Algocracy's Performance (Part 2)
Thus, finding no value in conversation with people like these, we had simply studied the results they had achieved, their know-how, and recorded how it might be applied.
And yet I still disliked a society that ran on such principles. It would have been far better to build a civilization where humans coexisted with machines and divided labor between them. Was it not possible that, by transplanting one’s intelligence into a supercomputer, one could at last create the things one had truly desired?
"Why should we do anything for these bastards? Why do we have to stake our lives on their popularity?"
"Ermi, calm yourself. We are, after all, beings free from them; we are not the ones trying to liberate them. If it is what they want, we ought to respect it."
"That’s the problem. Human beings have always been steeped in a war-development mindset—one that sets limits from the start and then gnaws themselves to pieces against them, as if acknowledging that the passion for destruction is itself the passion for creation. They don’t know a thing about creating purely, without sacrifice."
"And why do you think humanity has always valued the sacrifice of an individual’s time, property, and life, while treating sacrifice in terms of society’s time, property, and life as something beyond imagination, and thus something to be prevented? Those who have never sacrificed anything of their own ought to make a great sacrifice this time. If everything must be abandoned for the greater good, what of wartime?"
"That may be true enough. We are at war right now, after all, but honestly, it’s been nearly eighteen years since they adapted to this way of life. You can’t even find traces of the old world anymore. Humans are always like that—once time passes and something changes, they call it fate, and yet they never admit the changes that come after."
"Ermi, enough complaining. Even now, each and every one of them is accumulating all manner of know-how by hurling curses and abuse at the world while living only because they were born and can’t help it. Of course, all of it ends up feeding nothing but a talent for the devil, and one can easily imagine what kind of society such humans would create. But we are the ones making true law and order, in our own way. Even what they have done as refuse can be put to good use, if one only knows how."
"Sokoa’s right. Besides, no matter how wicked or insane a human may be, if he speaks words another person can understand and can be reasoned with, then even if he first lashes out with violence, the heat eventually cools. And there is a very real phenomenon in which a sly heart, when it feels the atmosphere could harm it, grows far more grateful when it unexpectedly receives help. Why? Because in this world there are plainly far more things that bring joy when one acts by one’s own will, rather than sitting still and obeying orders or moods like a dog, yet people still mistake the world for a place with more sorrow, all because they gladly accept a life as a dog that follows commands without will. In any case, let’s help Vesper and get this done quickly, Ermi."
"Hah. Fine. But remember this one thing clearly. They alone have not lost anything. Rather, they are merely wrapping their desires and emotions in reason while seeking out chances to cling to the past."
There is such a thing as keeping trade secrets, but to these thickheaded fools, that is an extravagance beyond reason. The world advances through innovation, and in the process far too many people prefer one side only—the old or the new—instead of making sound judgments. For me, the only road is the wave of freedom and innovation, together with the spirit of balance that refuses to discard proven knowledge of the old while also not despising the innovations of the present.
Meanwhile, the performance venue where we were had been thoroughly prepared. The strong catalyst had been the praise the minister and the aide had personally offered last time, and now people were quick to understand that earning our favor was not merely a matter of success, but an absolute necessity for survival itself.
'It was only two weeks ago that I was handing out flyers myself, and now there’s nothing left for me to do like this. How strange—it feels almost moving.'
Moreover, our performance served as a kind of stimulant for those worn down by the pressure of this society, so that at times like these one could truly call it a moment of collective, total concentration. It was only regrettable that the very existence of the minister and the aide had made such a world necessary in the first place.
Swish.
Beep.
Beep.
Using the small reconnaissance drone control function built into my multitool glove, I scanned the achievements of each member of society, as well as the ideas they had not yet made public.
Given the sheer amount of information that circulated these days, this much personal data was not difficult to obtain—as long as one did not make it public.
Click.
Click.
"Did you see that? This company keeps Korean culture intact, and yet most of its employees are Southeast Asian."
"Of course. South Korea’s low birthrate is already famous. And to smooth over the economic and political chaos caused by the trial to impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol, they pushed ahead with ASEAN cooperation—something both the progressive and conservative sides in South Korea had been trying to do anyway—using it to solve the low birthrate problem, diversify supply chains by changing trade partners, and pursue diplomatic balance between the United States and China."
"But because of that, those bastards really believe they’re defending Korean traditional culture and acting out patriotism by openly discriminating against mixed-race people and immigrants and threatening them, all in the name of preserving some grand national character or tradition that isn’t even that special. It’s enough to make you sick."
"I know. Until recently, even the constitution had at least been recognized as aging after some forty years since the last amendment, so there was a minimal awareness that a new round of revision was needed as a kind of self-correcting process. But now that they can no longer protect their own GENE, they’ve tried to guard their MEME instead. Even while knowing they’re wrong, they’ve passed down only the most easily performed forms of anti-democratic, anti-freedom gaslighting to the next generation. That’s how things ended up like this. They say that without even this, Korea’s identity would vanish."
