Crypto-Dystopian Free Write
V4Vapid's holding a writing competition, to learn more visit:
https://steemit.com/blockchains-contest/@v4vapid/block-chains-or-a-conspiracy-writing-contest-iv-100-steem-in-prizes
And now without further ado, my very own dystopian crypto freewrite:
Murphy can hear a small critter scurrying about in the wall but pays it no mind as he's learned prey that small simply aren't worth the calories they take to catch. A distant memory comes to him from the world in which eating mice used to be rare. 'What could anyone have realistically done? What could I have realistically done?' he wonders. There is no one left for him to ask
The food ran out so much faster than anyone realized it could. People looted what remained and fought savagely, only to starve or fall prey to illness in the end. Surely others still walk the Earth. Surely humanity will rise form these ashes again. -but will they do so to only again burn? Is the cycle endless?
A mere 2 years prior he would have said 'no'. He would have said 'we found the missing piece'. He was so confident. He was so wrong.
The plan was simple, the existing system proved itself incapable of selecting ideas based upon their actual merit, so to Murphy it was clearly time to strip away everything people thought they knew about a system, identify what IS necessary, then build a new system around that.
And this concept in itself was far from naive. To innovate in any area one must dismiss the assumed to reorient about what it truly known. It can be as simple as creating the first ear muffs, or streamlining a multi-million dollar rocket. You focus on what you DO know and rework everything else around that.
Murphy did this with government. It's really only a selection system, it doesn't build the roads or anything, it only selects. And in a democracy, it's only job is to present all important information and follow the consensus of its voters, who in the name of democracy can make mistakes. Such a system sounds pretty decent until you realize it was destroying the planet's life support systems. Even running a cost benefit analysis for eating rats Murphy knew the old system had to go. Not simply because he was working on an alternative, but because he had lived to see the forces he struggled against, finally destroy the world.
Actually it was far more terrifying than that, evil took to space. Earth was too big and diverse to control, so they killed her. It was a cruel joke Murphy was still alive, the bioweapons they released simply couldn't eliminate 100% of the public because even if they released 6 that all have 99% fatality rates, once one kills its host, that host cannot spread any of the other diseases.
And where the others huddled together, Murphy did not. Murphy learned to stay away from others long before the bioweapons. Back when he worked on crypto networking technology designed to unify people, he learned how they would defend the system killing them like mindless animals. They marched to their doom like animals so Murphy simply could not avoid seeing them as such. But he knew some were still smart enough to see what was coming, and he devoted himself to finding them.
The masses would never embrace the tools they made because of some collective intelligence, he knew they were mostly just animals, so their network was designed the network to play off of people's selfishness; where once builders said 'come be educated', he built around 'come help us educate'. He knew people love to flap their jaws, and more importantly, he knew how to harness the energy in such a mess.
If each 'area' being discussed simply listed all the problems there, and each problem listed all possible solutions, then we could map out all potentials and make a science of experimenting with options. Murphy's network could go anywhere too. People could edit spoken languages, and holidays. People could type in the name of any random theory or city and see all the problems listed there. It was the most powerful technology Murphy had ever dreamed of. Suddenly all the chaos of the media and politics became as simple to parse through as logging into the wiki for all solutions. Their endless litany of debates because a force of nature, destroying the worlds filter bubbles and even introducing the masses to a potent form of conflict resolution psychology that was built into their crypto-network.
And from this base of omnidirectional dataflow, people were invited to build apps.
Murphy grimaces thinking back, so lost in contemplation he doesn't even notice his lips making the motions, asking the same question yet again “What could I have realistically done?”
Murphy didn't build the network by having money, he built it through cooperation with others who dared to dream big. Their own dreams became the first apps for their platform. And indeed these apps were all great. They were designed by people who genuinely meant well. The rules were so well defined for app builders he simply figured the future would be beautiful. People were starting to run for office as Open Party representatives who would be fired the moment they betrayed their 'extralegal' obligation to never betray 80% or higher voter consensus.
But the moment Murphy's people brought out the big guns, Pandoras box was open. The global power elite could feel their power begin to vanish and to twisted minds such as theirs, 'rules' are for their enemies.
