Saturday 10 March 2012

SociaLite


A short story I wrote a couple of years back.

‘August 19th, 2504; I’m still fuzzy, but better than last week, and easily better than before that.  Clearer headed. Less anxious. The list helps, I think. Looking at it now, I can almost feel…something.  Of course, I wrote the list while still influenced by my eMote, and now I’m not, can I claim to be the same person? Should these thoughts make sense to me?
I’m not sure why I should feel there’s anything wrong with eMote. By all accounts, we’re much better off now than before it. More connected. And we, as a people, have wanted that for ever. Religious followers, patriots, sport team supporters, Marmite lovers and haters, everyone wants to feel they belong, everyone looks for others like themselves. Prior to eMote though, this longing for a connection was as likely to express itself as ‘fear of the other’ over cosmetic differences as it was in any sense of deeper brotherhood. 
I feel ridiculous, telling myself a history I already know, but I think it’s helping. Pinning down facts sets a boundary, a guide-rail. Even hearing myself dictate the words, the assurance in my voice, “these are things I know”, I’m sure pushes back the haze. As I advance through the tale, I advance on my own mind.
Of course, I say prior to eMote, I mean prior to the old Penfield. Named after an item in an old science fiction book, a ‘mood organ’, the Penfield required a stationary base, usually in a home or office, and the user, or users, to be in proximity to that base to be effective. As soon as a user left its sphere of influence, any effect they had been subject to more or less wore off.  It couldn’t be sustained.  
Nonetheless, it didn’t take long for someone to notice that people who used the Penfields together got along better for much longer than they could without one.
The first eMote innovation was to make their device portable, enabling people to remain under it’s influence wherever they went. The second was to have their devices synch up with each other.
With the Penfield it had been possible to have two devices running at the same time, each affecting a different user. Thus, one user could select, for example, ‘peaceable relaxation’, while the other could select ‘critical vexation’. Each selection would conflict with the other, causing discord, and ultimately leaving neither party satisfied with the experience. ‘Peaceable relaxation’, would become, perhaps, ‘tense defensiveness’, or ‘frustrated righteousness’, while ‘critical vexation’ would often find itself morphing into more of a ‘hysterical hopelessness’. The best outcome one could hope for in such a situation was that both would resolve into ‘weary resignation’, but such a resolution could not be relied upon.  
The synchronization element between eMotes was automatic.  If two or more users shared the same space, they would experience the same emotions. This, finally, was a true social application for the internet, which, until 2136, when the eMotes first came out, had had people ‘socialising’ mostly by sitting in front of a screen in a room on their own.
I sound like my old history textbooks…
Has it really been that long? Nearly 370 years since they entered our lives. And since then, only one major difference, the mood-glow, or SociaLite, introduced in the early 22 hundreds. And thank God for that. It’s bizarre to look at my hand now, without its reassuring luminescence of some cheery hue. Sub-dermal implants in the back of the left hand, which change to indicate the mood being experienced, which let you see at once that you are in accord with those around you. It’s amazing, the feeling of inclusion, as you join a group, and watch the subtle colour changes as your mood is absorbed into that groups. I can quite understand why alcohol, caffeine and other chemicals fell out of favour. The wrench that must have been experienced by both sides as someone jittery on such a stimulant, or mindless through some other excess, joined a gathering, simultaneously corrupting the group and to the same degree purifying the individual, must have been quite jarring.
Whatever I feel may be wrong with eMoteing, I am glad of the numerical tipping point, that if more than five people gather, only emotions in the positive spectrum can be experienced. The idea of five or more hot-heads getting together, egging each other on, and then heading out into the streets, or wherever, is terrifying. Who knows what may happen?
So, what began as a fashionable accessory, a ‘must-have’ item, truly became a must have item, through sheer convenience. Users found people who weren’t in-tune with them unnerving, and those who found themselves doing the unnerving found the social exclusion discomfiting, and soon hooked themselves up with an eMote unit themselves to see what they were missing. Soon, parents were having their children fitted with one at birth, so as to better understand the state of mind of their child.
Perhaps that’s it, my problem; after all, by opting out for this hour each week, I am removing myself from the fold, and alone. Should I be allowed to do this? I mean, I know after an hour, or if I try to leave my flat, the eMote will automatically come back online, bring me back to myself, but for this hour I feel so alien. Isn’t that dangerous?
Perhaps it was the realisation that I never saw a politicians hands. Any broadcast shots are strictly from the elbows up. This isn’t a problem, as such, because the broadcast medium emits an eMote field to ensure that everyone feels the way they should when the transmission is received. It’s just recently struck me as being peculiar. Apparently, though, the last big problem the politicians had was getting agreement to compulsory euthanasia once unable to work, and that was back in 2323 (a nice easy date to remember). But once people couldn’t work, they couldn’t afford their eMote tariff, and once cut-off, felt vulnerable and alone, so most of them were in favour, and visiting relatives, unable to empathise effectively with the eMoteless also tended to come round to the idea, so it was with some relief that the practice was adopted.
