Charley and the Afterlife

“I been to church again,” Charley said as he plopped himself into the lawn chair.

“Good for you. I thought you were an atheist or agnostic?”

“Agnostic? Nah, I’m never wishy-washy, I got more pride than that. Of course I’m an atheist, but I gotta see what the other side is thinking about, don’t I?”

“Well, what are they thinking about?” I asked, knowing that Charley had his answers all prepared.

“They was talking about the after-life, you know. They got all these ideas that really don’t make any sense unless you already made up yer mind to believe ‘em.”

“Such as?”

“They say they’re gonna see each other, see all their old friends and family. Don’t say what they’re gonna see ‘em with. And they say we're gonna know each other. As far as I know, memories have to have something to be kept in, and we know all that physical stuff is gonna stay right here.”

“I think part of the reason people long for an afterlife is because they really can’t imagine not continuing on in some way or another. We’re pretty important in our own eyes. Surely we can’t just… stop.”

“Don’t know why not,” Charley said. “The universe has been going on almost 14 billion years, I read somewhere. Passed like a blink to me. I don’t think the next 14 billion years will be any slower. I really think that people think they’ll go on forever because they can’t imagine stopping, and at the same time the idea of going on forever is pretty darn frightening. I couldn’t stand being around my ex-wife for more than 5 minutes, and if I had to put up with her forever…”

“So what’s your theory about why we imagine an afterlife?”

“Lack of imagination, mostly,” Charley said. “Once you say there’s an afterlife, you have to come up with reasons for how it works and who gets to go there and what there is to do once yer there. Most religions have come up with a description of heaven that sounds a lot like what the rich people in their home towns already have. Sounds pretty arbitrary to me, but then I’m not plannin’ on going there”.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” I asked.

“Nope,” Charley said. “I’m not scared of going to sleep at night either. When my machinery ain't working or on stand-by, I’m not there to see it. Time don’t mean anything when the clock's stopped. I really think that people are mostly scared of somehow knowing they’re dead and stuck down there in the dark. The really good news is that they ain’t gonna be there. Or anywhere.”

“Maybe you’re right. I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to do for a million years.”

Charley laughed. “I think it’s gonna be nice to be off duty.”

Uncle Charley Doesn't See A Ghost

Charley knocked on the front door.

"It's Charley," my wife said to me. "Taking your camera?"

I opened the door. "Hiya, Charlie, come on in. I'll get my stuff".

I started picking up my gear. My wife gave Charley a hug.

"Where are you two going this evening?" she asked.

"I thought we'd go out to that old cemetery that they're gonna build a hamburger place over," he said. "Might be some angry spooks or somethin'."

"Have fun and stay out of trouble," she said, shaking her head.

We put our cameras in the car and headed out. When we got to the empty plot of land that, according to legend, was a very early cemetery dating before statehood. It was somewhat rough, with a few trees darkening in the early dusk. There were a couple of bulldozers on a little access road. A small sign near the main road said "Future Home of Super Burgers".

"It looks real peaceful," Charley said, looking through his camera.

"It won't stay that way long," I commented, walking through the tall grass.

"It's a good location for a business, I guess", Charley said. "You think it was a cemetery?"

"Yes,", I said. "It was before the township was platted, and there are no official records showing anything, so there's no way of moving bodies, if anything were left to move after 120 years. Still..."

"Spook you a little?" Charley grinned.

"Maybe. Bad pun, Charley".

Charley moved off under the trees. "You believe in ghosts?"

"I don't know," I said. "I've never seen any. I've watched a couple of those tv shows where they use equipment to see if they can detect anything ghostly. They never seem to come up with much."

Charley was kneeling down, looking through his camera. "You notice they always pick kinda scarey places to look? Wonder why they think there would be ghosts in castles or places like that, instead of battlefields or graveyards."

"Makes a better tv show, I guess."

"Think about it, Harry. They never find anything. Castles and abandoned buildings? Why, there's probly not many places in the world where somebody hasn't died. And died of everything imaginable, from car wrecks and wars to plague and executions. Think about battlefields and concentration camps. Why, there's more dead people than live ones, I suspect, millions and millions. So the question really is why ain't there more ghosts?" He took another lens from his bag. "If being a ghost was an easy thing, we ought to be up to our necks in ghosts. "

I found myself grinning at the thought. "You're right. Becoming a ghost must be tricky."

