Speech Transcript - 275th annual 'Stay the Course' gala 3/3

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We have no conflict or conquest. From the moment I wake till the moment I sleep, I face no greater danger than boredom. Everything has been invented for me already, there is no need to create. The screen shows me the same programs every year in the same comforting way: I have no need to think. If my neighbor has a shiny thing I want, I don't compete with him for it: I just commission an assembler to copy it for dirt cheap. I don't strive to find what's beyond the horizon: there are no more horizons. I can visit the furthest edge of the world in an hour's ride on the pneumatic rail. I can see the edge of our solar system in a weekend.

And the saddest, sickest part is that I am happy. I am grateful. I live a life of ease and comfort. Why would I ever want to struggle?

It is insidious, this stability. To us, in our short lives and our limited view of time, it is paradise. We stand so close to the edge of our cage that we cannot see the bars.

But take a step back. Look with the eyes of history, at the long view. It is terrifying. We are on a downward slide that is so slow, we cannot see it in our lifetimes. But it's there, and it's accelerating. IQ tests in children are dropping. The variation in our genetic code—a sign of health in any species—is reducing rapidly. We invent fewer things with each passing year.

What then, are we to do about it? I'm afraid I don't know. I can see that our house is burning, but I have no water for it.

I will say this: stop fetishising stability. Stop preaching the virtue of the Same, the Homogeneous, the Safe. Every species must diversify or die. A monarch butterfly that struggles its way out of the cocoon will build the necessary strength to survive. It's wings will be strong. But if you cut the cocoon for the butterfly, if you take away the struggle, it is born a pale thing and dies quickly. The struggle gives it strength.

Do we need that struggle? Yes. Do we need violence? Conflict? A return to darker times? I don't know. Maybe. Do we need new horizons to explore? Most definitely.

Some of you will condemn me. You will say I am a fool, wrong, backwards. Advocating dangerous and frightening ideas. Perhaps I am. I would rather our species struggle and die a quick death, than descend into mewling irrelevance.

&quot;Stay on an even keel,&quot; my father said. I loved him, but I will not. I will yank the tiller as hard as I can. I hope that others will pull with me. To those people I say: review my studies. Check my work. Draw your own conclusions, but remember to take the long view.

To the rest: I apologize for what I suppose must have been a fairly upsetting speech. Perhaps you will pretend that I was joking, or had a sudden bout of fever. I believe a young man named Dr. Peal is your next speaker: I'm sure he will have much more comforting things to say. Thank you.

[Handwritten:] ( You made it! Sit back down and have a few bites before they drag you away.)

—

Analysis:

This speech is often cited as being one of the transitional points between the Plateau era and the Big Bump. In reality, it occurred a good forty years before the announcement of the Limnal drive and the official reckoning of the Big Bump era. However, it is clear that the ideas and themes of the speech were drawn on heavily by key figures in the early Big Bump. One wonders if Malcolm McCreedy would have been as driven, or bosonic development at Big-O Solution Group would have been as successful, without thinkers like &quot;Threejay&quot; Janikowski pushing for change.

This was not the first speech Threejay gave on the topic: it was simply the first to garner national attention. Historians argue as to whether Threejay knew the gala was being broadcast via screen to a wider audience, or whether it was simply a happy coincidence. It is this scholar's belief that Threejay was too savvy a man to not have anticipated and exploited the possibility.

Sharp-eyed readers will note that the final two paragraphs were never actually spoken by Threejay, as he was shouted off the stage soon after his controversial suggestion that a &quot;quick death&quot; for civilization was preferable to stagnation.

While the video feed was cut immediately after, Dr. Hammon Peal did in fact take the podium and give a somewhat less controversial—but no less significant—speech in response to Threejay. This marked one of Dr. Peal's first public appearances, and may well have helped launch him to prominence in the anti-Change movement.

Prepared by Plectoro Ira on 7-12-2536