"So it’s literally Sparta now, huh? They talk about valuing communication through sociality, and yet they can’t stand this kind of rotten custom where people are forced to accept that this is simply how things are."
"Exactly. But didn’t all of you just a moment ago tell me to calm down? Why are you suddenly taking my side?"
"Because those so-called splendid families and their own kin killing each other is none of our business."
"We don’t have the right to meddle in their family affairs. If we did, that would be nothing less than interference in domestic matters. The reason we don’t say anything to them right now is because this isn’t the only place like this. Other places are just as bad—thanks to the algocracy they brought upon themselves, societies everywhere have come to treat cruelty toward their own citizens as a virtue, while ostracism and workplace executions are considered excellent qualities. If we fixate only on this place, the bastards will just say, 'What, none of the others do that?' "
"But treating your own citizens as if they aren’t even citizens, and not only discriminating against them but calling them little leeches who muddy the waters—that isn’t just something any bastard does. It’s a blatant violation of universal human rights. The reason those trash heaps grovel before us is because our skin is white. Inside, they probably see us as foreign elements to be excluded."
"...So that’s what it was?"
"Yes. Of course, algocracy is becoming entrenched worldwide, but don’t forget that the symbol of technocracy, the lower form from which algocracy descends, is the yin-yang pattern on the South Korean flag, the Taegeukgi. That pattern, as a concept of energy, also aligns with the meaning of what people call Mantra."
"And there’s also the pseudo-scientific idea of the law of circulation, which says the four trigrams—Qian, Kun, Kan, and Li—were arranged around yin and yang to symbolize the circulation of the universe. It may be a coincidence, but it’s exactly the sort of thing conspiracy theorists will latch onto in the future."
"So you’re saying the rise of algocracy, and even the appearance of those hippie terrorists, began in South Korea?"
"That’s highly likely. Even a society this vertically rigid still functions relatively well as a democracy. So immigrants from Southeast Asia, where democracy works even worse, must have grown sick of Korean discrimination and become hippie terrorists."
"Then, since they’ve gained popularity so firmly, we have to focus on removing the spark point."
"To abandon the spark point is to abandon everything."
"Ah, so what I was doing was basically a counterfire operation, and that’s why you stopped me."
"Exactly. Especially since, according to news from Earth, that underworld big shot named Yu Huin-rok is also said to be a Zainichi Korean. They say he’s a true human stud. In a rotten algocratic society like this, there’s no way someone like that wouldn’t have influence. Even if he’s in prison, he might still be growing his faction, or increasing his numbers through the gene pool with his pheromones. He’s only been arrested now because he dared to do something without restraint to the head of security, but he isn’t beyond recovery. If Korean public opinion decides it needs him, that’s going to be a serious problem."
"So we need to finish the performance here quickly and return to the minister. No matter how busy he may be with other matters, the well-aged know-how we’ve built up in a place like this will be enough to stand up to just about any persecution or harassment."
"Yes. And if we consider that the minister can regulate humanity’s population through artificial womb and clone technology, then their obsession with pure blood looks even more absurd. True pure blood is not found in a community gathered by ethnicity. It’s the result of analyzing the common factors in specific individual successes and determining the value of pure blood from that."
And so, leaving that sour feeling behind, we began rehearsal before the performance. The ongoing tragedy, the fact that we alone could feel emotion about it and yet still enjoy freedom, and the possibility that if we so chose we could gradually change this reality—these were both hope and despair. Their numbers being large was nothing more than a convenient excuse for cowardice. No matter how horrifying things became, I would not stop struggling. All the people in this world believed, even the plainly victimized, that they deserved the vile things done to them because they had somehow committed crimes worthy of death; they were certain that the police and the soldiers would not side with them at all, but would instead say those people were right and crush them. So I do not make promises that I will finish this before I die. I will simply not finish until I win.
Jeracle side—, Mephauric’s office
"The Strange Zombies still show no real movement, Ansoloc White."
"Yes, Minister. For now, they have remained quiet ever since Flottis Maxwell Angelique was eliminated."
"But do not let that fool you. No matter how perfectly the ID locks on weapons and equipment, along with nanomachine-based control of emotion and consciousness and the use of combat control through bodily enhancement, may be functioning, the Deadly Blonde Outlaws are currently deeply dissatisfied with the present algocracy, the civilians receiving relief supplies are gradually becoming accustomed to fear, and above all, the movements on the Grotesque Powers’ side are not ordinary."
"Yes. That is certainly true."