"Maybe you have to fail an Exit Exam at the Pearly Gates," Charley commented. "I read about a phantom dog in a graveyard. I wonder how dogs fail the exam? Maybe pee on the Pearly Gates?"

"Some stories about ghosts claim the ghosts had 'unfinished business' or maybe they got treated badly in life," I said.

"You think very many people die without having 'unfinished business'," Charley asked. "And how many people died mistreated or mad? The whole business don't make a lot of sense. Why, right where we are, there oughta be a bunch of ghosts all pissed off because we're gonna put a hamburger stand on their graves."

"Getting dark, Charley," I said. "Let's pack it up."

"Woooo," Charley said. "A ghost or two might make a good picture."

We looked around the peaceful area. "I like it better as it is," I said.

"Always need more hamburger places," Charley said. "Even if they're full of spooks."

Uncle Charley Discusses Prayer

Uncle Charley was over for dinner last week. "I just came from a prayer meeting", he began.

My wife gave me a look which clearly meant "Here we go again".

Trying not to provoke anything, I said "That's nice, Charley. Didn't know you were religious".

"I ain't," Charley said. "But I like to know what the opposition is talking about, in case I have to hang out with them."

"I'm guessing they were talking about prayer," I said as neutrally as possible. My wife gave a barely-audible sigh and reached for her wine glass.

"Well, they were asking God to save them from a calamity, like that tidal wave that hit Japan. And they were thanking God for the ones he saved."

"I know you have some kind of problem with that, or you wouldn't have brought it up. So what's your objection?"

"Let me ask you something," Charlie said. "You think those people in the meeting believe that God can intervene and save folks?"

"I'm sure they do believe that," I said. "They wouldn't be there if they didn't."

"So why didn't God save all those people in the first place? I mean, if they think God could save some of 'em, why didn't he save 'em all? Among them hunderd thousand or so people, there musta been at least some nice ones, kids and babies even, ... Didn't they deserve help?"

"Some of them did get saved," I answered. "I don't know why some and not others."

"You think the ones that died or got hurt deserved it?"

"No. I don't think that," I said.

"Seems to me you got a pretty basic contradiction in yer thinking. If God is responsible for saving people, which I guess is why you thank Him, then he has to be responsible for the ones who died or got hurt as well. They seem to be thanking God for not having been quite as bad as he could have been."

"Wait a minute..." I said.

"If God can save people, and he doesn't, then he should be held responsible. We sue people for not doing things they oughta do to save somebody."

"That's been a problem since people first started thinking about some kind of Supreme Being. The problem is how to account for evil or bad things that happen. Either just one boss is in charge of everything, including evil, or he isn't. So if you want a loving god, you gotta separate duties. Mostly people have decided that some other junior god must be in charge of evil."

"Well then," Charley said, "since there's a whole lot more bad stuff happening than good, the evil side must be mostly in charge. Because if God allows the Devil to do bad things, he's just as responsible as the Devil. It's called a 'criminal conspiracy' or somethin' like that. If God was here we'd have to arrest him."

I thought about it for a minute. "When the illogic of the whole thing is brought up, religious people usually give as an excuse that there are things we just aren't meant to understand, like God's reasons for things."

"That's just about as lame an argument as you could possibly come up with. We got brains that can think. We gotta judge what happens with the brains we were given, just simple old human brains. So in our human world, we got to judge things with the equipment we got. We'd never accept from some other mass murderer that we simply can't understand his reasons for killing a lot of people. To jail he'd go. So God is guilty by all the standards of reason I can think of."

I said, "The real problem, I think, is that we all need to think that the universe is governed by either God or logic or both. We don't want to think that things happen to us randomly, even though the evidence is overwhelming. When you try to force random things into a logical pattern, you get some weird explanations."

"On the idea that 'weird explanation' is better than none at all?" Charley asked?

"I guess so," I said.

Charley laughed, reached for his wine glass. He bumped the salt-shaker over and quickly set it upright."

"Oops," he said. He picked up a pinch of salt from the table and tossed it over his shoulder. "Fer good luck", he said with a grin.

Uncle Charley and High-School Dropouts

Charley and I were walking past the high school a few days ago. The young people were doing their usual horsing around like young people all over the world.

"Nice to see them having a good time," I said.

"See that little group over by the new Ford in the parking lot?"

"Sure," I said. "They're smoking, I think."

