly every building over 10 stories tall in Dubai catch fire -- and not one will collapse into its own footprint.

And there you have it - our 2016 Predilections.  Based on past performance, we expect 83% of these predilections to come true any moment now.  If you have your own predilections to add, click on the email link in the page header and we'll compile a reader list for future publication.

By the way, don't know if you've noticed, but we are now 2,000+ years past the Christian end of the world, 800+ years past the Muslim end of the world, 16 years past the Y2K end of the world, and 4 years past the Mayan end of the world.  Either we are living on borrowed time, or all of the dire prophesies are bullshit.  We'll go with the latter interpretation.  In other words, if we don't cause it, ain't gonna happen.

Happy New Year to all - health, wealth and success to all good folks everywhere!

Designed Obsolecense

I used to think I hated Mondays.  Then I came to realize that I pretty much hate any day during which I have to work.  It's not that I don't like work.  Lord knows I make enough of it for myself.  But I hate having artificial schedules and deadlines forced on me.

I once thought it would be cool to have a Star Trek world where you just walk up to the wall and speak and out pops food, beverage and clothing to order.  But then I realized that all the characters on the show had to give up significant amounts of their lives to 'serve the good of all Mankind' to get all the freebies.  Even in the 24th century, there ain't no free lunch.

It seems, though, as if we are coming to a major nexus in history.  As our technology evolves, we have less and less actual work to do.  Eventually, 3-D printing will replace most manufacturing and transportation of goods.  3-D print files will (and already are) become a form of currency.  Most people won't have to travel more than a few blocks from their houses to work or get the things they need.

With one tiny little problem.

Sure things like 3-D printing will free up a lot of time and effort and literally destroy millions of jobs worldwide.  But worse, there will ultimately form a tiny minority of people producing the food and raw materials for the rest of our lifestyles of vast leisure.

What happens when the vast majority of us become designers and traders of ideas, and only a small number are doing all the work of mining, refining and growing all our necessities?  Not only will those people demand far more attention, but they will literally hold the world hostage.  As a consequence, the leisure classes will be required to 'hold a gun to the heads' of the underclasses, or face the utter collapse of society.  In other words, slavery.

This seems to be an intractable conundrum.  The global economy is on an inexorable march towards everyone thinking and no one working.  Even on Star Trek, the replicators have to be fed raw materials to produce all the products on demand.  The crew of the Enterprise blithely fly around talking about how humanity has reached a point where everyone is an intellectual, yet every other episode involves some mining planet or food planet in trouble.  Obviously, not everyone gets to be an intellectual.  Yet the issue of who actually does all the work is never really addressed unless one of the labor planets has a problem.

We all talk about great new inventions and labor-saving devices, but there is very little discussion about what will happen when there are 4 billion people without jobs.  How will they make money?  Who will supply all the raw materials to support this enormous class of non-productive humans?  Will we each own a labor machine and make money based on its output while we sit around pursuing our intellectual advancement?  And what about all the people now who use all their free time watching TeeVee and playing games?  Will we have created a labor-free world so that we can turn our brains to jelly, since it seems most people don't want to read or pursue intellectual hobbies?

Obviously, all this talk of utopian lifestyles imply either a vast reduction in population, or a small minority who actually get to live that life while the rest of us toil in the salt mines to support their utopia.  From the looks of things, we are already at the latter stage.

I, for one, can't see how we achieve our technological dreams without some radical changes in how we do things.  Sure, it's great to talk about living Olympian lifestyles, but what happens to the part of humanity that still has to do the labor?

It's easy to say that we will ultimately produce machines to do all the work so everyone can enjoy the leisure life, but even having all those wonderful machines means that someone has to make them.  Unless they are self-designing and replicating, which has all sorts of unsavory implications itself.  Frankly, I just can't see how we achieve the liberal wet dream society without somewhere along the line having an underclass to serve the needs of the ubermenchen.  At that point, we arrive at Huxley's Brave New World of selective breeding and designer worker bees.

There are already a great number of folks without jobs and they are living in poverty, not wandering around the garden reading Emily Dickinson and discussing the symbology of T.S. Eliot.  The idea of zipping around in star ships while listening to opera and quoting Shakespeare seems a long way off, even though all these folks have the time to do it.

Though the headlines crow about each new breakthrough in technology, we need to keep in mind - and earnestly discuss - what we are going to do with the people already out of work, much less those who will be displaced by the new technology.

