On 14th March, 3211 AD, The Astro Society of United Earth, finally has enough funds to build a fully functional moon station of 2200 in the one of the caves in the coldest crater of moon on. On 25th December same year, during their first trial flight in the space for 1000 kms, they had their first alien contact with the representatives of a Planet called Zorthaq. The meeting lasted for only few minutes during which only pleasantries were exchanged. The Zorthaqians refused to visit Earth and meet our leaders, however, the Ambassador from Zorthaq promised an interview to any journalist from Earth on condition, the journalist has to come aboard their spaceship for the interview. They duly fulfilled their promise date and one Mr. John Doe from Earth went aboard the Zorthaqian ship to take the interview.
A little about the very unknown Mr. John Doe, who is a very lesser known or rather unknown journalist on Earth, agreed to pay a visit by signing an agreement that if anything goes wrong only he would be responsible for his life. In return, his magazine company, the Monthly Planet, promised to give him a promised 3% hike in salary and repayment of his remaining 7 years of his 30 year home loan in case he makes it home with the full script of the interview.
John Doe- Why didn't you contact us before?
Ambassador- We tried, but first of our problem was how to communicate with your people. We could only see numbers in all the signals and that too only in 1s & 0s.
John Doe- But you speak English just like us?
Ambassador- We do and so does our computers. It was only after some years of research that we came to know that your computers understand only a language of numbers. It must be tough for you isn't it?
John Doe- Ahem, yes true and only few expert people can become software engineers and earn good money doing it... What about a physical visit?
Ambassador- We had a problem there as well. You see, our planet has nothing which you call a money. We would have died without food or a place to stay on your planet and with all those things called taxes it was tough even to come close to your planet or even your natural satellite moon for that matter.
John Doe- Our planet is generous you know, we could always have loaned you some money to begin with. In fact I have got a huge loan to buy a small house for myself (grins...).
Ambassador- Oh yes, that thing which you call a loan. Its the capital punishment on our planet. In your world, you take a loan and then do anything possible, errr... mostly impossible, to pay it back dont you?
John Doe- (Chokes..) Well yes we earth people are hard working people. But loan repayment as a punishment to criminals?
Ambassador- Exactly, unlike the prisons of your world, where they use old slavery system to punish the criminals. On our world we use Monetary system which sadly is still the day-to-day life in your world, which we found as technically quite an advanced form of slavery and applied to our latest form of punishment. We sincerely thank your planet for this as the idea came after watching your world grow.
On our world, as per the gravity of crime, we put the criminals on a loan repayment punishment. For minor crimes the criminal might get a few months of loan repayment, then 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years and maximum sentence goes upto rest of the criminal's life. This is one reason why crime is rarest of rare on our world. Apparently, criminals get depressed and feel sorry for themselves while paying big loans and they repent even more when they see their colleagues living a loan-free and content life outside the prison and pursuing their hobbies the rest of their lives.
So thats why you see, it was tough for us to make a physical contact with your world, we did not wish to start a relationship on a punishmentary note.
John Doe- And how does your prison look like?
Ambassador- Oh it look so much like the big cities on your world, say... New York! Near the sea and with very few trees and only concrete structures, makes it a tougher weather to bear. Everybody is assigned the work there and work has been rated as well. So if you have been given the job of cleaning streets, your earning rates wont be much, but then your loan wont be that much either; we cannot be inhuman you see; suits well for the person who has committed a crime of a lesser degree. But its really bad for the bad criminals, they have to repay huge loans even though we give them extra money every year in forms of incentives and increase in earnings, they have to cope up with the increasing prices we put on their basic necessities e.g. food and toiletries etc., the high interest rates on loans as well keeps them on the run always.
John Doe- (sweating profusely and adjusting his tie)- I think.. We should save further discussion on this topic for a later time. Besides, people of earth would be curious to know that in the absence of any monetary system and with abundance and access to all basic and non basic resources of life to everyone all the time, what do the Zorthaqians do apart from lying lazily under the sun (smiling cunningly).
Ambassador- Lying lazily under the sun, isn't that what is known as holidaying on your planet? You know, I had the liberty to watch few good rating videos to come to that conclusion. Anyway to answer your question, its fairly simple. Farming is the main occupation on our planet, after all that is what we need to feed our stomach. However, technology has freed our manpower resources and our people chose to pursue their interests and passions and contribute to the society in their own way. For example, in Earth's history, your most powerful weapon took only few days and lots of scientists working on it simultaneously and tirelessly to finish it on time, a weapon which you call Atomic bomb. We use the same intensity to harness energies of sun, wind, and geothermal energies quite early in our history. Even our spacecraft use gravity from the heavenly bodies in the space to propel our ships, and all of this was achieved in just a matter of few years.
We have institutionalised all the fields, from philosophy to nanotechnology and therefore we harness to the fullest the capability and the creative bending of each and every individual of our planet in their field of interest to the fullest. Some people after a few years, sometimes choose to pursue a new field as their interest grows observing other fields and in this process we create even more new fields with a combined knowledge, for example combining knowledge of a doctor and an engineer as per your world's job descriptions.
John Doe- That sounds like fun through and throughout. My most important question, how do you differentiate between success and failure?
Ambassador- Thats an easy one. We do not celebrate success which we achieve every month, every quarter, or even every year as per your accounting systems. We celebrate failures whenever they occur as they show us more insight than the successes.
To read more from this interview and to see whether Mr. John Doe was able to reach back Earth, please click here to pay towards my loan fund and read the full text from the interview.
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Just kidding :o)
Disclaimer: The usual disclaimers you see after some true stories you know.
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