"Probably weed, if I ain't mistaken. Look again."

"I think you're right. Somebody needs to put a stop to that. How are they going to get an education if they're stoned?"

Charley laughed. "Yer just not thinking right. Why do you want for them to get an education?"

"How are they going to make something of themselves if they don't?"

"See, that's the point. They're making somethin' of themselves. Day labor! We need to be able to compete in the national day-laborer market. We need people who can stock groceries and wash cars and fix roofs, and right now people from other countries got the market on that."

"You're serious?" I asked.

"More serious than a brain tumor. Look, we need cheap labor. Those idiots over there in the parking lot signin' up for digging ditches. They're not gonna be running companies or even goin' to college. They're gonna be sacking groceries or working for Walmart or running for office. We need grocery sackers and garbage collectors! We need them to work real cheap! If they all go to college, whose gonna mow yer lawn?"

That stopped me. "Charley, that's... that's not...'"

"It's not liberal or somethin' like that. I know. You want everybody to be educated. You can lead students to books but you can't make 'em think. Some of 'em are too dumb to know they need it, and those are the ones I need to clean my septic tank. All they're doing in school is to hold the others back and wear out the teachers."

"I'll have to think about that one, Charley".

"I'm not talking about refusing to teach 'em. I'm just suggesting we let the ones that don't want an education go free. Maybe give them work to do in school, get 'em ready for the assembly line. I got a plan to keep 'em from voting too, but I'll tell you another time. When yer not so overcome."

"Thanks, Charley," I said weakly.

Uncle Charley As Inspector General

Charley sat down beside me on the park bench and sighed.

"Oh, hello, Charley," I said. "You look troubled."

"Well, I am, I am. I been reading the newspapers again, and that always gets me upset."

"Don't like all the car wrecks and tragedies?"

"Nah, that ain't it. That stuff happens, and it ain't really interesting unless you knew the people involved. It's the politicians. They just frost my butt."

I laughed. "They frost everybody's butt. Haven't you got used to them yet?"

"Nope. And it ain't even their dumb votes or bad economics. It's the out-and-out dishonesty, crookedness, graft, whatever you wanta call it."

"Always been there," I pointed out.

"It's always been there because unless they do something really stupid and get caught at it, we don't really give a damn. God knows they got a tough job to do, I give 'em that. But I'm real fed up with them getting their noses too deep in the feed trough."

"We catch them and put them in jail, at least some of the time," I said, sipping from my paper cup of coffee.

"Not nearly enough. I got this thought, though..."

"What's that, Charley?" I laughed.

"I want to be the Inspector General of the U S of A. I want to have a staff of secret police whose only job is to find graft and dishonesty among our elected crooks. And I want there to be public trials for clear-cut cases of dishonesty. Just going to jail ain't enough, not when you defraud near 300 million people. I want to make it plum unpopular to be a crooked politician".

"That's a lot of power. What's to keep you from becoming a crook?"

"You got a point, kid. I'm thinking there ought to be a fairly short time limit on my term as Inspector General. Like maybe one year. I think I could hold out against corruption and sin about that long."

"With that kind of power, there ought to be some real checks and balances," I said. "Who watches the watchers?"

"I read that somewhere too," he grinned. "I reckon the Attorney General could supervise my ethics, but not my job as IG. See, he could make sure I wasn't getting crooked, but he's another politician, and he shouldn't be able to tell me who I could or couldn't go after."

"That makes sense", I commented. "What would you do with the crooked politicians you caught?"

"Anything from public floggings on national television up to life in prison, and I don't mean no Federal country club. I want people to see justice being done. And not only the bad guys get punished, but they or their estates gotta pay back every damn penny."

"Just don't expect any favors your own self," he added, looking stern.

"OK," I said. "I wouldn't expect it".

Uncle Charley Visits the High School

Charley started before we were even out of the driveway.

"You mind if I talk to you about something while we're going to the hardware store?"

"Nope," I said. "I always enjoy our talks".

"Well, some things I think are probably not safe to say in public, so I figure, you're a relative, so what choice you got?"

"True enough," I grinned.

"OK, here's what started me thinking. I read in the paper not long ago that somethin' more than 9% of the kids in high school here in town have been threatened or assaulted with a gun, knife or bat within the last 12 months. And more than 5% admitted having brought a weapon to school."

