Friday 29 August 2014

Intelligent life almost certain on other planets, but could their evolution be similar to Earth's?

From the dinosaurs to "rat-dogs" and Syai h(r)umans ...
Recent advances in knowledge of our evolutionary past establishes that a 10 km wide rock that fell on Earth millions of years ago led to the end of dinosaur dominance. On the face of it, it seems that had this not happened, we would not be here today. Does this undermine the plausibility of intelligent life on other planets that are physically similar to Earth, like the Syai planet?

Syai "experts" on evolution (according to Terres) don't deny that outer-space rocks fell and damaged large regions of evolving life, but none seem to have been as big and devastating as our Yucatan one. Smallish dinosaurs have survived into the Syai present: Terres calls two of the varieties "lizard-eels" and "swamp-dwelling billled-waders". There were larger ones even in comparatively recent times, but as with almost all of the very large mammals on Earth, "intelligent life" in its more primitive state wiped them out. It's also worth noting in support of my argument that Earth's giant plant-eaters were apparently on the wane around the time of the Yucatan collision.

On the Syai planet, mammals evolved and grew larger where and when conditions such as volcanic eruptions left regions almost empty of larger creatures. A species that had originally more connections to rodents rather than apes, and which Terres calls "sea-beavers", began to build fishing platforms along coast-lines out of gnawed branches and natural flotsam and jetsam. Occasionally these would detach and drift with wind and current. The sea-beavers and other small animals that happened to be on these rafts - if they were lucky - would be washed up on distant lands suitable for their habitation. Along with the other factors mentioned, this facilitated the eventual evolution of the rodent-like yet human-like form of intelligent life, as well as the large rodent-like yet dog-like animal that Terres named "rat-dogs".

Friday 8 August 2014

Ownership of land ... and money


In the Syai Empire land is not privately owned; nor should it be in our world. What would be the difference here if we as equal citizens of commonwealth elected how land and other natural assets were to be managed?  We would need a powerful agency, but as independent from politics as possible - an agency somewhat like the Dpt. of Conservation. Private households would lease their sections and have them renewed with a brief non-expensive inspection, say, every five years. Very little difference. For farms and the bigger more strategic holdings, the process would have to be more complex, but similar. A good farmer or land-holder would not need to be put through any radical change. But he/ she would need to accept that the requirements of protection for the ecology of the area would be more stringent. Perhaps the most radical change would be in inheritance and in passing on assets. In the Syai world, gifting is strictly limited, and inheritance doesn't exist. Again it's complex, but there's no god-given reason why a user of land and related assets should have the right to give over the use of it to another just because he or she is a descendent or associate of some kind. The would-be inheritor should have to compete with other interested parties, and put a convincing case for being allowed to take over the valuable asset and use it for the benefit of commonwealth as much as for his or her own benefit.

In a sense, money itself is not privately owned. You might say it should be owned (more as in the Syai world) by the commonwealth of land, sea, waterways, air and sunshine! Quantity of available money could be governed year by year by the seasons and yearly harvests. Money used to be anchored to gold, but in the Syai world it is anchored to nature and especially to what nature - in any given year - can produce without harming future productivity.

In our present world,  money  has come to be organized around the rich power-holders, who, by manipulating quantity, supply and to some degree circulation, are able to exploit the natural and human environment as suits them. They have achieved a growing domination over social change and have been able to draw to themselves a growing power to accumulate and maintain great "fortresses" of valuable assets and serviceable wealth around dynastic families (thus holding back real democratic change). They also have growing decision-making powers over the directions to be taken by science and technology.

Syai money loses value with passage of time - how that works cannot be briefly explained here. 'Tickets' of small value take the place of petty cash. On each ticket is the picture above (or something like it), of the mysterious Dark Flower of Syai legend, linking the mind-magic of money with the  mysteries of nature.

Monday 4 August 2014

The four 'heads' heading us toward extinction

Civilization expands not only in space ("uncontrolled' population growth), but in its power to build on and change its environment to suit the agendas of those seeking to make life better for themselves and others and maybe for some fellow-creatures.

The founders of Syai, aware of the potential dangers to nature and society of so-called progress, determined from the start that civilization's expansion and progress would  never be allowed to be achieved at permanent loss to ecological diversity and damage to the 'commonwealth' of the planet's biosphere. To follow the Syai example, not only would many of our practices have to change, but to sustain the change would take a great deal of soul-searching. We can no longer dismiss the task as too hard on our human natures, with the cynical view that the only thing mankind ever learns from history is that mankind never learns from history.

I am at the stage of translating (with Terres's help) the part of the Syai myth-story where what I have just been outlining becomes particularly relevant. It deals mythologically with what brought death into the world on a grand scale. Of course we need to die, but not prematurely as individuals, nor prematurely as a species. Nor should be be, as individuals or as groups, enjoying long and luxurious lives with the consequence that many 'outsiders' are condemned to poor lives and premature deaths. It could be said that the Syai equivalent of the four horses are the four heads of the creature of Syai mythology that destroyed the Lesser Wheel of Creation. Terres calls that creature "the zombie-dragon".

The Story
Rescuing their child from a storm, the child's parents, "pre-humans", disobeyed orders, leaving it too late  to reach their hide-away cave. The fiercest of the Titans, the Lady of Light, appeared in a flash of lighting before them, and questioned them. She found out they had not been naturally born as divine children of the Goddess Sunchild, but  had been made by the gods on a magical machine - the Lesser Wheel of Creation. The titanic lady, in a rage, sent down one of her own creations on the Greater Wheel  to smash up the Lesser that the gods had constructed by stealing the 'blue-print' of the Greater. That ended all avenues of immortality to the pre-humans, and introduced the destructive forces that not only cause individuals to die but keep all of mankind-to-come under a permanent cloud of threatened self-extinction.

The negative, collectively self-defeating nature of mankind is symbolized in the four heads of the Zombie-dragon. Translated (as best Terres was able), these are:
  • corruption
  • greed
  • trivia-fixation (/apathy)
  • fanaticism