The only other people whose hands I never see are the technicians, who seriously creep me out. Not when they’re around, because they carry emitters which send a calming mood to all around, but afterwards, when I look back at any incident, because all I can remember is their gloves. Of course, they only turn up when needed, if someone is regularly accessing the negative side of the eMotes, and inflicting themselves on others, then the technicians will come to remove or limit that function on that individuals eMote unit. I respect what they do, and appreciate it’s a necessity, but wearing gloves seems so wilfully…other. What are they hiding?
It occurs to me that what I have just dictated is known to almost everyone on the planet, because these events are almost exclusively the major events of the world since the 22nd century. I mean, there were a few natural disasters, but people soon stopped talking, or even thinking, about them due to the negativity the subject bred. I know things happened, but I couldn’t name a location for or feature of such an occasion. But what strikes me now is that in over 300 years technology has barely advanced a step. Before that, as I recall, technology was constantly moving forward, gathering momentum, each step, each fresh discovery, forcing us faster and faster on to the next. Since the eMote united us, brought us contentment, we’ve slowed to a crawl.
Africa! That was an event. With global warming reaching a peak in 2194, the population had been dwindling for many years, I remember my whole class being simultaneously horrified by the thought of what had occurred and glad that we didn’t have to deal with it. There was a collective unspoken agreement to distract ourselves from the subject as soon as possible, and to never return to it again. I wonder why I’m remembering it now?
They understood, of course, that to send food was pointless. In that heat, food that would keep for long enough to be distributed was far too expensive. Likewise they appreciated that they could not afford to move elsewhere, and if they could, almost everywhere else had no room for them. What they asked, instead, was that for that last year, in which it was estimated that the great majority of those remaining would finally escape in the only manner left them, they be hooked up with eMotes, and the synchronicity field be expanded to cover whole countries, the idea being that the suffering of a few thousand people, and less each day, be shared out amongst many billions of people, while the comforts that those billions enjoyed be focused to some degree into those few thousand stranded there. Needless to say, those outside of Africa were reluctant to increase their own woes, and so the whole thing was mooted, leaving the Africans to die in solitude and despair.
This strikes me as barbaric and needlessly cruel. Even such concentrated suffering, as diluted as it would have been, would have barely affected my mood. Right now, I like to think that I would have been one of the few we heard about that considered accepting a unified field over the ‘net, and I even think I may have gone through with it, but I know, in reality, that even had I considered it, the mood around me would have prevailed and I, as did those that were there, would have given up on the idea pretty quickly.
I guess it’s for the best that we’re not constantly looking for the next big thing, the next advancement, the way we used to before eMote. Contentment has set us free. People used to hate their jobs, try to outdo each other with petty possessions, people used to yearn for something more, and often people would assume there was something wrong with themselves if they were unhappy with who they were or what they had, which led increasingly, from the 20th century, when people began to expect to be happy, to the recognition of various depressions, manias, syndromes and the like, and the prescription of various mood altering chemicals. Nowadays there is far less mental illness, no problems with addiction (what could be better than sharing eMote with people?) of any kind, depression is a thing of the past, and competition over material goods has virtually died out, since anyone bragging over something with someone in their eMote field would be sharing their satisfaction, and hence the emotional benefit of the trinket or bauble, with that person, too.
I’m beginning to feel restless. Looking at my list from last night, things I have felt I should be concerned about, none of them seem to make sense to me now. I thought my dictation was leading me somewhere. I don’t know who wrote these things, but it was not who I am now: ‘Crime?’?; What’s that supposed to mean? Why should I worry about crime when there hasn’t been any for over 200 years? ‘Art?’?; I should know that we stopped considering the point of art long ago, such a divisive subject would and could provoke wildly different responses within the same group, evening out as a kind of malaise, which, if the goal of ‘Art’ is to provoke a response, this forced indifference surely defeats the point. Besides, no-one’s created anything new for generations. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’?; Well, as I mentioned earlier, technological advance has slowed right down, so I feel sure that we do not need anything, although I feel quite strongly that I do. I’m hating each second that I’m not connected now, and I’m counting down the seconds until my eMote comes back to life. Can’t stop looking at the back of my hand.
‘Individualism’; The last word on my list, and the most puzzling of all to me. I can’t concentrate on it. I can’t think why I wanted to do this. I shan’t be doing it again. I’m starting to panic now, what if the eMote has broken? It never has in the past but…
I shouldn’t have worried. A pleasant warmth spreads across the back of my hand and a friendly green glow radiates from that warmth. I can feel my girlfriends universal love from the other side of the wall. The couple upstairs are watching a comedy, and I enjoy their response to it. Below us, a child is feeding his cat, and his appreciation for the love he receives is a special kind of buzz we are glad to be a part of. Even the lonely lodger next door, recently visited by the technicians, seems to be emanating bonhomie. My own joy at being readmitted bleeds into their collective mood, and we all appreciate how lucky we are to be a part of this.
It’s good to be myself again.’

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