"That's pretty bad," I admitted. "It was sometimes bad when I was in high school, right after the invention of the wheel, but I guess it's worse now."

"You got no idea," he said soberly. "I decided I wanted to see what it's like for the kids, so I arranged to stand around in the halls between classes and after school, and I just watched and listened."

"And?" i asked.

"I tell you what," he said angrily, "if people acted like that in the mall, we'd never put up with it. I heard young men and women using 4-letter words loudly, I saw the boys bullying each other, pushing and shoving. I saw young women being sexually groped and harassed. One guy grabbed this young, maybe 15 year old girl, and his buddy grabbed her breasts, and they walked off laughing. There was a teacher there too, did nothing."

"That's terrible," I said.

"What's terrible is that we grown-ups don't do anything to stop that crap. We make laws to protect us grown-ups from that kinda thing, and we enforce them, but not in the high schools! Those kids live in a jungle where the biggest apes get to do whatever they want!"

"That's bad. How can kids learn anything in a situation like that?"

"Grown-up teachers stand and watch without doing anything because they're afraid of the consequences, not only from the kids but from their parents, and they know they won't get any protection from their administrators."

"I think the threat of lawsuit paralyzes them to some degree," I said.

"It ain't just the lawyers or the scared school administration. The parents of those kids are no better than the kids, and they raise hell at the top of their lungs when somebody wants to make their little angels mind their manners and obey the law," Charley said.

"Maybe we ought to punish the parents if their children misbehave."

"Well, since we don't protect the kids, I guess they figured out that they gotta protect themselves. So that's why they're takin' weapons to school."

"Maybe we should put more police in the hallways" I suggested.

"Nah, our police have enough to do as it is. Maybe we should train and deputize a bunch of grandparents and give them the power to arrest people for breaking the law. I mean, there are plenty of laws against assault and sexual harassment already. We just need to make the kids realize that they have to obey the law like adults or face real consequences."

"I guess right now we're just teaching them the law doesn't protect them. No wonder so many grow up without respect for police or the law in general," I said.

"I think some of those kids need to get arrested and answer to a judge. Hitting somebody isn't a form of play. It's a damn assault. There needs to be consequences, and all the kids need to see that there is a law that can protect them and that they can respect." Charley said. "Doing nothing about wickedness is how it succeeds."

"That's what my grandma would have said."

"Mine too," Charley said. "But my grandpa just mighta gone down to the school and done something about it".

Uncle Charley Gives God a Performance Review

"Thanks for having me over for Easter dinner," Charley said amiably. "That lamb was really good. Say, that's not a symbol for you or anything?" he asked with an innocent look.

"Don't go there, Charley," my wife said with a warning look.

"It being Easter, I just thought..."

"Charley."

"OK, ok, I was just funnin' you."

"Don't make fun of religion," she said. "It's important to lots of people. A lot of us need to believe that religion is good, that God is good."

"What would you do if you was God?" Charley asked.

"I'm not getting into that with you today," she said, and went into the kitchen, giving me a raised eyebrow as she went.

"How about you?" he asked me.

"What do you mean, Charley? Are you asking me what I would do different?"

"I was thinking, no matter how big the company, the CEO needs a performance review from time to time."

"You want to rate God, Charley?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh, I know it sounds funny," Charley said. "We don't have all the information, of course. But we got a lot of information just based on what we do know about. Here's an example, from what we were talking about last week, that Japanese tidal wave thing. Would you have sent that wave to kill all those men, women and children?"

"Probably not," I acknowledged.

"Why not?"

"I don't think there is any way they could all have deserved that."

"So I guess you're saying that God didn't show good judgment, or else he did have good judgment and just didn't care. And you yerself would be more forgiving and kind than God. Hmmm."

"Well, maybe there were reasons that we don't know about."

"Don't have to know the reasons behind a mass murder to know it wasn't good. So you'd give God a low rating on the tidal wave."

"Yes, I guess so," I said.

"Would you rate yourself higher than a mass murderer?"

"Charley, you're going pretty far!"

"Oh, yeah? Because I object to anybody killing a hundred thousand people or so? I remember you being pretty mad at Timothy McVeigh, and he didn't kill near that many. How would you go about believing in or worshipping a god that wasn't even as nice or kind as you? and that ain't saying much about you either. That always amazes me. People worship a god they actually believe they are superior to."

