“We are only going 24.3 miles,” Linda said, “So this will only take 4.25 minutes.”
Since the car had no windows, it was impossible to tell what was happening. But I could feel the car accelerate briskly. Three or four minutes later I could feel it decelerate. The door popped open and we stepped out, through an archway and into the lobby of an enormous building.
From the lobby to the roof there was an open atrium at least 70 stories tall. The roof overhead was glass. Around the sides of the atrium were balconies with plants streaming down, and then off the balconies were thousands of rooms. It gave you an incredible feeling of light and volume, and with the plants it was beautiful.
“This is where you’ll both be staying during the orientation,” Linda said to Burt and me. We walked a short distance and stepped into one of the glass elevators that ran up one of the corners of the atrium. There were no buttons inside the elevator, but it stopped on a floor and we got out. We walked a short distance to a door that had Burt’s name on it. The door opened and Burt and Cynthia walked in. Linda and I walked to the next room, which had my name on it, and entered.
It was an amazing suite. As the door opened, I looked across a remarkably nice living room and out through a floor-to-ceiling window that showed a panoramic view of the landscape. To my left was a small kitchen, to my right a short hallway which opened into a bedroom. I walked toward the window to absorb the view. About a mile away was a line of glass buildings, apparently identical to the one I was standing in. On the ground between me and that line of buildings were forests, gardens, parks, lakes, trails, streams. I could see people riding bicycles, kayaking in a river, walking. Off to one side I could see what appeared to be an amusement park and a stadium.
I looked around the apartment. It was hard to believe, but yesterday I was living in Terrafoam with no way out. Now I was living in what appeared to be a 600 square foot suite at a 5-star luxury hotel. Everything in the room was perfect. There was a basket of fruit and munchies sitting on the coffee table, and fresh flowers on the credenza. I opened the card in the flowers, “Here’s to your life! Love, Linda”
Linda said, “The orientation is going to start in about an hour. Why don’t you take a shower and change your clothes. I’ll relax here.” She sank into one of the chairs in the living room and closed her eyes.
When I was through with my shower, I found my closet filled with clothes that all appeared to fit perfectly. I picked an outfit and put it on. Walking into the living room I smelled food, which was a good thing because I was starving.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Fabulous!” she said. “Very trendy. I got something for us” It was a extraordinary meal, although I had no idea where it came from.
“Today is going to be an interesting day for you,” she said. “It will also feel a little odd. You’ve got the time zone change. You are in a completely different country. There are many new things for you to absorb. I just want you to relax and let the day flow. If you get tired, let me know. But I doubt you will get tired today. You had a good sleep on the plane. Let’s get going.”
We took the elevator down, past the lobby and then below it. We got off and entered a large auditorium with hundreds of other people streaming in as well. Linda led us to a pair of seats and Burt and Cynthia were already there. The presentation started about three minutes after we arrived.
The first presentation was remarkable, and it kicked off a series of events over two days. These events combined 3D, sound, live speakers, musical performances, tours, and testimonials to create an extremely powerful production. It was one of the most inspirational things I had ever seen or heard. I learned a number of details. For example, I learned where we were located on the continent of Australia. I learned that we would be living here for six weeks during the orientation process. I learned that currently about 400,000 new residents were arriving in Australia every day. I learned about the daily schedule over the six week period. In orientation we would be learning about the credit system, housing, the robot culture, picking products - everything from food to clothing to vacation packages - interacting with other residents, volunteer opportunities, physical fitness, careers, the legal system, voting, etc. It would be a very busy six weeks.
The first two days acted as a general overview of the Australia project as a whole, but spent a good bit of time covering three things — the history of the Australia project, the economy of the project and the core principle of “living your life.”
Distilling two days of presentations down into a few sentences, here’s what I learned. As best I could tell, the basic idea behind the Australia project was to create heaven on earth, or at least the closest facsimile of heaven possible. Heaven was different for different people, so your task was to define heaven for yourself and make it happen. As long as your view of heaven did not unduly impinge on anyone else’s view, or require that you consume massive amounts of resources at the expense of someone else, you could bring your version of heaven to reality for yourself. It was stated in the presentation much more eloquently than that, but that was the gist of it.
There was a very good explanation of why we needed the orientation process. We would be entering a society very different from any society we had ever experienced before. This society offered a huge array of options, and those options grew constantly. The society was well-balanced, with a huge pool of people interacting in very human and humane ways, and there was no desire to throw off that balance by letting a bunch of new people in who did not know how to participate. To live our lives, we would be doing it in the context of this society, and everyone wanted us making a smooth entry. There were apparently no penalties for mistakes. If the entry was not smooth, we would be re-oriented.
One part of the presentation featured a speaker who absolutely blew me away. He was the best motivational speaker I had ever heard. He asked us to think about a set of basic, personal questions. Like: What am I passionate about? What do I most enjoy doing? What have I always wanted to try but had never gotten around to? How did I want to spend my time? In what sort of environment did I enjoy living? What kind of people did I like having around me? What kinds of hobbies did I enjoy? How far did I want to take them? Were there any that I would want to do constantly for a period of time?
For the first time in my life, in other words, I was told I had nearly total freedom to do anything I could imagine. All I had to do was figure out what to imagine. The goal of the orientation process was to make me aware of all of the possibilities and how to put them together into my view of heaven.
The presentation ran through a number of examples. Essentially, everyone in Australia is living on a gigantic, luxury cruise ship. The trip is already paid for, for life, and you are free to do whatever you like with your time. The robots are doing all the work, and you get to partake freely of their output. In other words, for the first time ever, everyone is truly equal and everyone is truly free.
Some people on a cruise ship like this would want to spend their time lying by the pool tanning and sipping margaritas. They are free to do that. Some people would want to spend a lot of time raising their children. They are free to do that. Some would want to be bass fishing all day. That’s OK too.
But there would be a tremendous number of people who would want to fulfill life-long dreams — they would see the unlimited free time of a life-long cruise as an amazing opportunity. Anyone with creativity would start creating.