Long News

The Long Now Foundation has an article on their site about a clever concept, of a “now” that started 100 years ago when those who are a 100 years old were born, and ends 100 years from now when some born today are 100. But they also have a section called “Long News” that deals with current news that may last 10,000 years.

At the Encyclopedia Foundation we thought then that one could have a form of “long news” different than they do that would focus on the past 200 years. 02011 being “noon”, 100 years ago being midnight, and 100 years before that being yesterday at noon. Which is the time period a newspaper would typically draw from, historically.

While their section on breaking news that may have relevance for the long term is good, might it not be too soon to tell?

With that in mind, the Encyclopedia Foundation presents a form of “Long News” in which 02011 is noon, and we are giving you the news of the past 200 years, which is really just 24 hours in the big scheme of things. When you see the word “today” that means from 01911 (midnight) to 02011 (noon), if you see “yesterday” that means 01811 (noon) to 01911 (midnight).

By it’s very nature, this is the last one we can do until “tomorrow” or 02111!

*Ahem*

Yesterday around noon (01811) - A minor offshoot of Northern Europeans called “the British” along with their relatives in the middle of North America continued their work on applying steam engines to various industrial purposes. They have branched out from using it to pump water and operate various levers at factories to making use of it for what they call “trains”. These “trains” are quite remarkable in that a great number of very large carts, capable of hauling tons and tons of supplies and goods and even people, can be pulled by a steam engine “locomotive”, along a twin rail at speeds of – if reports can be believed – 25 to 30 miles per hour.

The rail is apparently to make it a uniform surface and make steering easier. Indeed, the operator is really only increasing or decreasing the speed, with the machine doing the work of a thousand men and horses.

Not content with that marvel, the same hardy group of Anglo-Saxons – who were only just running around naked in the forest last week on that island of theirs – have also hooked up steam engines to giant circular paddles for the propelling of boats upstream with no sails or teams of mules to pull them.

Scholars and savants who had an hour or so before dismissed the re-development of Hero’s toys as “pointless, given the abundant availability of slave labor all over the world” are now starting to think that some of these applications may have some long term possibilities. If nothing else, such a growth in machine culture could – some say – foster increased growth and development of other machines, fostering more dependence on them, and starting a cycle “the end of which cannot be wholly foreseen”.

Midnight (01911) – A remarkable 12 hours has past and earlier reports that a machine culture might be developing have proved out. The world now finds itself divided into two, those with a machine culture – the economically prosperous, the militarily strong and the masses educated – and those without, the economically poor, the militarily weak and the masses uneducated.

Slavery was outlawed and eradicated, and by the same group of Anglo-Saxons who developed the machines. Cynics suggest they were simply guaranteeing a market for their marvels, but ex-slaves are happy all the same. Collateral damage took place in the eradication of slavery when the much vaunted Constitution of the middle section of North America was changed from a compact of free states to a blueprint imposed upon subservient states. It had been less than 12 hours old.

The machines were able to develop far beyond just trains and ships, and the increased wealth fostered an increase in scientific and technological development not seen since a week and half ago when Rome was at its height. The past 12 hours have seen explosions in knowledge of taxonomy, botany, biology – including a fascinating theory of origins from a Charles Darwin – and medicine. Surgery can now be done painlessly, and it is known now why diseases can spread from person to person in crowded and dirty areas.

A small set back in physics, though. While up till around 11pm it was confidently expected that our clockwork universe would be fully understandable as soon as we got a handle on the composition and properties of ether, several European men have shown that ether may not exist, and more disturbingly that it may be the speed of light that is the constant, with a great many other things we took for granted being in a “flux” so to speak. We’ll keep you posted as things develop.

Hot air balloons were a brief marvel, but since about five minutes till midnight, planes have been on everyone’s mind. Heavier than air and driven by an “internal combustion engine” invented just a few hours before, it shows great potential, but only time will tell. Likewise with these personal automotive devices that some of the rich are playing about with, also relying on this “internal combustion”.

Socially, politically and economically, things have gone well. In fact, it is confidently expected that things will just keep getting better, and with no major wars for some time, we may be expecting to enter a golden age of peace and plenty.

True, there are stirrings of labor unrest among the lower classes, their organizational efforts are reaching unheard of heights and their demands for better working conditions are becoming harder to ignore. And in areas of the Earth less developed, the philosophy of collectivism propounded by a European named Marx are still in vogue.

Scholastically, at exactly midnight (01911) a great compendium of the knowledge of mankind was released, called the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The very completeness of it is suggesting to some that mankind may have reached peak, and that there is little more to be discovered or invented. Our task now may be simply one of enlightening the less fortunate regions of Earth, and enjoying the world wide Utopia.