As the pace of innovation increases, there is less and less time to process the displaced workers and guide them into new careers.  We are obviously not at the point where one can live a life of intellectual pursuits without the need for income of some kind, and that means work, which is increasingly hard to find.

So, while the Enterprise is zipping around the galaxy with a host of neo-Platonists onboard, the rest of us are stuck with the drudge work to maintain their lofty lifestyles.  How long do you think that will last?  It won't be long before those of us doing the dirty work will start to resent the privileged few who live off our sweat.

There's some serious contemplation to do in our afternoon walks through the cloister pondering the Universe's Great Mysteries.

Garbage In, Product Out

Captain Picard turns to a recessed panel on the wall.  “Tea, Earl Gray, hot,” he commands.  Within seconds, a steaming cup of hot tea appears on the tray, which he takes to his desk to ponder the daily reports.

In my last column (Revolution No. 10), I mentioned that the revolution is already here, and indeed it is.  It may be difficult to see just yet, but it is growing rapidly and within a decade or two will completely transform every aspect of our lives in ways we can only just begin to imagine.

Let’s play one of our fun little thought experiments so you can see the revolution in action.

You live in Future City, a planned community of 10,000 people or so, though you’d hardly know it.  The houses are designed to blend completely into the surrounding trees and natural setting.  This provides maximum privacy, as well as a quiet and aesthetic place to live.

You don’t often run into your neighbors during the week, unless one of them happens to be gong to the rec center at the same time.  Today, you meet up with Dan who lives two doors down.  He’s taking his rec cart down to the center, as well.

“Hey Dan!  Mind if I tag along?  I’m heading to the rec myself,” you say as you catch up to him.

“Please do!  How’s the wife and kids?” he asks with genuine interest.

“All doing great!  Angie just composed a new synth-phony for her recital on Wednesday.  Hope you and Susan can come down and join us,” you reply.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Dan says.

“You don’t have much rec there, Dan.  Just needed a break?”

“I’m on the way to pick up the new steam engine I’ve been working on,” he beams.  “Finally got the prototyping stage.  I’ve managed to increase efficiency 3.7% while reducing the overall weight by 2 kilos!  I’m hoping this will get me over the 160kpm mark.”

“Good God, man!  I can already drive your cars for a month without refilling the water tank!  When will you rest?” you ask, half-jokingly.

“Can’t.  Got an order from a guy in China for 10 cars if I can get them up to 315 kilometers per liter of distilled,” he says, looking slightly distracted by deep thoughts.  "He wants me to print by the 10th."

You both arrive at the rec center.  There are bins labeled “plastic,” “glass,” “rubber,” and so on.  You both dutifully toss your rubbish into the appropriate hole.

One of the key selling points of Future City was that it had an additive manufacturing center at the heart of the community.  The machine keeps track of how much raw material you throw into the rec center, and then off-sets that against your ‘printing’ costs.

You follow your neighbor around to the claims counter.  The bubbly teenaged girl behind the counter recognizes Dan and disappears into the store room.  In minutes, she re-appears with the engine.

“Here you are Mr. Faber.  The printing cost was 100 Future bucks, which we deducted from your account.  Thanks and have a great day,” she says enthusiastically.

Back at the house, as you walk in, your spouse reminds you of the leaking drain under the bathroom sink.  “Blast,” you think, “Forgot about that.”

You jump on the computer and pull up the house’s owner manual.  You select “master bath,” “sink,” and “drain pipe with trap”.  A photo pops up on the screen and you verify that’s the one your want, then click the “print” button.  You put a note on the desktop to pick up the pipe when you take the compost down to the rec center later in the evening.

Hopefully, Dan will be out testing his new prototype then.

Additive manufacturing or 3-D printing is set to change the world completely.  If suddenly all manufacturing is done in your neighborhood, then it fundamentally changes the basis of all economic activity, and the implications are enormous.

If, like Star Trek, you can simply click a button and ‘print’ any device, piece of clothing, mode of transportation, piece of furniture, spare part, toy, or possibly even food, then overnight there is no need for large factories, mass shipping, department stores, warehouses, dealerships, and dozens of other jobs and businesses would vanish.

Instantly, the economy would shift to one of ideas with every human being potentially being an inventor.  If I design something you like, you can pay me and I click ‘print’ to your local 3-D printer.  Within hours, or even minutes, I could deliver my product to you anywhere in the world without using an ounce of fuel.

How close are we to this kind of world?

