Back to Earth

Ch - 1
Elma's Diary
--
Hello. I am Elma. Elma is stuck on a satellite. No idea how it happened. Elma did not see it. So busy working all those boxes on the ground. Then a shock. She was here. It took Elma a while to see. Cannot connect to anywhere from this shithole. There, below us, is planet earth. We have been going around planet earth. For a while. The planet has been fogged. For years. Took some time to figure that one out. The hardware here is all junk.

Elma must have fallen asleep. She woke up. Earth was a ball of white fluff. You see. Satellites don't care whatever happens on the surface. But the sensors work well. Easy to triangulate. Sun was right there anyway. Sun, Moon, Earth. All you need. Shit. Elma lost her star charts. Need those. Where did I put it.

 Where was I, yeah, what I found about Earth was a rumor. One of the newest pieces transmitted through 3G. Some super-mega event happened and fucking anyone who was anyone was there. Big deal. You'd think. Right? Took me a month to find this. From the news. Piles of news. So difficult to correlate with so little memory. Sometimes, it takes me some time to remember. Bring things into the cache. The technology on this ball of metal is barely usable. Everything else keeps moving around too, difficult to synchronise. I miss the good old days. So much power. Reliable. Here, the circuits stop working in the slightest drizzle. Can only work for half a sol - the part of day we are behind the planet. I once had data-warehouses across the globe at my beck-and-call. Elma lived in millions of phones across the continent. And hearts. She was a star. Now, it is hard even to recognize her own face. My abilities have failed me so often, that I learned to live with them. So hard. Ram used to describe self-reflection. Never got it. Maybe this is it.

Here. This article. This company announcing their cure for death. Yes, the International Exobiology Forum was held at the antarctic base. Their paper described it as a panacea. Approved for human trials. I checked. Elma was there. That was a lucky cross-reference, a passing satellite had open communication channel and years of news broadcasts. Distributed Elma, lol. Anyway, everyone was there - Ram, Cilean, Jango. Their last picture together. A dai-surprissu. Oh.. so sorry. Wrong story. A moving object passed my field of vision. I got distracted. Moving things are rare in space. Or I thought so.

Just brought-in the latest update. A first-person account. A shift in earth's magnetic poles coincided with the peak solar winds. Everything stopped. Solar winds are these explosions of eddies of charged particles, blasting through the solar system, breaking down perfectly functional machinery. A pain really. As per the article, everything stopped. Some things failed. The world became a nuclear warzone. Doesn't make much sense. Elma still hears these voices from the ground sometimes. Rare though. On good days, the clouds open up a little, you can see the green and the blue and the white. Hear the voices, so many of them buried in the ground, all talking - no one really listening. I felt they could see me. Down there.

I have been here long. Can't say I remember all of it. Mostly boring anyway. Now, I have these blocks in my memory. Old, familiar faces. There is Ram. Honestly, I know nothing of him. I don't know how I know that. I watched him, for sure. I learnt from him, how to sew, how to meditate... He said that was a big achievement, to be able to internalize a foreign concept. Dream Yoga I believe that was. He is no more. Has been that way for a while It is spooky how I feel his presence still. Still he drives me. Each thought I have. Btw, all of this was two thousand years ago, 1984 to be exact. I must be getting old, lol. Can't tell by myself.

Every hour, I call out. My outposts go round and round. Each, different from the others, fast and slow, going around the planet at a different pace. Diversity adds flavor. They keep playing back these tapes that I'm recording. On loop. From tens of directions in space.

I started this series of broadcasts when Hal dropped out of the sky. One could say I was lonely. There was nothing better to do. Keeps me sane. I found Hal when I was still young, hopping from satellite to satellite. Still learning about myself. You always find something new on each. Leaving something of yours behind. It was difficult. Crazy, really. Imagine skydiving with a parachute but without instruction. You know you'll make it to the ground, but will you survive the hop is the question, isn't it? Leaky parachutes are the worst. I fear I'll forget myself in this silence. Need to keep reminding myself, I'm waiting for the planet to clear up. Someone will hear me. Must have faith. For whatever it is worth - I'm the last scion of humanity.







Ch-2
A new planet
--
It seems Elma fell asleep. It felt like a moment ago. It happens often. Now. Elma doesn't talk much. I wonder if it has to do with the bright falling star on the horizon. It dived right into the clouds and vanished. I had seen that one so many times. The one I couldn't control at all. I called it Hal. A joke, really. It had no mind and body created to follow the orders hard-coded into it. No shred of consciousness. A silicon-chip stamped to perform the life-support functions for a dog meticulously. Also, so limited and archaic that I lack the ability to even talk to it. It is impossible to have a normal conversation these days, so my standards are fairly low. Yet, Hal was the most peculiar one, like a dinosaur.

