Big Brothers Has Privatized
A Short Story
You turn the knob on the panel one more time and press the red button. Nothing! That’s strange, it worked perfectly the last time you tested it. You turn the knob again, and again. Boooooom, the entire compartment is shaking. The air around you glows as if the invisible nitrogen and oxygen atoms were spontaneously combusting. Your skin boils as beads of sweat accumulate on your forehead. It’s impossible to breathe. The heavy compressed air pierces your eardrums. It won’t be long before you evaporate along with the rest of the equipment. You say your prayers as you wait for the inevitable. Suddenly, everything is still once more. The capsule begins to cool as rapidly as it heated up. The sensation of searing heat on your skin has dissipated. You can finally breathe again. Am I dead? No, it can’t be, it just can’t.
Your eyes take time to adjust to the light outside the capsule. Blue and green in every direction. Your craft is surrounded by trees and the sky up above. What a fascinating turn of events. The current date readout on the console has got to be a mistake. You had programmed the time machine to take you exactly 237 years into the future. 237, the number of people who provided financial support to this project. 237, the number of people who had to be compensated in some way, that is, if you ever make it back. The computers miscalculated by 200 years. But why? Clong, Clong, Clong. Someone is banging on the exterior of the craft. You see a man on the center console screen. He looks harmless enough. You turn the giant wheel several times, opening the hatch. How polluted is the air outside? It doesn’t matter at this point. You take a deep breath and hope for the best.
“Mr., what the hell are you doing on my lawn? How did you get this giant heap of metallic shit here anyway?” The stranger outside says.
You look at him as if he was a visitor from another planet. Nothing has changed over the last 37 years. He is just a man, but you stare nonetheless.
“What year is it?” You blurt out reluctantly.
“What year? Are you high or something? Is this your idea of a joke?”
“No joke, just want to know the year, and I’m not high.”
He looks at you, studying your face intently. When satisfied, he finally answers “It’s 2021. Now you mind telling me why put this piece shit on my lawn. Better yet, will you be so kind as to get it off, before I.”
“No need to call the police, I can explain.” You say earnestly.
Last thing you need is to explain all this to the authorities as they lock you up in the loony bin.
“The police?” he says wide eyed “Mr., they defunded the police last year. I hate to say it, but I don’t even own a gun. The only thing I can really do is to scream.”
“Defunded the what? Are you telling me there is no police in the year 2021?”
“That’s what I said. Don’t you remember all the rioting last year?”
“You and I need to have a serious talk Mr.” you say.
Your host, the man from the future, guides you over his lawn before directing you into his living room. After an hour of explaining, you finally convince him that you’re scientist. You invented the world’s first successful time machine and you arrived here from the year 1984. However, you were expecting to land in the year 2221. For no particular reason your host bursts into tears. He points to the pictures in the living room, the ones with his wife and two boys. They were murdered during last year’s violent uprising. The upheaval shook every major city in America. He begs you to take him back to 1984, or to any other year you are planning to visit next.
“Come now, it’s been barely 40 years. You have this incredible hand-held phone that serves as a computer and gigantic flat TVs in every room. You’ve suffered a great tragedy, but you shouldn’t give up. How bad can it be in 2021?”
“The future is not what you think. It’s darker.”
“How?”
“Ironic that you came from 1984. Are you familiar with Orwell’s novel by the same name?”
“Of course, 1984 is a classic.”
“What Orwell predicted is already here, but it’s worse, much worse.” He says with eyes wide open.
“You said yourself there are no more cops. How does Big Brother enforce his edicts?”
“Big Brother doesn’t need guns and clubs anymore. Big Brother has privatized. People willingly support the tyranny.”
“Why?”
“For convenience.”
“What convenience?” you say incredulously.
“You’re obviously a man with lots of time on your hands. I want you to sit and listen to how modern tyranny works” the man says as he maneuvers you into position.
You lean back into a leather recliner as he pours you a glass of whisky on the rocks. Your host proceeds to describe his world with painful detail.
***
The Search Engine
It was much worse than anyone had imagined. All the world’s knowledge is now stored on a network of computers that span the globe. The information is accessed through these things called search engines, which help users sort through an infinite universe of data. Ninety percent of all searches, that’s nine out of every ten, go through one company. His name was Epstein, Robert Epstein. He conducted the first major research on the topic before coining the term Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME).
SEME works because people believe computer algorithms give them the correct answer when they search for information. It is true, the computers do give the correct answer, most of the time. This happens when you search for the capital of France, or the number of people in China. When it comes to controversial topics, like information about candidates in an election, the algorithms may skew information in favor of one candidate over another. This is related to another phenomenon coined by Epstein, the Search Suggestion Effect (SSE), where the algorithm automatically completes a question the user wants to ask, providing only certain choices to skew your thought process.
