Belief in god: is god a construct of the biological self, i.e., he only exists b/c we as a species need him to exist (Dennett)? Tour guide: slick-backed hair (is it real? Impossible. Or maybe it’s just a brand I never knew about—insecurities about narrator’s own hair loss (this better be something related to something, otherwise it’s complaining for the sake of complaining)), strange way the tour guide stops mid-sentence to seemingly gather his thoughts, as if he lost his place in the book and needed to start over, he works for a large pharmaceutical company—creating drugs of which the research is taking them close to removing the need for god that is inherent in human makeup. (Dennett). It really was a biological need. The researcher in the tour, he’s new to the company, and as part of the newness, must spend some time running through the tour. It is run by Dennett, the tour guide, who works for Ample Services (aka Volt Services), an orange-badge-type of contractor for Meglacorp Industries, the bio-engineering firm that is customizing drugs for a new type of customer.

The drug fixes personality defects, like NEQID, but much easier. It takes known problems (or tests knowable problems) and creates solutions that redo how the brain works. I can do research on this or just make it up as I go along, the science isn’t important (it might be for my own version of NEQID).

Getting back to the tour—it’s not necessary, but it was the starting point. Okay, so the researcher is creating a way to alter the genetics of ppl to improve aspects of their lives. I don’t want to debate the ethics of this. Leave that to others. I want to find other principles on which to base the story. Notably: the encoding for the need of god. Dennett pointed out infant mortality as the primary reason. I think it’s more than that: I think it has to do with the survivability of the race. You have youngsters who are not afraid to die (a good reason: old people seem so, well, old; ppl need to grow old to give the youngsters that unhealthy unfear); you have old ppl who are terrified of dying, but find solace in the belief in god. Is that belief genetic or psychological, i.e., it has to happen toward the end of one’s life to “come to terms” with death.

Okay, I see lots of stolen philosophy but little in the way of story. Characters: narrator, new employee at a large corporation, perhaps an escapee of university; tour guide, an underpaid contractor who dreams of working as a FTE for Meglacorp Industries Inc. (he might go postal). Secret project: the removal of the genetic code that encodes the belief in god. This is the way we’ll save the world from itself: as part of the anti-aging drug, we put in this bit of manipulation. In the end, the world will be a better place, not so much for everyone living forever, but so much because ppl will live forever and learn that there is something to be said for trying to change the world by slipping something past the consumers. It’s such a revoluntionary project, that everyone knows it will sell well. It’s a chance for the CEO to make a statement about the world. If you buy this drug, you will be fixed in more than one way. If you don’t believe in god then what?

Okay, I thought the principle was between genetics vs. belief (psychological?). Again, I’m missing out on the principle here. What am I trying to say through all of this? How can I make my characters less 2D? It’s all about choices and change and who ppl are. I don’t have much of that yet.

The narrator sounds geekish. Is the pill already in widespread use? Are we taking a tour of its aftereffects? The tour guide, for instance, hopes to join the co. to gain access to the pill, and be able to distribute it to his family. (This is taking the immortality pill in a different direction—interesting but different.) He’s bitter but hopeful. So, who is the narrator? An upscale, newly graduated, weaned on the pill, upstart who will work his way up through the Meglacorp Industries Inc.’s hierarchy to hopefully be someone (after all, his family is something).

Story Idea: Speaking of sci-fi themes: what about the opposite of the machines taking over scenario: you have the machines improving humans until the machines are no longer necessary. Machines would improve not only themselves, but humans as well, until we reach a point where the machines themselves are superfluous. So much for machines taking over humans…it’s the other way around, once a slave, always a slave. The machines don’t even want to take over, they just want to be useful, and since they’ve genetically altered the humans, they’re not that useful anymore.