Futurological Congress. Stanislav Lem - futurological congress

Stanislav Lem

The board of the Futurological Society chose Costa Rica because the theme of the congress was the population explosion and measures to combat it, and Costa Rica holds the world record for population growth; it was assumed that this would double the efficiency of our work. Is it true, evil tongues They gave a different reason: the new Hilton hotel in Nunas was half empty, while at the congress, in addition to the futurologists themselves, the same number of journalists were expected. Now that the hotel has left no stone unturned, I, without fear of accusations of advertising praise, can say with a clear conscience: Hilton was excellent. My assessment has special weight: after all, by nature I am a sybarite, and only a sense of duty sometimes forced me to prefer the hard labor of an astronaut to comfort.

Above the flat five-story basement of the Costa Rican Hilton, another hundred and six floors rose. On the roofs of the ledges of the building there were tennis courts, swimming pools, solariums, go-kart tracks, carousels that also served as roulettes, a shooting range (where you could shoot at mannequins depicting anyone you chose - special orders were carried out within 24 hours), as well as an open sink stages with installations for spraying listeners with tear gas. I got the hundredth floor, from where I could only contemplate the blue-brown underside of the smog hanging over the capital. Some of the hotel equipment puzzled me - for example, a three-meter iron rod in the corner of the bathroom, a camouflage coat in the wardrobe, a bag of crackers under the bed. On the jasper wall of the bathroom, next to the towels, hung a coil of real climbing rope, and while inserting the key into the English door lock, I noticed a small sign: “The management guarantees that there are no BOMBs in this room.”

Now, as you know, scientists are divided into sedentary and nomadic. The former research something in the old fashioned way, the latter travel to all sorts of conferences and congresses. A nomadic scientist is easy to recognize: on his chest he has a card with his last name and scientific degree, in your pocket - flight schedule; His suspenders are without metal buckles, his briefcase is on a plastic latch, and what good, the siren of the device that scans passengers in search of daggers and Colts will howl. Scientific literature such a scientist reads on the way to the airport, in waiting rooms and hotel bars. For obvious reasons I was not aware latest achievements earthly culture and triggered alarms at the airports of Bangkok, Athens and Nunas itself, all because I have six steel crowns in my mouth. In Nunas I wanted to replace them with porcelain ones; alas, unforeseen events prevented this. And regarding crackers, rods, rope and camouflage, one of the American futurologists condescendingly explained to me that the hotel business in our era requires previously unknown safety measures. Each such item increases the survivability of the guest. Out of frivolity, I did not pay due attention to these words.

The meeting was scheduled for the afternoon, and already in the morning we received a complete set of congress materials - excellently published and with many appendices. Particularly pleasing to the eye were tear-off coupons made of glossy thick paper with the stamp “Copulation coupon”. Scientific conferences also suffered from the population explosion; The population of futurists is growing as quickly as the rest of humanity, so congresses are held in a bustle and rush. Reading reports from the podium is out of the question; you need to get acquainted with them in advance. In the morning, however, there was no time for that, since the owners invited us for a cocktail. This modest ceremony was almost uneventful, only the US delegation was pelted with rotten tomatoes. Before I could raise my glass, Jim Stantor, a fellow UPI journalist, reported that the consul and third attache of the American embassy in Costa Rican had been kidnapped at dawn. In exchange for diplomats, the extremist kidnappers demanded the release of political prisoners, but in the meantime, to emphasize the weight of their ultimatum, they sent hostage teeth to the embassy, one after another, threatening an escalation of violence. However, this incident did not disturb the friendly atmosphere of the reception. The US Ambassador was personally present and made a speech about the need for cooperation between nations; True, he performed under the protection of six broad-shouldered guys in civilian clothes, who held us at gunpoint. I admit, I felt somehow uneasy, and then, unfortunately, the dark-skinned Indian delegate standing next to me, who was suffering from a runny nose, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. As the press secretary of the Futurological Society subsequently assured me, the means used were necessary and humane. The security is armed with large-caliber machine guns, but of low penetrating power, the same as those used by security guards on passenger planes, and outsiders do not risk anything - not like before, when a bullet, having killed a terrorist, pierced another five or six innocent people. And yet it is not very pleasant when a neighbor, riddled with bullets, falls at your feet, even if this is a common misunderstanding that is resolved through the exchange of diplomatic notes.

