The Realm of Da Kine

It was not actually a land or geographical location but more of a global state of mind. The physical world had not changed a lot, and the surroundings appeared much the same as decades before, but lifestyles and attitudes had evolved a great deal. They began calling this paradigm Da Kine for a very simple reason, there was no other word to describe it.

Da Kine is a term that is much more than a substitution for some other word you can’t think of, like ‘whatchamacallit’. It arises from the need to express the complex essence of something in more commonly understood grammar. This was an epoch advancement, and we all have an idea what it means.

Ecological destruction was nearly extinguished and rapacious consumerism had ceased. The air was clean, and the glaring signs and intrusive advertisements were all gone. Vehicles for air and ground transportation were emission free hydrogen-electric hybrids and far fewer in number than before, because most citizens stayed close to work and family in farming and housing communities that were both plentiful and vibrant.

The aspirations and desires of the people were largely redirected toward self-actualization in lieu of material gain. Numerous opportunities and options were available for individuals to practice specialized skills or select their own educational interests. Basic goods and services were evenly distributed, and there was plenty to go around since the polarities of both rich and poor were eliminated. Fear of the failed anti-capitalist economic experiments from a previous era had faded. Wealth was now measured by internal satisfaction and personal happiness. Da Kine was not a bad place to be.

Time

It was late in the 21st century by the time civil adaptation had evolved to the current state of affairs. Everyone could tell from their date chronometers that the century dial had rotated almost entirely around. The anno hand still moved too slowly to see, but it was impossible to deny how quickly the lunar and diems indicators ticked by. Almost everyone used mechanical date pieces by then because the measurement of time in seconds and minutes no longer served any utility, except in scientific calibration. Electronic clocks were outmoded and unreliable anyway, due to frequent incidents of electromagnetic interference, and wireless telecommunication was on the verge of 10G.

It’s not that the earth revolved any quicker, just that everything on earth evolved so rapidly that change from one day to the next just became a blur. A decade of progress seemed to occur in a single year, and a full year of activities seemed to happen every month. The sense of time was significantly altered as everyone adopted a new understanding that intervals of duration were determined more by the dynamic flux of cognitive perception than the perpetual motion of the solar system.

Attendi

A substantial majority of the population consisted of Attendi, and their primary objective was to always remain in the present, something much easier said than done. Ironically, to fully attend required accessing their mental default mode at will so as to ignore extraneous thoughts and distractions that would otherwise divert them from their central focus. Skilled Attendi could slow time to a virtual stand-still or allow vast periods to pass in the blink of an eye, so time was no longer uniformly conceived. They could direct a heightened state of awareness toward anything of interest, or even nothing at all. This produced the subjective wellbeing that society so craved.

Since everyone had total freedom to engage in whatever they favored, this promoted an immense diversity of activities and projects. Teams of like-minded individuals banded together to achieve outcomes that were impossible to do alone. The reduction of wasted effort and enhancement of other efficiencies resulting from maximum attentiveness generated a surplus of beneficial products and services to be shared with the entire population, all in the cause of personal fulfillment.

And the attitude of Da Kine was not confined to the borders of any nation. It permeated around the world, as was necessary for it to function. People did not lose their cultural or ethnic identities, in fact individual heritages became richer and more diverse as families were more closely connected. People did not give up their faith or traditional religious practices, as Da Kine was not a replacement for preexisting beliefs. It was an acknowledged symbiosis by which all prior ideologies coalesced, under a giant sheltering umbrella.

Sentience

The new sentience of Da Kine that promoted a cultural transformation arose from another symbiotic relationship. The technology of ‘Quantum Uniform Intelligence Dissemination’ (QUID) produced almost instantaneous access to information about everything, everywhere, all at once. But the information alone was insufficient for knowledge.

In addition, QUID could perform quantum concurrent coprocessing that enabled it to learn how to generate original algorithms in order to sort through the massive volume of data and decipher multifaceted understandings that originated from around the world. But the knowledge alone was insufficient for wisdom.

The missing link that empowered a form of recursive super-sentience was the development of a wireless ‘Brain-Computer Interface’ (BCI) to connect humans with the knowledge of QUID and supplement the limits of biological cognition. Furthermore, BCI technology enabled the Illuminati to mentally merge and correlate their thoughts as though they were a single omniscient entity.

Caste

The Illuminati, it should be explained, were a specialized caste of citizens, extensively trained to cope with the level of enlightenment that could be achieved by this mind-machine feedback loop. Most importantly, they were taught the critical thinking skill necessary to ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’, so to speak. Since the ‘knowledge’ derived from QUID was an amalgam of all global perspectives, an effective filtering process was vital. Only the Illuminati were equipped to blend the multiple facets of reality now perceived.

All citizens had the opportunity to become Illuminati, if they wished, but most did not want such a responsibility and chose to remain Attendi. Since QUID, in conjunction with the BCI, now produced instantaneous access to all accumulated knowledge and a simultaneous exchange of global cultural perspectives, the primary goal of the Illuminati was to arbitrate a balance of reality in which all people could harmoniously coexist. It was a challenging objective, and stressful, to say the least. Some, perhaps, simply could not deal with the truth.

The washouts, those who decided it was not for them, often became Rhapsodi, also called Rappers colloquially. They no longer possessed the naivete of Attendi nor retained the omniscience of Illuminati but were well positioned as messengers in between. Their critical role in society was to interpret and translate the wisdom of the Illuminati into a perception of reality for the masses.

Many of the Rhapsodi became creatives who strove to communicate the ineffable comprehension they had temporarily experienced with QUID through various expressions of the arts. In their best work, they were able to instill a common vision, inspired by the Illuminati, that was intuitively perceived by all people, and felt as though it was just common sense. They did this by visual arts, by music, by dance, by drama, and not least of all, by narrative. Rappers created the stories that produced a mythology that everyone could believe in.

Epilogue

This general outline of society in the Realm of Da Kine obviously requires additional chapters to resolve a myriad of unanswered questions. How did they handle the misfits, the crooks, the cheats, the sociopaths and the autocratic power mongers? How were the philanthropic convinced to sacrifice their riches to benefit the realm? How was the enhanced knowledge conveyed to such a diverse population for training and education in so many fields of interest? How did they overcome the basic economic and logistical obstacles along the path to such a changed society? Be assured that all will become clear in due time.

There is an overriding truth to come away with. The Realm of Da Kine is only one of the many potentialities that might have come about. Better or worse scenarios may have existed. Incremental observations made along the way precipitate a complexity of butterfly effects. Quantum entanglement within the processing of QUID does not eliminate the uncertainty principle. The effectiveness of any mythology is contingent upon the receptivity of the people. They are naturally predisposed to believe a good story so long as it can hold their attention. Therefore, reality is malleable and not predetermined; it is dynamic and always being written and revised, as only we can imagine.

The history leading up to the Realm of Da Kine will be found in The 6th Extinction.