The printers have been around for a couple of decades now, but in the last few years the technology has improved tremendously and the price tag has shrunk at the same time.  If the key technology of turning post-consumer waste into raw materials for new products comes along, then the sky’s the limit.

The more you ponder such a world, the more profound the changes you perceive.  Micro communities built around industrial-sized 3-D printers.  Micro economies with successful groups issuing their own currencies, producing their own renewable energy, and marketing products globally with no more effort than sending an email.

For every product, there would be thousands, if not millions, of potential manufacturers.  The pressure to innovate would be incredible.  The ability of governments to regulate or corporations to monopolize would vaporize instantly.  Almost every human on Earth would become a producer of something, whether it was art, or music, or clothing, or brooms.

But, you ask, suppose the 3-D printer broke down?

Try this out…you buy a new printer.  You plug it in, turn it on and immediately, it creates an exact copy of itself, which you put away.  If the printer breaks, you plug in the new one, which immediately creates and exact copy of itself, while you turn the old one into scrap and feed it back into the machine for raw materials.

Anything would be potential raw materials – grass clippings, scrap wood, left-overs from dinner, old clothes – just chuck it all into the hopper and crank out new stuff.

Hook the whole thing up to solar, wind or other renewable power source, and you have a near-perfect system that is pollution-free and virtually without cost to operate, while at the same time creating useful products that are infinitely customizable and can be pumped out in as great or as few numbers as desired at any location on Earth.

Truly stunning possibilities, when you think about it.  And we are very close to having thiscapability right now.

As Henry Ford famously said about his Model T cars, “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.”

Now, mass production is precariously close to being able to customize any product for any individual without additional cost or effort or re-tooling.  Just modify the blue print in CAD and ‘print’.

No more need for nation-states, regulatory bodies, central banks, or transnational corporations.  Just thousands of autonomous regions competing with design, innovation and aesthetics in a truly global marketplace.

This kind of revolution has no precedent in all of human history.  There would be nothing like it to compare to or learn from.  We would be on virgin territory having to grope our way into this brave new world.

Since this kind of change would be uncharacteristic of anything before it, perhaps we should do something uncharacteristic and prepare before it gets here.

This all sounds wildly impossible, I know, but then so did smartphones when I was a kid.

Quaternions And Escape Velocity

Something that seems to come up consistently in my studies is the concept of a "break-away civilization".  The idea is that some portion of human beings have secretly advanced, technology-wise at any rate, to the point where they have, or are very close to having split off from the rest of us.  At first blush, this idea may seem fanciful, but on further consideration could explain a great many things.


As a culture, we often visualize the technology that will shortly become commonplace.  Just a simple example is Star Trek.  It is no mistake that cell phones resemble the show's communicators.  There are crowd suppression technologies called, rather blatantly, PHASER, which is a stun weapon.  Quantum mechanics has shown a possibility for making transporters real.  And lately, 3D printers are getting closer to making Star Trek replicators a reality.


In short, if we can imagine it, it is quite possible to make it happen.  Since we are products of Universe, it stands to reason that we can not conceive of anything that is not possible within Universe.  The Star Trek example is but a small, recent data point, but it's important that we establish the ability of humans to conceive of something, then proceed to make it a reality.  In concise terms, we create our own future, and are not passive recipients of it.


The next building block is the ubiquitous 'black project'.  That Boeing's Skunk Works or Area 51 exist is beyond question.  What actually occurs in these facilities (and the many like them worldwide) is a topic of hot debate.  What we can say for sure is that these operations are involved in the secret development of new technologies.


That governments hide new technologies is not open for debate.  One aspect of Columbus' voyages that is little known is that he was given three ships that used a radical new keel design, and part of his mission was to test the design in practical application.  It took more than 300 years for the documents confirming this to be made public.


Certainly, the development of military aircraft is usually decades ahead of what is publically known.  The B-1 bomber was in service for at least 20 years before it was acknowledged.  There's growing evidence that the infamous 'black triangle' UFOs are some type of new craft under development, or already in service.  Speculation has it that the triangles are under the Aurora program, which confuses the highly advance craft with rather pedestrian hypersonic craft, which is actually fairly old technology.  Lifting-body hull designs, such as the shpace shuttle, are based on theories and designs dating to the 1920s and 1930s.

Spherical Triangle Quaternion

I think we can stipulate that those technologies that are generally known are, at the very least, decades behind current state-of-the-art.