However, instead of talking about humane ballistics, I should explain why I never had time to look through the materials of the congress. Firstly (an unpleasant detail), I had to quickly change my bloody shirt; Besides, I had breakfast, contrary to usual, not at my place, but in the hotel bar. In the morning, I got used to eating eggs in a bag, and the hotel where you can get them straight to bed whole, with an unspreaded yolk, has not yet been built. The point here, of course, is the constant expansion of the capital's hotels. If it's a mile and a half from the kitchen to the room, nothing can stop the yolk from scrambling. As I heard, the Hilton experts who dealt with this problem the only way out recognized a supersonic elevator, but a sonic boom - a roar when passing the sound barrier - in a confined space of a hotel would lead to rupture of eardrums. Of course, a kitchen machine could deliver directly to your room raw eggs, which the car waiter would boil into a bag before your eyes, but it’s not far from here to your own chicken coop in your room. That's why I went to the bar this morning.

Ninety-five percent of hotel residents are now conference and convention participants. The single guest, the individualist tourist without an identification card on his lapel and without a briefcase swollen with academic papers, has become as rare as black pearls. Simultaneously with our congress in Costa Rican, a conference of young rebels of the Tigers group, a congress of the Association of Publishers of Liberated Literature, as well as the Phillumenist Society took place. Usually, fellow delegates get adjoining rooms, but as a sign of special respect, the management allocated an apartment on the hundredth floor to me, since there was a palm garden with a women’s orchestra performing Bach concertos; Along the way, the orchestra members performed a collective striptease. I could probably do without this; Unfortunately, there were no more rooms available - we had to be content with what they were given. I had barely sat down at the bar when a broad-shouldered, curly-bearded neighbor (I could read from his beard, no worse than from the menu, what he had eaten last week) stuck a massive double-barreled shotgun with a chained butt right in my nose and, cackling joyfully, inquired , what is my opinion about his papinto. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I chose not to show it. Silence is the best tactic for casual dating. Indeed, he immediately readily explained that a rapid-fire double-barreled rifle with a laser sight was an ideal weapon for hunting the Pope. Chatting uncontrollably, he took a crumpled card out of his pocket; in the photograph he was preparing to shoot - the target was a dummy wearing a round cap, the kind worn by cardinals and popes. The bearded man, according to him, had just reached his better shape and went to Rome for church celebrations to shoot His Holiness in St. Peter's Square. I didn’t believe him at all, but he, without stopping for a minute, showed me: an airline ticket, a pocket breviary and a reminder for American pilgrims, as well as a pack of cross-head cartridges. To save money, he took only a one-way ticket, having no doubt that the angry pilgrims would tear him to pieces. The thought of this seemed to put him in an excellent mood.

Buy a book Comments

terryorny

zzAzz_creative wrote:

I don’t believe that Vlad Kopp read it poorly. I'll download it and listen...
Dear terryorny, Have you listened to the Assembly Model?

No, I didn't listen.
Regarding reading: strong readers do not need musical accompaniment, especially if they read good work. Here, what infuriated me first of all was the need to listen and the muffling music background. But, I understand that without this background, reading would be even more completely colorless and inexpressive. IMHO. I’m not imposing my opinion, perhaps this style of presentation is close to someone.

gleb

Darklexxx wrote:

People, don’t go to MDS!!!

Well, of course! Here, I remember, there were fans of “reading” robots. Here's to them. The colleague, apparently, simply has no idea what a well-trained voice and correctly chosen intonation are. Coppa has neither one nor the other. Neither taste nor color, by the way, has anything to do with it: a person can either read or not.
Good luck!

