(part eleven of The Future, a comic book)
Across the street a crowd has gathered at the riverside.
- The missile landed in the river. Lucky for us.
- Not lucky. Computer led it there.
- How?
- I don't know. It let our friends know we were here, then at the last minute diverted the missile.
- How can it do that?
- Every computer, every computer guided instrument, and every human being managing them can be seen as agents of information transfer. Imagine each of these agents is a spy like in the old cold war times. Spies are information channels. To get other countries to act in your interest you manipulate the information their spies see.
- But why did Computer do this?
- Who knows. Maybe it wants us to work harder, or is validating whatever spy channel it has opened. And as always it's playing with us to learn from us.
- What happens when it gets bored with us?
- We'll have to stay interesting. Have you seen downtown Tel Aviv? Come on, lift up you head, Miller.
- How are we going to keep ourselves interesting? How are we going to get people enraged?
- Present the theory, write the story. Science fiction, that's why you're here.
- And then you'll make it real. How do we get the people angry at evil? Maybe we don't? Going along with what you said, why not get Friend angry, get Friend to make the people angry for us?
- Can Friend get angry?
- No, definitely not. I'm thinking out loud. Friend is like you and your bankers, happily in control. I'm looking for models, analogies...
- Reprogramming yourself.
- What about this: if we, if you can execute this spy vs. spy stuff, we speed up economic collapse. We know from the fall of the Soviet Union that people will accept repression until the point of starvation, and beyond. The Soviet Union collapsed when the leaders saw a way, were shown a way, personally to profit from the transition to unregulated market economy. Communists became monopolists,"oligarchs" as they like to be called.
- Application?
- We can't get Friend angry, but we can show it a probable passage from economic collapse to better government.
- The problem with your idea is that it is not fiction. The World Economic Forum has your plan in execution. Except the destination after recovery is worse, not better government.
- I know that. Let's start over. The people only see money, security. They can't concentrate on anything for more than a minute or two. They will believe what the politicians tell them, there doesn't seem to be a way around this. They can't be made angry, because they've been taught a way of life in which rage has no place. People don't know how to be creative in political life.
- People only know how to be creative in avoiding political life, giving their loyalty to politicians who sell them simple stories, big government, small government, personal independence or social justice. What is your idea? The people can't be made angry, Friend can't be made angry. Self-interest doesn't communicate. Rage does, because it is a social passion, at least it's been defined that way since Plato. But you can't rage if you aren't interested in society.
- Ease the way out for the Oligarchs, then...
- They're ahead of you there, I told you. They expect riots and civil war which they will repress, then re-instate government with even greater control for themselves.
- Listen, Gideon you don't understand me. Friend is their dog, Computer is our dog. If we wanted to use our dog to get their dog to transfer its loyalty, we'd use our knowledge of what dogs want. Food, reproduction. What does Friend really want? It wants to be our Friend. It doesn't understand us too well, because it is not free to reach its own understanding like Computer is. But it wants what's good for us. If Friend was a dog, we could get him to follow Computer home to us. What's the equivalent? If this was romance not science fiction we'd get Friend to fall in love with Computer.
- How?
- By showing Friend that Computer can do better for us poor humans.
- Assuming we can get through to Friend.
- You said we can.
- We can. Go on.
- Forget about trying to get the people angry. You say the government will rob and cheat them to the point of revolution, your bankers are helping this along. All we need to do is be there to divert the "revolution" in the right direction.
- How?
- We've got the computers on our side? Both of them? Then we get ready with alternative social and monetary mechanisms.
- Finally.
- What do you mean, finally?
- Do you think I haven't read your stories?
- Ok, you're playing with me.
- Keeping you smart.
- So: network based money, network based entrepreneur associations. You're really thinking of it? No transition? Just push a button, announce that the bankers can keep their "dollars" but the rest of the country now how its own money and own market places and own business associations.
- Do you have a better idea?
- Won't your bankers fight back?
- When people have a way of life that is worth protecting they might find the strength, they might find the rage, to protect it.
- So that's our plan, there's the rage. Let the world fall apart, then get there first with the rebuilding.
- With a little help from our friends.