They tried to attack legally and failed. The financial audits and agent provocateurs also failed. The network and its subsystems were simply too robust. False charges and literal assassination were also considered but deemed impractical, they understood how well the movement could use a martyr. -and how easily that could unite the entire world against them, 'the rich'.
They were still far from powerless however, so they sent in a woman to seduce Murphy, so she could claim him a rapist retroactively. He tried to get her to help, she did not, and he simply viewed her as another inactive human he wanted nothing to do with. She simply could not get close. Another agent was directed at a different key collaborator but he refused to cheat on his wife. Corrupt souls simply cannot understand the commited, for corruption is not simply opinion, it is opinion which is dysfunctional. Without dysfunction there is no corruption, and vice versa. Those who commit with every cell, have only managed to do so by attaining understandings. Therefore the corrupt never truly understand the committed, any more than the cheating student could understand the fascinated.
However the global power elite were not ready to concede. They shifted angles. Their attacks on the crypto network were failing because the crypto network was built around their weaponry. The media tried claiming it was some kind of unruly mob, but that only helped the network initiate more discussions about how objectively incorrect that truly was. It was backfiring. The Open Party was starting to succeed and with their extralegal agreements, simply could not be purchased or threatened anymore. The moment they betrayed an 80% consensus they'd simply be replaced.
They tried making the extralegal agreements illegal, and it would have worked like a charm but by then the network had grown and everyone could see the extralegal agreements were essential to their newfound power with the Open Party, so they defended them. Even after the judge ruled in the elite's favor, as they were paid to, people in the network simply found a new way to write the agreements. The fight would simply drag on forever, and it did so slowly. So by the time they banned one form of agreement, not only would it get used countless times before it could be banned, but the public began to grow increasingly frustrated, and it showed. The pot began to boil, this was the elite's greatest hour of desperation.
They began to brainstorm wildly, and invite an increasing number of experts to join them. Eventually a plan became clear, just as they moved to change our systems from the inside, we can work to change their system from the inside. Not in the traditional methods as had been tried before, but instead by building their own app for the platform.
Obviously they paid some well known programmer to claim it was purely their own idea, for how to make the system better. Lies to them are like breath. All the everyday user saw was ads for an interesting new crypto-network app. This one paid more than any others for using it.
People complained that it made no sense where the app was getting its money from, that something suspicious was afoot, but that simply did not stop people from using it. The adds began to roll in, glossy and ubiquitous, all the while the movie stars and TV pundits started telling everyone about how they use the app. They claim it is the future, and that the crypto-network really isn't the best place for it. They claim the crypto-network was just a 'primitive first step', and that it's time to move on. They move their app to its own network, and begin using advanced anti-encryption software, and other programs, to make the original crypto-network dysfunctional. They used that to convince the public the old network was made by people who 'didn't really know what they were doing', and they even use their new network to help people win some token political victory, the people gained 'rent control', which was painted as the greatest political and humanitarian victory of the century.
Their new, corrupt network was based on the idea of selected professionals 'curating the best ideas'. -No longer was everyone free to contribute ideas, and of course that was pointed as a positive, as if reading a few bad ideas was truly worse than losing the freedom for everyone to propose ideas. The media glossed right over that.
Murphy's lips were still moving, his brow only more furrowed. “What could I...”
China and other countries outright banned the old network. They claimed it was harboring terrorists. The US began pushing the same story to their own people. “crypto tech IS terrorism” he remembered the pundit saying. How could people really be so totally fucking moronic as to not realize the corporate backed network is a tool for the rich? How could they not see they were simply being bribed to hand over their one chance at making the world truly free?
He wondered that for years, struggling to enlighten the public. Others even started to think Murphy crazy, but others joined him like some kind of army. And in time they actually managed to show people the proof is in the pudding. Eventually the new network had to start benefiting the elites again, and that meant people had to lose somehow. The new network began to show its true colors in time, and the terrorism charges simply never stuck. The crypo army knew to be extremely careful, and had objectively only made a website using encryption, it was simply too fundamentally legal to create charges for anything. The rich could see their power yet again begin to wane, but this time they were ready.
The public never got to know about the secret colonies. They never got to know a damn thing. The food stopped coming, the plagues hit, and within a single month it was just the rats and Murphy, and the dark new world order recently taken to space.
@V4Vapid lemme know what you think