Humanity is approaching either a singularity, where change is so fast we're effectively godlike... or a collapse. In general, humanity's growing godlike powers don't bother me; many folks I know could make perfectly decent gods right now. In a way, given the tools and economic powers they have, they already are. Trouble is, so much power means just a few crazy saboteurs can wreck the world!

So Earth's nature-spirits have decided to crash our technology soon, before things get that unstable.

On the astral plane, I meet the panel of devas/spirits responsible for the die-back to come, and beg them to delay just a few more years. I agree "The saboteur problem is real, I don't dispute your verdict that we need a Great Slump Back--nap time for humanity! We've been playing uninterrupted too long; we're getting cranky."

"But," I argue, "great works are being written, and they'll profoundly affect society during the fallow time. Rather than sink back to barbarism and patriarchy we might have something enlightened and humane from the start. Give us just a few years!"

Ask them not to do it? Don't be silly. The only sane verdicts are crash soon or crash now. Letting us develop nanotech in a world full of haters... now that'd be cruel. And irresponsible. Tough love requires a crash.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• I've been ill--recurring, malaria-like fevers that no one can explain. The dream suggests I don't even hope for a cure, just a few years of life. And what do I beg for? Time to finish my artistic projects before I die! Is that really all I value? Well, to be honest... yes. I think we come back. Life itself, and those I love... we'll meet again, if not in the same forms. But the art, the writing, the music... I do it now, or never.
• But an uneasy little voice says even this harsh interpretation may underestimate the dream's real warning. What if, last night, I truly did face a jury of devas and nature spirits in a hangin' mood--toward all humanity? Was I begging a reprieve for civilization itself?

Now, twelve years later, this dream saying a crash was inevitable (just a question of now or soon) looks predictive. The biggest economic crash in eighty years was just a few months away. Not to say the dream wasn't literal too. The technocrash may still be ahead.

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