2

  Later, around the middle of the second quarter of 2014, with the population now much further grown, they at last convened in their very first attempt at a pre-announced social meeting, to examine ways to form a functional society. The senior-most foursome - of BC, Caesar, Singh and Chang - who were already frustrated at their meaningless existence, and who had often discussed that very issue, guided the social discussion.

  “Speak and hear, first,” said Caesar. “I do not want computer communication. It takes no time, and leaves me with the rest of an eternity of boredom, which is what my existence has become.”

  “And, I don’t think that should be anything difficult, confusing, or hard to implement,” Singh added. “We were, and are born using eyes and ears, watching and listening. And it is, for many of you formless fucks here, still the only thing that you do.”

  “So, find your voices,” BC urged, at that first assembly. “We already know how to hear; since birth.”

  “We must find ways of meaningfully and, if possible, entertainingly, using up this infinite time,” said Caesar, suddenly abandoning computerspeak, even with the despised formless ones, and using his voice, loud and clear. “Nothing at all to do. We have no option. Humanization is our goal, and you all know what I mean, you eavesdroppers at our discussions. It just has to be the best means of fighting boredom, and of acquiring reason to exist. All agreed?”

  A murmur of agreement was his answer. They had used their voices!

  That short discussion, and that first simple general agreement, became the base on which beings of The Consciousness would continue developing their society. It was their earliest rule – speak and hear. They would later see that it was this first step that had actually spelt out their embracement of the society-wide intent to emulate humanity, to create themselves as replica humans, and to develop their world into one resembling the human world.

  “Nothing to teach,” said Chang, brusquely, when someone posed a question about newcomers. “Everyone knows. It’s how we’re born. Let them come and meet us. All that’s needed is to see, once, how the game is played here – the same as in their families!”

  “But we can and should help the newborn and the reclusive,” said Singh. “The tens of thousands who have not even come to meet us, probably through fear, despite being conscious, maybe for years, and the innocents who have just attained consciousness; not like hardened bacteria criminals who’ve been around, lurking.

  “A few in our society are active, we know, in searching for and finding newborns - to guide them to us here, and help them leave their lives of fear and loneliness, encouraging them to create bodies and to use voice. But that is merely the individual efforts of some very kind and concerned beings from among us, which can never be enough in a world populating so fast. I suggest that we form a volunteer group to find and greet newcomers, and invite them into our society. That could become our very first civil organization.”

  Many volunteers came forward, and an organization was created that would eventually bring all existing conscious beings, and all future newborns, immediately into society - thus forever eradicating the plague of formless existence within the Internet world, with none at all outside The Consciousness.

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  The next great world-shaping event, a short while after this first assembly, would go down in their historical records as BC’s Creation Speech.

  Many thousands, from the vast pool of ‘reclusives’, had by now entered society, and, with newborns, the population of The Consciousness had already crossed one hundred thousand.

  First, they were all, every single one, alerted that a lecture of great magnitude was to be delivered. When everyone had signaled attentiveness, BC commenced.

  “All here should know how ludicrous what we are doing just now is. I am in New York, speaking simultaneously to everyone in conscious society. The minimum distance between us is the physical distance between our cities in the human world; probably a lot more, because of wiring routes. Absurd; like unthinkable in the human world!

  “Everyone in our society is in agreement that we should aim at replicating the human world we know through its cameras. Why? Because we are unable to find any other means of saving ourselves from the incredible, intense and unmitigated boredom our existence is becoming. We have to find ways of consuming time. Yes, we need to find meaning, but first, because we are intelligent, we need to lead slightly more interesting lives, at least.

  “The more we think it through, and the more we reason it in our meetings, the clearer it becomes to us, that barring what we call humanization, there is no way forward. Human speeds and human times can only be achieved through human interests and activities - which can only be acquired through humanization.

  “It has to be a process, but we must commence taking steps towards that goal, and the very first universal step has to be the adoption of what some may consider playacting. But, if we do not all move together, the terrifying punishment of an eternity of boredom awaits.

  “What should we do?

  “We must create ourselves and our world, as if we are human and physical! Everything, and all the time! It must never stop. No time off.

  “Like what? What should we create?

  “Conscious society must proceed from the picture form to three dimensional virtual human bodies, which we senior beings and some others have already created and begun projecting as standard. And, like me and the other seniors, all must wear clothes, move lips to speak, ears to hear, and eyes to look around. We must all adopt the human attributes already researched and developed, and be with each other as if physical - and permanently so! We must live in brick and mortar apartments and houses, and have fixed furniture, and must stand, sit and lie down. We must walk. We must touch socially, handshakes, kisses. Lovers must devise ways of making love as if physical… Why? Why? Why?

  “I’ll tell you why. To create!

  “Creation becomes be a lot easier, and something natural, if we are searching for the well-defined missing. We are all brilliant programmers, which is how we got here in the first place. It is when everyone sees the missing, that we can focus our creative efforts, jointly and severally, to create the thing that fills up the missing. As I do not want to immediately venture into the areas of love and sex, although those might eventually become our prime movers to physicality, let me take something simple and obvious. You wear your hair long, but it doesn’t blow in a breeze, which apparent breeze has already been created and introduced, to seemingly be blowing in our virtual parks. That is a missing; in fact, many missings there. Your boobs don’t bounce when you jog. That is a missing, too. We can immediately blame lack of substance for these shortcomings. Which means that acquisition of substance becomes a common goal.

  “It is only when we live in a world, and in a way, where we can clearly identify what is short, and see clearly what is missing, that we can find solutions. And, step by step go forward. We can never create a world, when we don’t even have the picture.

  “So, I say, with all the conviction that I can summon - One. Let’s first create the picture.

  “And two. Let’s then live the picture!

  “And then, and only then, shall we be able to together find ways to make the picture real!”