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Fortune's Guide To Dealing With Real-Life Science Fiction
Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine: if you are speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. If he, she or it doesn't speak English? Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before calling. What to do if you get a phone call from Jupiter? Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the charges may have been reversed. What to do if reality disappears? Hope this one doesn't happen to you. There isn't much that you can do about it. It will probably be quite unpleasant. What to do if you meet an older version of yourself who has invented a time traveling machine, and has come from the future to meet you? Play this one by the book. Ask about the stock market and cash in. Don't forget to invent a time travelling machine and visit your younger self before you die, or you will create a paradox. If you expect this to be tricky, make sure to ask for the principles behind time travel, and possibly schematics. Never, NEVER, ask when you'll die, or if you'll marry your current SO (significant other). What to do if a starship, equipped with an FTL hyperdrive lands in your backyard? First of all, do not run after your camera. You will not have any film, and, given the state of computer animation, no one will believe you anyway. Be polite. Remember, if they have an FTL hyperdrive, they can probably vapourise you, should they find you to be rude. Direct them to the White House lawn, which is where they probably wanted to land, anyway. A good road map should help. What to do if you wake up in the middle of the night, and discover that your closet contains an alternate dimension? Don't walk in. You almost certainly will not be able to get back, and
alternate dimensions are almost never any fun. Remain calm and go back to bed. Close the
door first, so that the cat does not wander off. Check your closet in the morning. If it
still contains an alternate dimension, nail it shut. Of course you can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. After a while you'd run out of air to push against. |
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