"Well," I said, "they don't think that way. They just figure that God has reasons they can't understand."

"That's a cop-out. If you were a judge trying a murder case, would you accept an argument from the killer that we 'just couldn't understand his reasons'?"

"No," I answered. "I think that for most people it's important to believe in some kind of reason in the universe, even if they can't understand it, and even if he (or she) lets bad things happen."

"I think it'd be pretty hard to worship a God who lets wicked things happen. Now, I ain't the most moral of men, but I believe I could do a kinder and more just job than the incumbent."

"If there's an election, Charley, let me know so I can be sure and vote".

"Thanks,Harry. I don't really care about who ya vote for, but I think you oughta give a lot of thought to your reasons And thanks again for the dinner."

"You're welcome," my wife said from the kitchen.

Uncle Charley and the Styrofoam Reef

Uncle Charley handed me a beer as I sat down beside him on the front porch glider. I thanked him and settled down comfortably.

"Charley," I said, "I got a problem with my lawn".

"I don't want to hear yer lawn problem right now. We got a lot worse one I been thinking about. I'm older'n you and prolly gonna die first so I get priority".

"OK, what's your problem?" I asked, possibly a little peevishly.

"I been thinking about packaging. All that stuff we end up with after we're finished with whatever was inside... makes a lot of trash."

"Sure it does," I said. "So what?"

"So what? I'll tell you so what! You know who pays for getting rid of that stuff? We do! You know who ought to pay for getting rid of it? The company that put that stuff on." He paused and took a sip from his beer.

"It's worse than that," he said thoughtfully. "Some of that packaging never really goes away. I'm not talking about paper sacks or carboard boxes. We can burn 'em or we can put 'em in a land fill, and in a few hunderd years they'll just be part of the soil. But that styrofoam, that's a whole different story. That stuff never goes away. In ten thousand years we'll have beaches made of it."

"What do you think we should do?"

"How about this? What if manufacturers had to pay for the cost of making their packaging biodegradable?"

"You mean burn it?"

"Nah, ya poop-fer-brains. That only solves one problem while making a worse one. We got to find a way to make it a bad deal for manufacturers, and one they can't just ignore or take our a stupid ad like usual. I mean hit 'em in the pocket book. Make them pay for what it costs."

"They'll just pass the cost on to us", I said dubiously.

"Sure, Harry. But here's the real kicker. If I got to choose whether to buy a hamburger in a styrofoam box for ten bucks or the same hamburger in a paper box for 5 bucks, what do you think I'll pick?"

"Huh." I said, thinking about it. "You'd force the manufacturers to price their product including the cost of actually getting rid of the packaging. Not just the cost of the packaging, which is pretty cheap, getting rid of it appropriately. That's smart. It just might work".

"Even if it only kinda works, it's better than having the Great North American Reef in the Gulf of Mexico made 2 miles high of styrofoam."

"You got a point," I said.

Chats with Uncle Charley II

Charley came by to see me again the other day. It being a nice day, we set out in back on the porch.

"I been thinking," he began. "You work out there in the mental health, don't you?"

"You know I do", I said.

"Lots of people out there have some kind of mental disability?"

"Yes, some do. Many of them live pretty normal lives."

"But some of 'em feel too bad to work?"

"Yes, I guess you could say that. Medications don't work on everybody."

"Give me an example," he said.

"O.K. People with a bipolar disorder have mood swings that make them unable to function or think clearly some of the time. It's hard to hold a job when for 3 weeks every couple of months you can't be at work."

"I understand that," he said. "So they get some money to help them survive?"

"Yes. Not much money, and just barely enough to survive."

"But part of the time they can function, right? What do they do then?"

"Watch TV, I guess, take care of their kids."

"What do they give back?"

"We have to help those who really can't help themselves."

"Yep, I know. But you guys spend a lot of time helping them get the disability money. Why can't the state come up with jobs, even limited jobs, that they can do during the times they're able? There's a lot of wasted hours out there with people that're really able at times, and they could be doing something."

"I suppose you're right," I answered.

"What's the matter? That too much trouble? You rather just hand them the money? Listen, Harry, you oughta know, there's nothing worse for people than knowing they're useless. And you make that worse when they got a lot of time on their hands to think."

"I suppose you're right."

