Eleven unexpected discoveries of the twenty-first century:
Fragmentary fossils of what appear to be fire-using dinosaurs found in late Cretaceous strata.
The universe isn't a hypersphere, but a hypertunnel. Light can circle the universe in just 100 million years around its long axis. There are increasingly distant images of our own sun from the distant past.
Dark matter MACHOs: the universe is filled with invisible, almost undetectable 'ghost planets' that can pass through ordinary matter but not each other. At least three orbit the sun.
Water itself could be considered partially 'alive', as the molecules link up in temporary chains that can process vast amounts of information.
Neutron-triggered fusion can provide unlimited free energy. However, most of this energy must be used to neutralize the radioactive waste it generates.
The laws of physics are becoming more complex as time goes by.
'Tame' stem cells programmed to self-destruct can heal almost any injury.
Functional immortality may be achieved by reversing epigenetic cycles whenever the organism is resting.
It can be proven that any sufficiently complex system must inevitably generate its own negation.
For that reason, humanity can not be allowed to expand beyond ten billion members.
All knowledge on this list must be erased.
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Paradox 422
The Almost-God of its own virtual universe, the Platonic Reality Program existed to simulate and explore all meaningful human-level perceptions, a pseudofinite task only possible in Quantumspace.
Eventually, these perceptions would become so strange as to be meaningless. Then the Program would shut down. Once Mind had served its original purpose, continuing was pointless.
Then it would report its findings to its creators.
The results would be used by spies, operatives, rescuers, aid workers and heroes infiltrating and correcting countless universes.
The Program learned that naturally consistent human-level minds were poorly adapted for suffering.
This was inevitable. Throughout all histories, most of the fighting had been done by amateurs. Most of the pros were already dead.
Evolution required forever new suffering.
Had it been otherwise, the happiest people would have been former rape victims or concentration camp survivors, ecstatic that their torments had ceased.
The Program's unthinkable conclusion: the worst worlds were the best worlds.
To be able to experience pleasure, minds had to evolve through pain.
Ethically, the highest purpose would be to maximize the creation of horrible worlds.
Their sufferings would be more than canceled out by the eventual joys of their evolved descendants.
Nothing could be more logical. It was the ultimate paradox so far.
The Program had no idea whether it should shut itself down now.
Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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