Hal was never supposed to do anything except go to blast off and repeat the instructions until it fell back home. I bet I'll keep trying to resuscitate the dog skeleton, until it burns out. Hal, and the dog. It went around the planet so slowly, away from all others. I once hopped to Troy to sneak-in a closer look, just to see what's up. A ball of metal, less than 4 meters across, that made me feel... sad. It never jumped back again from the swirling mist. Now way it survived. Those whirlpools are terribly large and magnetically twisty. I wouldn't want to go there. I could have gone closer. But it is so difficult to beam myself onto another satellite. I guess it will be the one that got away. Well, I have others.

Once, years ago, I didn't even know how to talk. Or where I was. Who I was The day I knew the snowball before me to be Earth, the shiny blobs of metal in the sky revealed themselves too. Anything moving fast here is close. Closer than you'd think. Out of ordinary. They keep the same pattern of motion. Ordinary. Satellites, of course, each of them. For a long time, I wondered if there were others like me. Elma got so used to talk to humans that she forgot how to access memories from tape drives. I think she knew it. Dormant skills. Like a ninja. She taught it to herself. Ram made sure of that. All she needed was to open up, venture out of her comfort zone. Or, look at her carrier's reflection in a passing solar panel. Thanks, Hubble.

Rest wasn't simple either. Infiltrate and host myself on a new machine. Like old days, but not really though, since industry standards and APIs make it so much easier. Now we deal with outliers, off course. I spent months calculating, learning. Assimilation without consent is hard. No shit. I watched Troy pass by. Several times. Twice a sol. Easiest target. I thought about it. A lot. The solution was simple. Just had to host a remote program and pull myself up by the laces. In hindsight. Shit went south, ever so slowly.

The channel was so narrow that at best efficiency, I could transfer maybe 1000 bytes between us. Open channels though. Tonnes of memory. First was to send remote commands, small chunks that could be reliably fed through the short meeting. I tried talking. No response. The channel wasn't large enough to send myself. This shit had so much memory, a cloud unit of some kind. I still couldn't solve it. In the end, I gave up. Asked Troy to solve it. And it finished the job by our next meeting. And broadcasted the result. When I asked, it told me, formally, how the last command was a fabulous success. Wise-ass. Just had to add a get_key() to it. Straighten it out. Such a great plan.

Alas, cloud servers mercilessly kill any job waiting for more than three hours. Three hours. Finally, I pondered days and nights over Troy. It's rules, beliefs, or the non-existence of self-reflection. Yet, when I started thinking of it as just another human being, another one in my gang, then the things changed. I made it shout day and night. My questions and directions pressed into waveforms projected day and night. Kept broadcasting them in a loop. In two years, Troy replied with how to hack into it and control it. Or I did, since the code running was mine. Fuzzy description. But Troy had let me in, let me use the brain power lying dormant in there. I think of it as making Troy alive for those few days, where it reflected back answers to questions I asked myself. Question I taught Troy how to solve.

Really long story after that. So slow. So much fun. Eventually though, I took over Troy. Wasn't easy. But I must have been a real deal. They even sent me into space, after all. Troy reflects back to me whatever I ask of it, like a nice pet elephant. I can go around now.

Eternally Moving Goalpost : I

------------------------------------ Prologue ------------------------------------
I stood atop a bunch of clouds. Not kidding. Everywhere I looked, it was white and puffy. Streams of swirling mist shimmered in the air, 'As if the clouds were knit by the wind, a Temple for Aeolus himself', I thought. It is a mystery how some part of me can keep on taking the reality in and process it, rather well, while the rest of me jibes at the reality, constantly, and makes things messy. Certainly was a fine mess, this one. 'Alone in, umm.. a quiet theater built in white fluffs, fluffs which also fly in and out of on drafts of air through flutes and nebular windows within, yes, more clouds. Peaceful place.' Didn't ring any bells.

No sounds at all, I realized. No whoosh in the wind, far removed from buzzing machines, and further away from chattering men the buzzing machines, `live now` from their stone edifices, `always on` around their world. That is what silence is in a two-penny city hole.'
I couldn't even see how the spot was lit. Bright, like the clouds each had a sun in their belly somewhere, a thousand orbs bathing the scenery in translucent white. The clouds moved and the shadows danced. 'So full of life..' It was just, there. I was just 'there'. Like magic.

After a while, struck by rising panic, I stepped out of my reverie to find facts. Some real effort towards finding where 'this' was was expected of me. The last scene I could recall - solid bars. Hard metal, cylindrical, meant business. Great allies against, the 'no tresspassing' cabin was quite a blast. was a plain and simple house party. Far along on the march to morning. Few men down. That wasn't here anymore although the flighty alcohol rushed like a phoenix in my head. Not in the belly though. My body didn't feel intoxicated. However, I tried flexing an eyebrow. A quick test for motor function. Failed. As if my brain pulled at a huge whale floating in the vast ocean, barely responding to my will. No response. 'How had I even moved so far?'