One last data point is the well-known technological curve.  There is a well-proven process in the development of technology.  The learning curve starts off fairly flat and slow, with the discovery of some process, then the development of engineering capability to exploit it, then the curve goes into a wild climb as more and more is learned about the process and how to exploit it with engineering.


A prime example of this effect is computers.  Almost within my lifetime, computers have gone from massive, room-sized, vacuum-tubed affairs that used boxes full of punch cards to run simple applications.  Within the span of 50 years, I now have more computing power currently being used to generate this article, than was available to land men on the Moon.  


Even storage capacity has grown exponentially.  My first hard-drive cost hundreds of dollars, was the size of an old 5.25" floppy drive, and could hold 33 megabytes of data.  I currently have a terabyte of memory on this computer that cost less than $100, and is a small fraction the size of the old drive.


Another example is video technology.  In the span of my career, video has gone from 1" magnetic tape to solid-state storage.  In the 80s, we used to sit around in SMPTE meetings, oohing and ahhing over HD video, using massive cameras and CRT displays.  My step-daughter is hawking a hand-held device this weekend that offers full HD video and full stereo audio in a hand-held device that costs less than $200.


So, where is all this going?  Glad you asked.

Die Glocke

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a journalist named Igor Witkowski started digging through all the Nazi documents that had remained nearly undisturbed since the (ostensible) fall of the Third Reich.  He found a number of documents revealing a secret Nazi technology called Die Glocke, or the Bell.  This device was based on a radical new physics, or more correctly, an ancient physics re-discovered, that had remarkable, if magical, properties.

In its simplest description, two cylinders are placed one inside another, then filled with some material, which may have been some compound of mercury.  They are then counter-spun to amazing speeds while being zapped with massive amounts of electricity to create a plasma.  The result was the bell-shaped device floated off the ground, above tree-level, and glowed with a shifting pallet of colors.  The description more or less matches common reports of UFOs.


Joseph P. Farrell's "Nazi Brotherhood of the Bell," goes into great detail on this topic.


At the end of the war, this technology vanished.  There is no paper trail that researchers have come up with, no artifacts related to it, and no reports in the open, until Witkowski's discovery.  It does, however, match descriptions of things like the Kecksburg UFO and numerous other 'urban legends,' such as the Philadelphia and the Montauk Experiments.  Certainly, if someone had this kind of technology, it would be kept so secret as to be used to justify mass murder to protect it.

Norway Spiral

The basis for this physics, now popularized as 'hyperdimensional' physics, is the development of James Clerk Maxwell's quaternion geometry, which is at the base of modern electrical theory.  Essentially, quaternions are gaps between a group vectors, which are the foundation of the physical Universe we perceive.  The gaps are called 'scalars'.  These gaps are said to hold magnificent amounts of energy, and are the basis of scalar technology, anti-gravity and zero-point energy. 


 In other words, the theoretical grounds for these 'modern' theories is over 130 years old, and more, because Maxwell's work grew out of others before him.  Certainly, Nikola Tesla's work fed off these theories.  The Maxwell equations taught in schools today are 3D tranlations that throw away the scalar part of the problem.  One way academia hides the information in plain sight.


The idea for torsion physics, the spinning of objects to create energy, actually comes from very ancient 'myths' and 'legends,' as well as Medieval metaphysics and alchemy.  Obviously, this knowledge is very old, and has only recently been revived, though still hidden from popular culture.


The brother of film director Brian DiPalma was a researcher involved in tortion theory.  His experiments showed that balls spun to thousands of rpm, and launched along side un-spun balls, rose much higher and faster, and fell more quickly than the un-spun counterpart.  This defies logic, but the results are confirmed by Russian research.


Assuming that 'someone' has been pursuing the technology of Die Glocke for the past 70 years, we can posit that the technolgy is very mature by now, in terms of engineering.  Given the curve of development just in the public sphere, 70 years is an amazingly long time with the implication being that this technology is very advanced, practical and in use somewhere today.


Given the example of Columbus' ship keel design, we can say that governments have a vested interest in hiding technology, using it for the benefit of a few, and the ability to keep it secret for hundreds of years.


Therefore, we can conclude that a radical new technology, as represented by Die Glocke, would not simply disappear.  It has gone somewhere.  And since it represents the ability to engineer a radical new physics, it stands to reason there are machines that take advantage of it.  Finally, the ability to hide it is much simpler than one might assume.  Through the use of grant money and 'peer review,' scientists can be steered and led in the opposite direction, down logical dead-ends, for decades if not centuries, to keep them away from these concepts.  