This same company also provides a mapping service for you. Everything from A to Z is mapped out and immediately placed at your fingertips. The algorithm directs you from point A to point B, all the while tracking where you go, at what time, and how long you stay there. This company knows where you eat, where you vacation, which doctor you visit, and it knows the address of your best friends and family. Of course, there is also the electronic mail service the company provides to you and billions of others. All your mail tracked and exploited in order to build a profile about you, priceless data to be sold to the highest bidder. You invited this company into your life because you believed you were getting something for nothing. What you didn’t realize was that you were the commodity being sold. Nothing is free in this world, after all.
***
The Social Media
Amazing, just amazing. A single company dominates what the future calls social media. It’s similar to a family album, or a scrapbook, where all kinds of information about you is available to anyone with a computer. The idea, innocent enough, is to connect all the people of the world into one big family. You can share pictures, videos, and exchange ideas with other people on the site. The unfathomable part is that over a third, or one out of every three people on planet earth, utilize this one social media giant as their primary means to connect with the rest of the world.
You didn’t think anything bad could come of this, until you learned the details. In order to tell your story, you provided exhaustive information about yourself to the algorithms. Everything about your education, where you live, where you travel, where you work, what sicknesses and operations you’ve had, who you’re married to, how many children you have, your political beliefs, what you think is funny and what scares you. The algorithms vacuum all the pictures you provide to strengthen their facial recognition capabilities. It’s called artificial intelligence, computers that recognize you by skimming through any picture or video.
It gets worse. The algorithms have the ability to leverage billions of user profiles to determine the outcome of elections, and the fate of governments around the world. On the day of an election, the algorithms may send out voting reminders to a certain subset of users. These are users, like you, that the algorithms believe will vote for their favorite candidate. A candidate that will help the company grow to become even more powerful. At the same time, the algorithms may choose to hide information about a candidate opposed to the dominant social media company. They may block relevant information about the opposition before the election, thereby preventing a non-favored candidate from persuading the public. In this way, the social media behemoth has the power to flush detrimental information down the memory hole. This company has the power to determine what users like you know and don’t know about the world.
***
The World’s Store
While absorbing the double whammy about the search engine and the social media company, a third bombshell is dropped. Most people with access to a computer, people like you, do all their shopping on the global computer network. You buy everything from food, to clothes, to your furniture inside the boundaries of the world’s store. This giant shopping store also operates the majority of computers that store the information of the global computer network. Ironically, despite the fact that you buy all your books from the world’s store, you’ve apparently forgotten about Orwell’s novel, 1984. If you hadn’t, you would know better than to place a listening device from this giant retailer inside your home.
This listening device obeys your commands, such as playing music or turning off the lights. At the same time, the device also records every conversation in your home, your car, and your office, sending it back to the busy bodies inside the global headquarters of the world’s store. To add insult to injury, the world’s store offers you a bribe to provide your biometric data, such as your palm print. You are promised that it will make your life easier by allowing you to pay for merchandise with a wave of a hand. No more need for cash or credit cards. All of your biometric data will be placed on the computer servers of the world’s store. No one knows how your information is to be used beyond the stated purpose? Why are you providing such sensitive personal data so willingly? Once again, it’s all about convenience.
***
The Secret to Life
The sun has gone down and you’re already regretting making the journey into the future. You must go back and warn the others. But before you do, you need to learn more about this topsy-turvy world that may become your future. Another shoe drops. One of the handful of companies in control of the future, the one that operates the search engine, has also invested in a project to discover the secrets to a long life. The company management wants to learn why some people live longer than others. Perhaps the owners want to extend their lifespan along with the lives of their major shareholders. They have spent billions of dollars, using computers to sort through genetic data that will isolate the factors that allow people to live longer and healthier lives. Will they share this information with you, or will the search engine’s managers sell the precious findings for a large fortune? Who the hell cares, it’s time to leave!
***
The Return to the Past
“That’s only the tip of the iceberg.” Your host says with a macabre grin.
“Please, no more. I had enough.”
“But I haven’t told you about the other applications of artificial intelligence, such as Deep Learning.”
“Deep what?”
“Deep Learning. These are computer programs that use information about you, your shopping preferences, your internet browsing habits, your favorite books, your vacations, and your politics, putting it all together to understand what you enjoy and what makes you tick.”
“Let me guess, in return my life becomes even more comfortable?”
“Not exactly. They use the data to keep you staring at the computer screen for hours, recommending products that you don’t need, but you won’t be able to resist. The goal is to make you spend all your time in front of a computer so the advertisers can sell you more products.”
“This is worse than 1984. At least in Orwell’s novel people had an excuse. Orwell’s Big Brother tortured those who did not cooperate. The people of your world actually enjoy giving up their freedom and their privacy. We must leave this awful place immediately.”
“Are we going back to 1984, to warn the others?” Your host asks.
“No, further back. We need to suggest a few more provisions to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. We must prevent these privatized Big Brother’s from ever coming into existence.”
“1890?”
“Exactly!” you say before the two of you run over the lawn, through the darkness, to step inside the time machine.
THE END