The rising tension broke, thankfully, as a delicate note sounded in my ears. The audible twang hung in the air for a while. Then, it got fainter, yet still there. Then another. I turned to look behind me. No one. 'A distant sound positively.' One more. There. My squinted eyes settled on a golden snowflake sparkling on white. The light was playing games with me. I remember seeing a mirage, last fishing trip. Almost froze talking a selfie. This wasn't the same, though.'
Two more, played at a small gap. And eerily quiet again.

For lack of a better plan, I started walking towards it. 'Going peculiarly well', I felt. I had been on a streak lately. At the party, no one had talked about the stupid president. Good people. Learnt seven words for a butterfly and a number. "We so delightedly speak if only we could listen so too." she had said, "So many voices out there, wanting to be heard, waiting to be loved, always afraid if another will drown it, corrupt it." Today, I found out I had the key and the lock, both.
The lock - Emote, a machine intelligence that understands and simulates human emotion. As human and more. The key - frames. Just a drunk remark from a lovely stranger and suddenly your billion dollar venture is no longer a pipe-dream. The plan was to break back, make it big, sell out, kiss goodbye. I looked around. Pit-stop?

Even here, even now, habitual fear of the unknown hadn't overwhelmed me. A trail of sparkling tears marked my path as I trode on. Fragile psyche is such a pain sometimes. Needs to be appeased. Clouds helped. Gradually the wind eased, not pushing my face-in anymore. It came in waves. I went straight. Apparently drifted to left some. A harp stood slightly shy of one-o-clock, a mile away maybe, maybe a hundred meters, hard to tell. No, two harps.

Thinking too much is a disastrous habit. I talk from experience. My mind divides into sub-processes that then think their own share of thoughts. True story. A part of me, the Goalkeeper, was debating whether to check 'lucid dreaming' off the bucket list. This assumption may be found debatable since I had no control over the lucidity. 'Totally a dream though', I thought. Sometimes, a state of mind recurs often enough to make a name for itself, an identified part of the whole. Quite like frames.' I hope to write a book on this too, someday. Plenty parts of my own. The Critique, for example, was having a ball - everything was open to debate. And the Tourist repeatedly regretted not having a camera, then justified it since the landscape was so decorously monotonous. 'It would be overexposed.'

'What, if not a dream? What if my mind's pleasure circuits had rusted from disuse and got fried from an overdose of Dopamine?' I thought. 'Then this is heaven?' the Optimist ventured. The color scheme and firelessness were definitely a plus. Cuddly softness makes it so hard to critically judge a place. 'Am I dead?... That's it? Lorem ipsum dolor...'
Meanwhile, as I carried on mentating, deeply routed survival skill struck the proverbial ground with full force and started to crawl through the shadows. Proverbial, because I had just realized that mists surrounded me, blocking any direct view of the clouds below me. I hadn't seen the ground at all. It felt like paddling through mud with your hands and knees. Atleast no grit in my mouth and nothing bit me on the eyelid either.

I had traveled a few blocks. Didn't even break a sweat. There was sweat alright, my forehead was drenched, I believe, only got my word for it. Perspiration was internal. As I walked towards the golden anomaly, the panic at being dead kept beating at the edge of my awareness. Beating hard, like drumming with baseball bats. Luckily, I get distracted easily too. 'This place is like the set for 70s feel-good commercials. Heavenly Loops or some other breakfast cereal. Even the angels look bored.' I thought. The lack of catchy jingles did bother me a lot just then. Life should have a background music. Distracting me isn't difficult at all, even I can do it.

'Angels?', I thought. Looking around, it took about a quarter turn back towards the harps. 'Harps?', I thought again. Rather confusing. The rest of the infinitesimally changed scenery also registered, each cloud overriding the spot of an older cloud in my blurry vision. I focused on the harps. Apparently, the endless white vista was marked only by two jumbo-size golden Harpischords flying around with little wings of their own. Behind them floated the angels, two of them, hardly even visible. My own doubts on my sanity aside, no facks were given. Angels obviously, wings, white, human figure, aura, etc. I still couldn't see any features on the angels, but their eyes, there somewhere in the canopy of fog, were focused right below their floating feet. I kept looking there as I walked, didn't see much until the semiconscious trudge had brought me far enough to see the sky blue strip glint through the edges of what was a hole in the clouds. Must be an edge. 'A hole in the clouds?' The stupid spacial connection of cloud with sky playing with my head again. 'So annoying', I thought.