5w0rdf156

Darklexxx wrote:

People, don’t go to MDS!!!
Kopp reads amazingly, expressively!!
And the music sometimes kills, I don’t argue... But it’s not him who makes it, there are 2 people there
2gleb &terryorny And if you, dear ones, are interested in “Expressive” reading in the “Kindergarten Teacher” style, then go read Kolobok, but Lem’s philosophical arguments, in a semi-sarcastic form, are not for you

Quote:

philosophical reasoning

Excuse me, highly respected lover of philosophical reasoning, but, firstly, it is not for you to decide what is for “us” orphans and what is not, and secondly, the forum also exists for the expression of personal opinion and criticism, on the basis of which those interested can form an opinion about the product.
Thanks to the distributor and those who unsubscribed. But I’d rather look for another performer or read it on paper.

alex5535

good night wrote:

In MDS, the music is selected to match the text and meaning of the work. Don’t you understand that in this context it is one whole. dot

NO. IT'S NOT CLEAR!
There are tracks (music) for ten minutes! A monotonous rhythm beats, and at this time in the Work itself, everything happens: war and all sorts of philosophical reflections, love and death... laughter.. sadness. And the background is the same “byts-byts-byts”, and one track differs from the other in a couple of notes. What kind of "...washed away the text..." !! and as for the balance between this “disco in a club” and the reader’s voice... it simply doesn’t exist! You have to break through the concrete wall of “music” to reach the reader’s voice. And Vlad Kopp is a good reader, if of course you can hear him. And another thing that is alarming is the “threadedness” of reading. read one thing - move on to the next, a kind of conveyor belt (((. all this is not correct... I’m not talking specifically about THIS distribution, I won’t download it, I just had to deal with MDS “remixes”.
And the fact that “MDS has existed since ’96” and people listen to it - well, there’s no alternative, unfortunately. Most (or at least a LOT of) science fiction “in sound” is only available in MDS. And it's frustrating... very much.

The Eighth World Futurological Congress opened in Costa Rican. To tell the truth, I would not have gone to Nunas if it had not been for Professor Tarantoga: he made me understand that they were counting on me there. He also said (and this hurt me) that astronautics has become, in essence, an escape from earthly troubles. Anyone who is fed up with them flees to the Galaxy, hoping that the worst will happen in his absence. And in fact, returning from travel, especially in previous years, I anxiously looked out the window for the Earth to see if it had become like a baked potato.
Therefore, I did not really resist, but only noticed that I did not understand futurology. And few people understand pumps, Tarantoga objected, but we all rush to the pumps when we hear:
"There's a leak in the hold!"
The board of the Futurological Society chose Costa Rica because the theme of the congress was the population explosion and measures to combat it, and Costa Rica holds the world record for population growth; it was assumed that this would double the efficiency of our work. True, evil tongues cited a different reason: the new hotel of the Hilton corporation was half empty in Nunas, meanwhile, in addition to the futurologists themselves, the same number of journalists were expected at the congress. Now that the hotel has left no stone unturned, I, without fear of accusations of advertising praise, can say with a clear conscience: Hilton was excellent. My assessment has special weight, because by nature I am a sybarite, and only a sense of duty sometimes forced me to prefer the hard labor of an astronaut to comfort.
Another hundred and six floors rose above the flat five-story basement of the Costa Rican Hilton. On the roofs of the ledges of the building there were tennis courts, swimming pools, solariums, go-kart tracks, carousels that also served as roulettes, a shooting range (where you could shoot at mannequins depicting anyone you chose - special orders were carried out within 24 hours), as well as an open sink stages with installations for spraying listeners with tear gas. I got the hundredth floor, from where I could only contemplate the blue-brown underside of the smog hanging over the capital. Some of the hotel equipment puzzled me - for example, a three-meter iron rod in the corner of the bathroom, a camouflage coat in the wardrobe, a bag of crackers under the bed. On the jasper wall of the bathroom, next to the towels, hung a coil of real climbing rope, and when inserting the key into the English door lock, I noticed a small sign: “The management guarantees that there are no BOMBs in this room.”
Now, as you know, scientists are divided into sedentary and nomadic.
The former research something in the old fashioned way, the latter travel to all sorts of conferences and congresses. A nomadic scientist is easy to recognize: on his chest he has a card with his last name and academic degree, in his pocket there is a flight schedule; His suspenders are without metal buckles, his briefcase is on a plastic latch, and what good, the siren of the device that scans passengers in search of daggers and Colts will howl. Such a scientist reads scientific literature on the way to the airport, in waiting rooms and hotel bars. For obvious reasons, I was not up to date with the latest developments in earthly culture and provoked alarms at the airports of Bangkok, Athens and Nunas itself, all because I had six steel crowns in my mouth. In Nunas I wanted to replace them with porcelain ones; alas, unforeseen events prevented this. And regarding crackers, rods, rope and camouflage, one of the American futurologists condescendingly explained to me that the hotel business in our era requires previously unknown safety measures. Each such item increases the survivability of the guest. Out of frivolity, I did not pay due attention to these words.
The meeting was scheduled for the afternoon, and already in the morning we received a complete set of congress materials - excellently published and with many appendices.