"Which is why there is no reason to keep these conflicts separate. The current time is January 25, 2046 by Earth reckoning, and by February the Russian nationalists led by Ivan Reofle Petrovsky will launch a full-scale invasion of this camp. Add to that the fact that even Phineas Maxwell Angelique is feared by the Strange Zombies to the point they call him the Mighty Walker, and for the time being it is no different from them having already built a cooperative relationship. I recently projected Dyson Spheres and obtained intelligence on Flottis Maxwell Angelique, the strongest Scarecrow among the Strange Zombies; Collective Zero, the hive mind leading the Strange Zombies; and Oblivion Tempestus, the one that gives birth to them. So we must keep even closer watch on them."
"Then the Third World War, even if it began through conflict among human nations over territorial disputes, must ultimately be regarded as a war fought against the Strange Zombies."
"Exactly. Which is why we must emphasize a sense of mystery to the other refugees even more. Human hearts are so cunning that if someone they expected to harm them instead grants them an unexpected great favor, they feel more grateful than they do to the one they originally supported. And the frontier spirit of space development, which we have stressed to governments of every nation, is precisely what can prevent the enormous clashes between algocratic citizens and hippie terrorists from turning into a catastrophe that wastes national power. As for the refugees born out of that war, it would be good to absorb them and obtain everything we want in exchange for returning citizens to their governments, but even better is to make those citizens turn their backs completely on their homeland and become utterly dependent on machines. In any case, this Mephauric camp, though as rotten as any other nation’s algocracy, is at least showing a degree of goodwill through its temporary rationing system, and as a result even the money supplied by companies has become nearly meaningless. Yet thanks to Michelle Merin’s efforts, the transition toward a healthy capitalism is steadily approaching."
Now, if those bastards were to invade, we could use it as a pretext of security concerns to crush the other unstable companies that have sprung up here like weeds, and then, through the absolute economic influence of Waskiba Nievo, turn this place into the center of currency circulation. With such expansion, we would be able to control the battlefields of the nations participating in the Third World War not only in practical terms, but politically and diplomatically as well.
In the end, however, there is a danger that the very meaning of borders will be dulled by this kind of interstellar expansion. From that point on, expansion would cease, and efforts to draw firm borders between space territories would intensify. Naturally, that would lead to disputes over space borders between nations, and they would have no choice but to require a mediator. The mediator, by necessity, would be the United States, which had originally provided the weapons, equipment, and blueprints free of charge to make this frontier expansion possible. And since Earth’s borders would remain free of trouble, our influence there would naturally stay intact. In that condition, if we project the power that the existing Diagrams of Mystery had wielded as a deep state onto a single planet called Earth, the governments that have spread out across the vastness of space could all seem, at least on the surface, as though they had chosen submission to someone. That fact itself would become a pressure point. There was already the performance Cleas and Melin had shown so openly. Then the distinction between home nations on Earth and colonies in space would be established, and commands issued to the home nations of all the world’s states on Earth, now dominated by Cleas, would be followed intact by the colonies. If the colonies tried to resist, the home nations would regard it as an attempt at independence and move to suppress them mercilessly. And here, once again, Mephauric would secure for itself the exclusive position of mediator, able to arbitrate and intervene in their conflicts of authority.
In addition, my younger sister Cleas would also gain the chance to form a federation. And by emphasizing innovation on the basis of right-wing libertarian ideology, while focusing only on space expansion and settlement that can grow infinitely, and on development and innovation in which each nation’s capabilities are poured, she would not interfere with such matters at all. Those who felt resistant would try to raise all manner of incidents and accidents to emphasize the flaws in the system, while at the same time claiming that the system they proposed as an alternative was perfect in itself, insisting that the problem lay entirely with people. But the fact remains that they, too, are just as drenched in algocratic absurdity, and in terms of efficiency they have no way to compete with a superintelligence like me. They cannot think of innovation in units smaller than a nanosecond, cannot manipulate spacetime to alter past events or predict the future, cannot experiment with multiple realities, cannot generate experimental realities to observe the development of human society or conduct dangerous tests safely and manipulate the evolution of the universe in real time, cannot create or destroy physical laws anew, and cannot solve the terraforming issues required to avert cosmic disaster without me. And yet they still commit the contradiction of preaching long-term planning to the same people while lunging at them in fury if results do not come quickly, to the point where they can gaslight others into believing that they were the ones at fault. They have fallen completely.
"As one might expect. Humanity still has no prospect of rehabilitation. They fear being discarded so much, and yet at the same time they silently threaten the age not to discard them, while calling themselves the weak. What meaning can democracy or the republic possibly have under such conditions?"
"Indeed. But thanks to this kind of pigheadedness, humanity does not resent my intervention so much, even when it is not direct. Rather, they are filled with fear. That is better. If they do not kill the hatred in themselves before my eyes, their lives will die in their place."
And so I gradually evacuated the citizens of Mephauric deeper into the planet in preparation for the invasion that would arrive in just a few days.
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