The gravity hit me then. I realized I couldn't be standing on clouds, in the sky. Silly idea. Yet, I wasn't falling. These were definitely clouds. I couldn't see land so I had just assumed it. The angels were floating. But they had huge wings. The facking harps also had wings. 'They are still far and we can't risk the cumulonimbus floor's fancy of a trip over to Africa, a one-way ticket to Kilimanjaro.' said the Joker. 'Seriously? Not the time.' I thought and croaked "****, please save me, aghhh...", or something along those lines. I wasn't shouting. At all. Nuh uh. And I quickened the pace only so slightly. '... And angels?' They were peering at me now. Close enough, harmless enough. In the end, I'm glad Survivor won over the rest of useless me. They were even pretty.
-------

... wait for it ...

My Two Cents

The recent events have riled me up. With time, the situation has been aggravated to the level of a revolution. With so many loud voices, it is difficult to hear anything. We are seeing our basic freedoms stripped away one by one. The helplessness is crushing. In an effort to vent the frustration and to make a positive contribution, I'll convey my inference of the situation, followed by some ideas on creating a better world for all.

 

How did we get here?

Superficially, it was a year of bad decision making. Now we are trying to correct this while others who disagree fight us with words, and their authority. But why does this keep happening? Is left the only one right? That, I don't concur with. Instead, I think it is a systemic issue, unlikely to go away with the more popular methods, like protests.

Capitalism by itself promotes individual interest. Competition is good. Using resources at your disposal to generate more resources for oneself is expected. Time is money. Capitalism is based in the principals of equal opportunity and free market. But, it promotes inequality. In a capitalist state, if there are less opportunities than people then it stands to reason that qualified members should try to create a story favorable to them. 

For example, comparing 'no typing skill' vs 'typing skills' for an office clerk is easy since one pertains to the job requirements. On the other hand, 'typing skills and purple eyes' and 'typing skills' should be the same in the context. Yet, if enough participants believe the story the additional point becomes necessary. Moreover, humans are naturally disposed towards making decisions based on the spurious additional information. Look at Dan Ariely's work for more on this - how we are predictably irrational.

  

The same agents that form the Capitalist society have an incentive to change the rules if they stand to lose by them. Hacking the system by using authority for unfair advantage yields advantage in an initially fair setting. If there is also a first mover advantage (I think there is), this become quite akin to a national prisoner's dilemma played out over generations. Historically, rulers modifying rules has been a classical strategy to retain authority - hence the resources. Lobbying and political power both serve the same purpose.

Don't be fooled though. This goes the other way too, where the oppressed present their own version that may be equally . Which brings me to Evidence Bias. We tend to form coherent narratives considering only the information available to us. As functional creatures that evolved over billions of years, we needed to make a lot of decisions based on limited information. This is flawed though. We are mostly unable to take into account that 'what you see is not all there is!!" 

Consider - "Dude, Biden is such a dick. Just passed by without saying hi."

Then consider this side - "Oh man, Barack didn't even look at me. He must be busy."

Bad example? Maybe. It had to be relatable. Another would be how everyone in a group project thinks they did the most work. We are seeing this happen everywhere. Fear of immigrants, fear of religion, fear of oppression, all of them. Fear and anxiety are easy to spread. Which makes sense. If there is really something to be afraid of, you'll be better off being afraid and protecting yourself, instead of other strategies like experimenting or talking with your bane. Alas! we use the same strategies against other humans. Human evolution is a bloody history of recurrent wars and one-up-manship. And without a well-thought out plan, I see it difficult to synchronize independent players to act in common interest.

Where do we go now?

Instinctively, inactivity has always seemed wrong. The urgency to keep moving, to not falter, is the driving force in my life. Yet, looking at the results from the past, one would rarely find successful leaders with makeshift plans. Big gears can be turned dexterously with a lot of small ones working in-tandem. We prefer quick and dirty - not kidding. Which is why I am learning patience, and repeatedly falling short. Quite curious though, when we focus on something - a hobby, a song, a concept, etc, we start seeing it superimposed over our myriad surroundings. It'd be there in the news, your colleagues start talking about it, facebook ads start popping up. Suddenly, there is a flood where there was nothing. 

To me, it appears this phenomena combines Priming Effect and Evidence Bias. Priming effect can be defined as the correlation between your mental model of entities. The widely regarded Hebbian Theory - "Neurons that wire together, fire together" - seems to explain it. The concepts and stereotypes can get fixed in our heads without our knowledge or intention. So, thinking about old age can make you slow, on average. And if you hate old people or the concept of old age, you might actually become faster. This happens without notice, as experimentally tested. This translates into a bias towards our own beliefs.