Noon today (02011) – Disaster struck in the small hours of the morning when the various nations of Europe exploded into a series of wars. It started out locally, but spread quickly to involve their various possessions and territories around the globe, and the people of the middle of North America came in on the side of their British cousins. Japan and China entered into the fray, for the first time showing the world that a non-European power could be both industrialized and militarily capable.

The war sputtered out for an hour or two, but resumed again with greater intensity, involving Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. While the opening engagement earlier had killed millions due to our inexperience with just how much more horrific machines could make a war, this time it was estimated that over 100 million died, due to some nations attempting the wholesale extermination of various peoples in mechanized death factories and planned famines.

By a little before 6am (01945) the conflict ended, but only with the atomic annihilation of two cities in Japan. At that, it sputtered on for a bit, as the large conglomerate of nations in Asia of European and non-Oriental descent were an empire of collectivism, and were engaged in competition with the European descended of middle North America with a culture of comparative freedom. Conflicts would erupt several times, not ending until a few hours ago with the surrender of the collectivist states of European Asia.

In science news, our knowledge of physics yesterday was apparently wrong. The special and general theories of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics still have scientists working feverishly on what is now called the Grand Unification Theory. Confidently expected since yesterday, we have yet to achieve any solid breakthroughs.

We have however managed to improve upon Babbage’s Analytical Machine that he invented yesterday. By making it “electronic” instead of mechanical, scientists in Europe, North America and East Asia have managed remarkable feats of computational power and miniaturization. Technicians have also managed to create a linkage of Earth’s diverse computers and computer systems into what two or three hours ago was named the “World Wide Web”.

And just five hours ago, a manned rocket of the middle North Americans landed on Earth’s moon. The North Americans went back and forth to it for a few minutes, then stopped. No word on why the North Americans abandoned their space program, and as of a few minutes ago they started the policy of hiring other nations to ship things for them, such as their request of India to slam a probe into the moon for them. Meanwhile, China is interested in space exploration, and Russia – who six hours ago had launched the first satellite into space and the first man into space – is thinking about going to the moon for the first time.

And if you thought that yesterday’s inventions were hard to keep up with, we can’t even begin to list all the inventions of the past 12 hours! Besides atomics and electronics and rocketry, we had breakthroughs in pharmaceuticals and vaccines that have eradicated many diseases, and allowed us to engineer even worse ones for warfare.

The other nations have caught up with the European and North American nations. The British lost their empire, critics say they just gave it up. China, went collectivist while the world was at war, and since around 6am have stubbornly clung to it, however there are signs that this was just for show and to keep other powers from, as they put it, “meddling”.

The majority of the world’s industrial production has shifted from the island of the British and middle section of North America to the lower part of North America, South America and East Asia.

On a sad note, the optimism of just before midnight is no more. Some say it was the wars, others the global pandemic that took place at the same time, others the increasingly mechanized culture led by statist and corporatist influences. Oddly, it was the sinking of one ship that is generally credited with the downturn in mankind’s optimism with machine culture and the future utopia. Shortly after midnight, just a minute before the wars, the HMS Titanic sank. It was supposed to be the peak of mankind’s technological and industrial prowess, and it seemed that it took the spirit out of a great many European and North American thinkers when it struck an iceberg and sank.

This just in! A little over an hour ago there was a resurgence of the Islamic Middle Eastern powers. You may remember this group from four or five days ago and the grief they used to give the Christian European powers then. Apparently some minor off shoot of the more radical ones has took on the middle section of North America – and lost! It started a bit before 11am with a sneak attack on civilian and political targets. Those of the middle of North America with the minor assistance of various allies in Europe and Asia took over two Middle East nations in response, killing the leader of one. Then they spent one hour hunting down the man who was responsible for the attack, and killed him.

It’s been another exciting 12 hours, folks! And who can say what will happen tomorrow? Keep tuned to this channel, though, because tonight at six (02061) we’ll have an update for you on the burning question, “Motion Pictures: Temporary Fad, or here to stay?”

*Ahem*

See what I mean? Long news needs a long perspective. In depth articles about steam engines and Babbage’s Analytical Machine. Columns on burning issues like “Discovering Agriculture: Boon or Boondoggle?” or “Should we have left nomadism?” or even more modern stuff like “The disappearance of the City State” or “Feudalism: Was it so bad?” Stuff we’ve had time to ponder. Trying to determine the importance of something that just came out a year ago…kind of hard.

It’s like those announcers on TV who say stuff like, “This is going to be the fight of the century!” Or, “This is going to be the trial of the century!” And they say this kind of thing pretty much each year from 02001 to now. At the Encyclopedia Foundation we say, “Too soon to tell.”