DIGITAL WATCHES

It has long been known that the standard measure of the technological level of a civilization is not how they produce energy, or how they hunt, but how they tell time. The people of Teilatrus VII (not 7, VII) had navigated their own evolution on the basis of trying and discarding different methods of ascertaining time. Starting from sunwatchers to represent their dependence on the sun, an entire generation of devout chronometric priests went blind trying to watch the seconds ticking by.

The invention of the sundial went out of fashion when it was discovered that hiring a stonemason when the buggers ran slow cost a fortune. The sand glass made a brief appearence among the very rich and soap opera actors that could afford the many slaves and equipment involved in turning a glass container containing a day's worth of sand. Because of the heavily religious nature of time, the advent of the pendulum driven clock coincided with some particularly gruesome ritual sacrifices, the cosmic overtones of which echoed through the galaxy resonating in the minds of horror fiction writers on many different worlds.

Next, the Teilatrians invented pocket watches. Heavy steel balls with a timepiece embedded in them, used as a ceremonial weapon. The idea being that your enemy should at least know what time they died. After this, society changed to its "fashionable" phase, creating wrist watches in a wide variety of colours and materials, from sequins to fishskin. A new breed of animals was created to make furry watch covers.

The next -- and second last -- stage in society's development was the digital watch. A horror of cheap plastic wristbands and tacky readouts. Those who still believed in telling time in a more traditional manner were put to death for being too floopy. All people had digital watches. The poor and homeless were given free digital watches. Those without were sent into time exile, a nightmare in which people are forced to watch old sit-coms backwards. Several of those condemmed to this life suicided by taking household furniture internally.

This insanity ensued until a young girl sitting by herself in a small café in the town of Flesilt finally realised what had been going wrong all this time, and she knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. She got to a telephone and told somebody about it. They told somebody else, and soon the message was spread and the message was this: Who gives a shit what time it is? This message proclaimed from the rooftops was hailed as the beginning of a new society. All time was forgotten and people lived long and happy lives, sleeping in, staying up late, working when they felt industrious, playing when they felt playful. Great joy was felt across the entire world until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from one man who forgot his doctor's appointment.

Many philosophers suggest that this is a common fate for worlds which rid themselves of a vital part of their society.