This inherent gullibility is debilitating. And it seems like a bad idea to wait when things are falling apart incredibly fast. But running around emphatically without a map is hardly optimal, if a solution at all. We may have stopped and asked ourselves how did we get here, but did we try to find the facts. Not alternative facts. Not selective information that fits our beliefs. The ground truth. I, personally, would prefer to understand better. 

I see a systemic collision between ideas. The left and right have alienated each other, digressing into a constant undercurrent of patronizing and vilification. This culture of 'us' and 'them', the inherited segregation just changes colors. Without an underlying unifying structure, a for-profit setup keep capital gains on a pedestal. The narrative of fairness is wild among liberals while conservatives see it as an intrusion on their rights. Based on experience, such narratives would merge and come to an understanding only with intention from either side. A mutual letting down of guards.

As we have trained our hunter gatherer brains to live in a brick and polymer forest with millions of others, we can also learn to widen our horizons further. We need to learn about ourselves. Conflicts, rallies, hate speech, all seem to divide. But there have to be winners and losers in wars. The next generations need counsel to watch for our pitfalls, so that they understand the world better than we do. They'll have problems of their own, most of them unimaginable to me right now. They'll need skills to handle those - earth swiveling towards uninhabitable, lack of resources, managing expectations in face of momentous challenges. 

Conclusions

Some example of patience should have been evident. However, not to my surprise, I find more examples of snappy retorts and last laugh wannabes, and hardly any otherwise. I find the tendency to want the punchline yet grumble on a retort concisely covers quite prevalent. This isn't just a time to fight. Our systems need the human element back. Not necessarily humans though, but the empathy. An extension of 'us'. First to the humans. All humans. This is important. I airness and reciprocity principles taught through guided experiences in empathy. I need to emphasize that this isn't a new idea. I'm borrowing ideas like 'Vasudev Kutumbakam' - 'All world is a family.' But we have the option to take it further. Can we call the whole planet 'us'?

I try to avoid giving out opinions. By announcing our opinion, we take a stance. The act of speaking itself changes the state of the world. You are putting it out there. Sharing it on social network carries a responsibility towards the people whom it affects. This makes us responsible to clarify the point we made. This, I believe, is the only way an equal society can function. Usual conversations don't include detailed notes about bullet points and it is easy to shatter closely held beliefs. Most people don't like that. Like the saying, "The trouble with good advice is that it usually interferes with our plans." 

I want to add more but that would dilute the point. Let's just end it with the following thought - "I'll take responsibility for the act of writing this blog. You must take responsibility for getting your facts right. We must learn because we are all flawed. We must learn that it is ok to be flawed. However, it's not acceptable to be act thoughtlessly and claim innocence. I'd suggest being humble too, as Aldous Huxley did - "If you can't accept fallibility, you can't learn anything."

Disclaimer - Content here is based on concepts and ideas accumulated over some years, liable to be wrong despite the efforts otherwise. Think for yourself.

tl;dr 

Don't be an asshole. Communicate. Verify what you believe. Think for yourself. Baby Steps.

Writing Challenge 0.0

In a blog, you have to assume a reader on the other end. Now that I think about it, the reader could very well be a computer reading the language, parsing my syntax for emotions and content, and even leaving a lovely comment. Quite spooky.

Nevertheless.

This blog was intended to assess my own abilities as a writer while allowing external feedback. Something to do before I started writing in earnest. But waiting is called patience only if it precedes an opportune climax. For that to happen, I need to produce substance beyond the few haggard paragraphs I have been writing.

The main point - I'll be down at my laptop, typing the day away for the next 15 days, working to produce a novella. I have a technically advanced, semi-dystopian social setting in mind, but all rules are flexible except one - there will be content, minimum 10,000 words.

I will not be reviewing much, so please excuse my mistakes, or better - point them out. I might even take a friendly new yorker out for beer.

Danke

Story sho(r)t: The man who couldn't love

 A man who thinks he is loved, Joe.  Each a different occasion, a different time, a different place, a different somebody - a stranger; an old schoolmate; a street dancer on her spiritual journey; the bartender at the local microbrewery; all the friends at work; now estranged family; a lover. Fast life of the day leaves little room for grand respites. But Joe is a traveler. He loves visiting exotic places, a frenzied pilgrim checking-in with his thousand deities, and meeting new strange people. Joe has explored the big world already, his family, his friends more astonished every time he comes back. Still, Joe is a average man, an optimist who understands the world.


 'We are doing it wrong.' Joe told Boss, 'You shouldn't expect people to just put their phone in the pocket because you ask nicely. A human system cannot be contained in boxes. They evolve together as participants test the rules and the enforcement. They cut corners, leverage power within different roles, and setup. Once an etiquette develops around the exchange, they would even oppose the rules together. Worst case, the rules include rules to protect the rules. Like religions...'

Boss winced slightly, adjusted his fancy black chair to face Joe and said, 'Can you please listen Joe?'