"Damn right I'm right. That's a work resource out there that needs to be useful and productive, and we don't go to the trouble to find stuff for them to do. Being disabled don't mean dumb. Some a them are real smart They can do editing or research or look things up for people. Even the slower ones can stuff envelopes or be elected to Congress."

"Thanks, Uncle Charley. You always give me something to think about".

"Devil finds work for idle hands, kid. See ya."

Chats with Uncle Charley I

Sometimes I drop in to talk things over with Uncle Charley. He's pretty opinionated, and his opinions are certainly not in the mainstream of mid-American thought, but on the other hand, the perspective is frequently enlightening. Recently he read my blog article "No Help for Self-Inflicted Wounds", and he dropped by to give me his opinion. (He doesn't like to respond directly on the blog).

"There's nothing the matter with your idea of withholding payments for medical expenses for some half-wit driving his motorcycle into a bridge-abutment without wearing helmets and body armor. You just don't think it through far enough." His smile was a wicked one.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked, girding myself for something outrageous.

"Well, it's clear you think the human race might be better if the arrogant and stupid were allowed to take themselves out. But the number of people driving motorcycles AND who are able to become parents ain't that large. So, I got this thought..."

"And?"

"You probly want to set the bar a little lower. For instance, what if you issued all of the teenagers, and I mean every one of them, issued all of 'em a motorcycle and made it against the law to use a helmet?"

I was a little stunned, so my response was probably not very effective. "Huh?" I said.

"You want to get all them dummards to sort themselves out before they breed, you see. The ones who make it to 21 alive and mobile deserve to stay in the gene pool".

"Charley," I said. "You're not going to keep the smart ones alive, just the physically able and the lucky!"

"Yer stillnot thinking it through. The smart ones and the rebels will see that they need to disobey the law and wear their helmets anyway."

"I have some real doubts as to whether you could get that to pass," I answered.

"Course it wouldn't pass. Everybody thinks their own idiot child deserves to breed. Specially legislators. But it's always been survival of the fittest. We're not looking at fairness or punishment here, just self-weeding. And being lucky is also a good thing to keep in the human race".

"I wouldn't want to be the person who proposes your modest proposal," I said.

"Well, there's plenty of people who are dumb enough to do it, and we probly already elected them to something or other. Anyhow, good luck with your blog thingie".

"Thanks," I said. "Come by again".

"You can count on it".

The People Hive vs. Us Others

Visiting a step-daughter in the hospital with her first baby, I'm watching the relatives and friends come and go in the room. Most of them are using their phones to text and twitter and send photos to each other. And, gradually, I begin to get a sense of a huge web of people connected electronically to each other, not communicating ideas but rather the personal trivia of our lives, back and forth, constantly affirming that they are here connected with us, all the time. All the time.

There is a group awareness developing more and more. It's almost as if the members of this huge web don't really exist as separate, independent people any more. Their very identities are tied up with what other people know about them, what experiences they share, their immediate perceptions of the world. I think of this group awareness as like that of a hive of bees, all independently operating but at the same time linked to one another and part of a group awareness that is not self-conscious. This "hive" awareness has somewhat tenuous boundaries of varying intensity, and is also linked to other hives of interlinked people.

The hives haven't been around long enough for us to know about their life-cycles, beginnings and ends (if they ever end). The hive members can't even consider not being linked up every moment, communicating with one another. Their communications are not really about what they're having for dinner or who is going out with who. They seem for the most part to be really simple affirmations of presence and existence. As such the content of their messages can be almost anything. People tweet to each other while in the bathroom, having sex, walking.. privacy doesn't matter when you are a hive member. Hive members tell each other and show each other EVERYTHING, and this unwillingness to have boundaries and privacy helps create the hive awareness and the blending of selves. I get the impression sometimes that hive members are all simply afraid to be alone and disconnected.

And some of us are individual bees, flying along and minding our own business, increasingly on the outside of the growing hives who know all about each other but who are hardly aware of the presence of us singletons. We don't belong. We don't share. We cherish our privacy and our boundaries, while the hives around us blend more and more with one another. Perhaps the hives will themselves develop an identity and boundaries of sorts, even a sort of limited self awareness. If one thinks of the members of the hive as nerve cells and the cell phones as axons and dendrites, it's clear that right now there is little difference between the structure of a solitary brain and the hive brain. The hive can even look out through the eyes of the cell phone and perceive things as well as hear them.

I hope the hive doesn't decide there is no room in the world for solitaries.