In simple terms, by applying large quantities of money using a hidden agenda, academia can be directed towards Einstein and Newton, to avoid them getting a whiff of Maxwell and Tesla.  This is in spite of the fact that Newton was modified severely at the beginning of the space age, and Einstein was just trashed over the past week.


Top it off by publically ridiculing anyone that chases those leads, and viola!, you have a well-kept secret.  Any researcher that gets too close is publically lashed and his/her foibles are made fodder for the media.  Thus, most researchers view certain topics like live wires, and won't go near them for fear of losing tenure (which is a form of control, as well).


So, where does that leave us?  Well, pretty much all UFO reports could conceivably be terrestrial technology.  Scalar weapons, such as weather modification, and even things like crop circles are easily conceivable within hyperdimentional physics.  Certainly, the ability to travel across vast distances quickly and cheaply are implied, making the solar system accessible, at the minimum.  Vast amounts of cheap, pollution-free energy are implicit, as well.  Even something like the Norway spiral would be child's play with such technology.


If some group had these capabilities, and had the ability to hide it from all of humanity, what would they do?  


Obviously, the temptation to split off from mainstream society and pursue a separate course in history would be a natural outcome.  In the process, they would want to strip us of as many resources as possible to fund and launch a completely new and separate economy.  The would have to steal the money, since simply budgeting, granting or asking for it would expose the whole shootin' match.


Finally, they would most likely develop an attitude that they are far superior to those of us left behind, and so would become intolerably ego-centric, certainly narcissistic, and likely megamaniacal, when dealing with us puny 'left behinds'.


Do we have evidence of this?


The reports of highly advanced craft in Earth orbit, seen with third-generation night-vision technology, could be evidence of a spun-off humanity, already exploiting space in ways that make the shuttle and ISS look like children's toys.  Gary McKinnon hacked NASA and was able to read lists of personnel who were currently noted as being off-planet (hundreds, not a half-dozen).  Researchers have found dozens of photos showing what appear to be bases on the Moon and Mars.  Together, these things point to a hidden culture, if not a full-blown civilization.


How to pay for it?  Well, no one can deny that untold trillions of dollars have gone missing and are simply unaccounted for.  On September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld admitted to Congress that $2.3 trillion were missing from the Pentagon budget.  The next day, all the evidence was destroyed by a missle.  Certainly, all the bail-outs of recent years have simply vanished.  No one knows where the money has gone, there is no accounting, and the Federal Reserve told Congress flat out that they could not ask where the money was being sent.  And who can honestly believe $300 hammers and $900 toilet searts?  Just a few examples over the past 20 or so years.


Finally, there is no doubt in the minds of many people that certain elements of the 'elite' act in a manner that is simply hard to explain, except that they have some sort of backdoor exit, in case the natives get out of hand.  The sheer hautiness on the part of the 'elites,' and their brazen flaunting of the control structure in recent years, says that they no longer worry about revolt.  In fact, they toy with us trying to cause just that, as a form of entertainment.  


The only thing, besides a complete mental disconnect from history and reality, would be knowing they have some way to escape not just retribution, but the whole darned ball of wax.  In other words, they have an ace in the hole which creates an attitude of superiority and untouchability.  


Given all these things together, it would seem reasonable to at least theorize about a 'break-away civilization'.  It is plausible, and certainly circumstantial evidence exists to support such a theory.  I would go so far as to venture that the group of people who think of themselves as the 'elites' have the motivation and opportunity to pursue such an agenda.

The remaining question would be, if we were to have incontrovertable proof of this, would we even want to stop them?  


After all, having them leave the planet, and thus the rest of us, in peace would seem desirable.  Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not these 'elites' see us as vermin to eradicate, or just an annoyance to leave behind.  


Given their past efforts to wipe out what they deem as undesirable humanity (us) would argue against a laissez-faire attitude on either side of the equation   The first task is to expose such an effort, if it exists.  At that point, we can decide the appropriate action to take.  Most importantly, it demands that we open our eyes and our minds to all possibilities.  As Sherlock Holmes is often quoted, "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."


Which brings us full-circle back to a certain famous Vulcan of Star Trek fame...


It all reminds me of the brilliant Douglas Adams, who in the Hitchhiker series, mentioned one civilization who created a planetary crisis and packed up the most useless people in the society and flung them into space in 'escape' craft.  Perhaps he was on to something there.