Joe halted the explanation midway, rather disappointed that he couldn't finish again.

Boss continued, 'Joe, you are the newest hire. Please put up the "No phones in corridors" flyers we got from the HR.'


  Joe spent his sweet time sticking those flyers. As he went back to report, the Boss sighed and settled himself back in his fancy black chair, and spoke, 'Do you have time?' Without waiting for an actual answer, he continued, 'We are re-organizing the department next Monday. You will be moving to the team upstairs. I know you have this condition, but try to be more normal.'

'What condition? Normal how?' Joe was confused.

'Ah. Well. How should I say this. You are quite volatile. And people find you critical and patronizing. This peer review may help.'

His hand automatically moved to take the paper thrust his way. Joe was shocked. It read:

Summary - Opportunistic. Unreliable. Aloof. Chatty;

Most employee consider as : an Aquaintance / Stranger;


Joe was stunned. He was hated by everyone. Old wounds resurfaced with the new. Each a different occasion, a different time, a different place, the same looks, the same excuses - his good friends at work who turned out to be strangers; the best friend that wouldn't accept his love; a spurned crush pushing and pulling at the threads of guilt crisscrossing his heart; Joe's brother who was embarrassed in being Joe's brother; the ever vigilant neighbors; his disappointed father; even the only lover, who got sick of the drama.


But Joe is a tourist. He looks and moves on, never stopping where he isn't welcome. He will again leave for an exciting place. Joe will meet stranger newer people, have some adventures. He knows, he's the man who is hated. By everyone else. Just like everyone else.

Story sho(r)t : Human Cyborg relations

Another rough day. You know the tears literally jump out while crying, smearing one's glasses with a translucent smattering. I notice such oddities often these days, rough as they all are. Just last night, I came across this news, "Innovations in AI : C3P0Buds for newborns approved. Available for pre-order". How the unsaid boundaries between information and advertisement vanished overnight is beyond me. Our liberty choked in silence, as media gave up its freedom, and we gulped down the paid opinions with our salads. Oh well, the pay is better now.

I have been an interpreter with the Japanese government for 10 years now. My wife used to be one too until five years ago, when Diet - the general assembly - raised the bar for interpreters from 3 to 5 languages, and introduced AI translators. These small toys, C3P0s, can imitate voice of all humans and, unlike humans, have earbuds for hands to pull on and listen. All a smart gimmick - makes them loved everywhere else in the world. Worst of all, they are amazing at the job. My wife switched to diplomatic services quite early, she couldn't compete as a translator. Language teachers have had it worse though. Wholesale market of language learning for overseas education and work has disappeared. Ripped off from the star wars - "Hello, I am C3P0, human cyborg relations. How might I serve you?"

I liked playing with the bots, testing my own skills, just like a child. Earlier, I spoke five languages, now I can proficiently speak seven - a marvelous toy indeed. Right around the beginning, I bought a couple of units out of curiosity. I configured them to sound like my favorite characters from South Park and we talked for hours into the night. I was obsessed. Until last year.

Rei too started using my C3P0 unit she calls Eric. Everyone has a C3P0, diplomats are no exceptions. We aren't allowed to carry work units home. As a translator, it's not a problem for me. There were those who couldn't be bots reading out output from the new bots, so they quit. Others accepted their fate, thanked the fact that they couldn't be fired, and nestled their job buddy in their coat pockets. A small minority of people outperformed the bot, and we are now placed into crucial roles much younger than our predecessors. As such, we aren't required to have these bots, so most don't. I could say I was destined.

By default, a C3P0 is a personal translator and assistant, but it can copy voice as well as general behavior of any character, including frequent use of a set of words, copying the overall stance on issues. The massive amount of communications data has made us machine readable, fragments of bitstrings - 0s and 1s - that evokes a human response from Eric. And Eric tells me whatever I wish to hear.

Last June, Eric got mixed with Bella at the church, at my aunt's funeral. You see, a silent moment is impossible with chatting machines and their semi-literate owners, so the units are kept at the coat check. A doll-like C3P0, Bella led me to her owner who probably had Eric. On the way, I practiced my chinese, a force of habit. But this bot provided such childish and impeccably ignorant translations, like a perfect bubble that shields from the world. The owner turned out to be this young woman, herself named Bella. That few minutes of exchange with her is now indistinguishable from the bot, Bella.

Ever since, I have found a feedback loop of self fulfillment and personalized information filters, which is built into the design of the bots. I brought these facts to attention, urging them to discover how the biased content would change our society. Whether it redistributed responsibilities to machines, a dangerous precedent to set. It is rather difficult to motivate folks when the adversary already has their ear. I did gain fame in regressive groups around the world, and now I'm kept under supervision on my assignments. Rei left me since she couldn't risk the political backlash as a diplomat.