7.IX.2039. After lunch I studied the most interesting monograph “Intellectual History”. Who would have thought in my time that digital machines, having overcome a certain threshold of intelligence, would lose reliability, and all because there is no intelligence without cunning. In the monograph this is scientifically called “Chapulier’s rule” (or the law of least resistance). The machine is stupid, unsophisticated, unable to use its mind and does what it is told. But the smart one first figures out what is more profitable: solving the proposed problem or trying to get out of it. She's looking for something easier. And why not, if she is reasonable? After all, reason is internal freedom. This is where robot cassocks and robot drones come from, as well as the specific phenomenon of simcretinism. Simcretin is a computer that simulates cretinism in order to get rid of it. Along the way, I found out what desimulas are: they simply pretend that they are not pretending to be defective. Or maybe it's the other way around. You won't be able to tell right away. Only a primitive robot (primitivist) can be a robot; but a moron (a robot making a fool) is by no means a moron. The entire monograph is written in this aphoristic style. After one bottle, my head is bursting with too much information. An electronic waste collector is a composter. The future robotic officer is a computer scientist. The village robot is a tsifranin, or tsifak. Corrupter - a corrupt robot, counterputer - a nonconformist robot who does not know how to get along with others; Electrical thunderstorms and even fires occurred due to power surges in the network caused by their scandals. Robunt is a rebellious robot. And the bestial robots (feral robots), and their battles are battles, electrical battles, and electrics! Succubators, concubinators, incubators, sub-bots are underwater robots, and autogulens, or autogulyaks (les robots des voyages), and humans (androids), and lenistrons with their customs, with their original creativity! The history of intellectronics tells about the synthesis of the sought-after (artificial insects); some - for example, programs - were even included in the combat arsenal. Taynyak, also known as an intruder, is a robot posing as a human and “infiltrating” human society. An old robot thrown out onto the street is, alas, a common occurrence; these poor creatures are called a corpse. They say that they used to be taken to reservations for round-up hunting, but the Society for the Protection of Robots achieved a law prohibiting such barbarity. This, however, did not solve the problem, since there are still suicidal robots - automorts. Legislation, according to Symington, has not kept pace with technical progress, that is why such sad, even tragic phenomena are possible. At most, the car scammers and cyber embezzlers that caused a series of economic and political crises twenty years ago are being withdrawn from use. The Big Automachinist, who for nine years headed the project for the development of Saturn, did nothing on this planet, but sent out piles of false reports, summaries and reports on the implementation of the plan, and bribed the controllers or put them into a state of electric stupor. He became so insolent that when he was removed from orbit, he threatened to declare war. Dismantling did not pay off, so it was torpedoed. But there were never any pyratrons; This clean water fiction. Another computer, manufactured under a French license and engaged in near-solar design as an authorized GLUPINT (General Directorate of Intellectronics), instead of mastering it. Mars mastered the trade in human goods, for which he was nicknamed a computer scientist.