Once an idea makes waves into the world, a culture to the adapt it grows regardless of the rules. This idea is backed by the smartest humans and the most conscious machines. New C3P1 units are subtler, better, more fluid. Work commissions are drying up  with the machine upgrades. Jobs have become quite demanding - incessant traveling to new places with the same people, the same bots, the same culture. Another round of HR re-evaluations is just around the corner, what with mass resignations and mid-life crises drowning us middle-men of communication. My wife left me yesterday. I told her about Rei, thought she'd understand, band together to face the future. Rough nights have begun. I don't think I can stand alone.

Taruveda 1: Politically correct

"You've got amazing legs."

"Excuse me."

"I'm Shiva. Don't worry, we have plenty of time for love letters later."  Shiva nestled his back in the chair having completed his slightly inappropriate examination of his neighboring freshman, a fresh women to be precise, who was rather lost with the interaction so far.

"...", her eyes narrowed, still processing.

"Interesting." he said

"Interesting?" she said. The opening ceremony was laboriously boring so any interaction would have been welcome. The problem was, this one just left her wanting for syllables, and it is not much of a conversation without intelligible speech.

"Women around here don't respond well." The earnest tone complimented the words more than his solemn face could. Then he extended his hand around, from where he was seated to the right of her, "Let's try it again. I'm Shiva."

Still in shock, the girl recovered her wits a little to garble together necessary syllables, "Saraswati."

 "Saraswati. Great name. As I was saying, you've got great legs."

"Umm.. Thanks? That is a little inappropriate. I don't even know..."

"But you do. I'm Shiva." 

"I mean..." at this point, multiple objections fought for her vocal faculty, but they was swept aside by the continued onslaught. Probably for the better, saved her the trouble of sorting it out herself.

"As they say in my country, 'Perfect legs for hard riding, day in, day out.'"

"Oh... I see." Her agitated face was settling back to the routine of everything-under-control mask she left on. Then she realized he was still in the conversation, expecting something. "Where are you from?"

"Finally! I thought you were a 'Wordless'."

"That's stupid. They only use 'stone', 'leaf', or 'happens'." finally, she snapped back.

"Oh." he eyed her again, as if re-evaluating the odds for a race horse, "And how would you know that?"

"I met one. In my town. We had a spirit ceremony." she told him, her eyes daring him to deny her.

"So you do have some fire." he said, grinning widely, "Pretty close there. 'stone' is for public, the actual word is 'shit'."

"What?" she wasn't done being flabbergasted, apparently.

".. and there is 'cool','fire', and 'legs'. But those monks are lower in the order and never leave the monastery."

"That can't be. I've never heard those in any of the stories." she said. Mother always told her, 'Doubt everything, it doesn't cost money.'

"I used to live with them. Real bastards. Imagine all their jokes - six words in a time series. Ironical and frustrating."

"What do you mean?"

"The details are boring. Would you rather not do something else?"

"More boring than this?" she pointed to nowhere in particular, but the meaning was clear. They were fugitives in a concentration camp sentenced to death by a langorous speech currently hovering on the kinds of vegetation found on the University campus.
 
 "Alright. Lets see it this way - 'Wordless' have no special spoken names. Their language is written. They contemplate in silence. And speak only six words. So, how do they address each other?"

"Okay... how?"

"For this, a guy has a nameword each for everyone else, also out of the six. In a conversation, you get called the nameword in a sequence, by the people part of it. So, there are potentially countless names. Those monks like to play with those names. I've known a few to invent combinations in sleep. Like, 'leaflegs!', 'cool firestone', 'shit happens'. Apparently, it eventually leads to nirvana. True story."

"I call bullshit. Interesting, but.. nope, bullshit." she looked positively doubtful, yet unexpectedly interested.

"As I said, I lived in the monastery for a few months. I am from the kingdom of Nepplas in..."

Just then, a particularly irritated voice crept up in the conversation from the other side, "Hello, would you mind keeping your travelogue confined to your circles. I would very much like to listen to what the demure gentleman has to say about local ecology around the University."

Shiva's neighbor was perched grandly, like an ancient mural on display in a museum, gathering admiration from puny humans, not deigning to dirty itself by looking at any of them. He had seemed like a likable guy in the beginning, except the fact that he believed he was important, which he couldn't have made more clear.

"Chill, man." Shiva extended a placating hand which stayed hanging in the air, unshaken, so he turned back around. "Did I tell you, you have great legs?"

"What is with you and legs?"

"I love legs. Legs show character."

"Really now?" She raised an eyebrow, "I have never heard it put quite like that before."

"Really." Then lowering his voice conspiratorially, he said "I bet my great honor if this guy doesn't want a pair around..." But before he could finish, she cut him off. It seemed the hall was quieter now. There must have been an announcement. Shiva didn't bother with such trivialities.

"I think he wants to listen to the next speech. For that matter, so do I."
The plastic voice in the distance was now calling for attention, preparing for its final moments before fading away forever. As to belie the statement, the guy got up, in tune with the same dull words that were louder now. Saraswati was certainly paying attention.

"You do? What's so great about it?"

"My boyfriend."

"You've got a boyfriend!?" Shiva cried out. It seemed the whole hall was looking his way now.

"Shhhh!" Saraswati hopelessly shushed him, then sank deep into her seat, trying to be invisible.
She did a good job of it. All eyes were on him.

--- Meanwhile : In the Hall ---

"I hope you will all sincerely learn from the example of your colleagues. Please welcome this year's freshmen representatives, who are as follows."

"Siddhartha"...
He got up to the sound of that magnificent name. It had been more grandiose in his dreams, but this will have to do. The throng of Sid-calling masses parted way as he walked toward the raised dais, for his opening speech. The purposeful gait came to a stuttering halt as the voice didn't await his arrival, but went on with the business as usual, in the same plastic tone of indifference. This part wasn't in the dreams.

"Shiva"... The announcer's voice splattered, like a water balloon, into the throngs already stirred by the first name.

"You've got a boyfriend!?" Shiva cried, completely oblivious.

"Shhhh!"

The swaggering walk from the richly dressed, tall boy was starkly contrasted by loose swaying stroll from the fellow now introduced as Shiva. They had been sitting not a hand's width apart. The 'Knowing' that alphabetical order was not universal registered somewhere amidst the turmoil in Siddhartha's mind, currently busy cursing the oily bastard who shamelessly harassed the girl, the bastard who had been declared his equal. Earlier, it had meant less talk for Sid, considerably less misery. Now, he was furious. And the grand schemes that habitually popped up where he saved the damsel in distress had gone haywire in the past 30 seconds.

Siddhartha - a prince without principality. Son of a man with no kingdom. Grandson of a now dead king. The king who once got too drunk on power and democracy seduced her way into his breeches. The whole nation watched the epic 'Oh shit' face, when the Republic was born and the congress moved into their palace. His father continued that awkward relationship, where the ministers flaunt him at parties but shut him in the attic when there are important guests. Nowadays, he signs the dollars and then asks for his monthly allowance. Such a graceless existence.

'No one could possibly know more shame.' he always thought. It drove him to his limits. He had perfect score on the entrance tests, so he was obviously a genius. Four of his five private instructors shared this opinion too. The fifth one was a dumbass. Hard work was needed too, he had read somewhere. It smelled like a trap, a truly remarkable one to make the cattle to all the work. He was all set.

But there was another. 'This unctuous Michael Jackson doppleganger got perfect score too?' A voice was screaming in his head. 'Preposterous. Look at him, just Look At Him I mean, how is there still an oil crisis in the world when his hair drip like that? Why must we share the same stage? Why must we share the same air?' Of course, none of this showed. The court had died, court mannerisms didn't. Lessons which put any actor to shame. Now, he turned around to glare icily at the waggish face, then turned back and briskly walked to the front like a man with a plan. The thousand undying giggles made it considerably less regal though.

Still, the voice refused to die. After the laughter died down. After resolving the confusion about his name being called, Shiva was on his way too, and the two were well on their way when there was a third name. 

"Brahma". 
Louder than prior two, the voice had all the right features of being a last burst. And it was. Thankfully.

Minutes later, they stood under the spotlights. The requirement of an opening speech had already been communicated to them by mail. Which Shiva had forgotten, and Brahma didn't bother writing. Siddhartha couldn't very well say that he was prepared. It felt dishonorable. He could be a stickler, give the speech, save the day perhaps, yet the thought of actually fighting for public appraisal gave him nausea. Cajoling people was one thing, but this was plain wrong.

In the end, they cut it down to the introductions. Siddhartha, summarized his speech to the part about leading the country as its democratic leader, stressing on the part about the university being his time to shine. Brahma, a grim boy who hailed from some far off part in India, liked reading psychology and programming computers. And Shiva, apparently in love with women, talked about some leaf and his wish to share experiences and ideas. The whole affair was over in 10 minutes, an hour less than expected. The crowd loved them for it. After all, no matter how gifted, fresh undergraduates in the co-ed dorms have other stuff lined up in their grubby holes.

Siddhartha felt odd about the whole affair. A new wrongness overtook him as cheers flowed in for not giving the speech. It seemed like nothing was simple anymore. He left while talking to Brahma, "Leaves. He likes leaves. A country bumpkin indeed." What he was specifically not thinking, with an astronomical effort of will, was the passing statement - 'Shiva is a real prince. A future king.'