“Break it to change it…” - an Evolutionary Tale

The state of humanity was under siege—hardly anyone seemed to know—most thought it was just the same old bad stuff humans had done for ages.

Even the Rulers seemed clueless…

Certain signs were blindingly clear; but, most folks were so damned busy they couldn’t or wouldn’t notice.

Society, in the aggregate, wasn’t ready for death—certain individuals seemed to be—not only ready; but, actively working to exploit the approaching end for their own purposes; yet, they actually couldn’t see the end approaching…

Still, even though an end to humanity as it had been was drawing near, there was a new humanity emerging, slowly and privately…

Tim wasn’t aware of the new humanity—he was busy exploiting the old one.

He worked in mid-level management for a major social media company—what he liked to call, “My ever so sweet money mistress.”

Tim got paid based on how much successful targeted advertising he could arrange—tracking users so they could be fed more of what they indicated they liked—a reinforcing loop of behavior that made advertisers extremely happy.

Tim didn’t even imagine his behavior would facilitate the break-down of humanity—he didn’t even realize how much the tracking/liking/advertising feedback-loop was polarizing society—driving folks to find a tribe of fellow users and avoid other users….

There were many things tribalizing society, driving folks to separate off into clumps of disagreeable throwbacks… Things like climate change, corporate voraciousness, threatened pandemics, political insanity.

The polarizing reached much farther than most people realized—deep into work and play—infecting and damaging the ability to get along, except with their tribe—only their own dear tribe…

And, even though most governments operated on a polarizing basis, some of them began investigations because their comfortable usualness was becoming very toxic—moving forward with any decision became nearly impossible.

The government in the U.S.A. had done investigative sessions with social media companies in the past, focused on “privacy concerns”; but, since those companies dealt, hands-on, with large portions of the population; and, because their management seemed highly efficient, the Congress scheduled new investigations…

Tim was called into a management meeting—top-secret…

When called on for his opinions on the upcoming congressional fact-finding session, he said: “Just get them to accept the ‘break it to change it’ policy.”

When asked to explain, he said: “Convince them that their old methods of working within the political party system have become obsolete and need to change, to ‘break’… We show them how well we can control the population’s purchasing patterns with our ‘breaking’ of their behaviors to make them fit our categories, then cater to their new tribe’s predictable profile of consuming… Make them believe ‘break it to change it’ will, somehow, help them govern better…”

When he was nominated to represent the company at the fact-finding session, he graciously and greedily said, “Absolutely!”

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Tim’s performance got him a pay raise and a corner office that had a consuming view of the city…

He worked harder—progressively forgot about his family…

Eventually he ended up drinking heavily, every night, with the other managers…

The important thing was, he was beginning to do what most folks were doing—fitting his life into Only his tribe and contributing to the polarizing breakdown of his society, right along with every patron of the social media company he worked for.

It took a few more years for Tim to kill himself—overworked on the polarizing treadmill, spending no time refreshing his personal energies, a slave to the self-perpetuating cycle—helping humanity wage a war with itself…

It was ten years after Tim died that the social media company closed its doors due to a dearth of users.

After another ten years, most corporations ceased to function; swiftly followed by most governments…

Still, at the disaster-ridden funeral of the old humanity, the new humanity finally felt completely free to forge ahead into a bright and beneficial future—a future of unified, balanced living.

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If you doubt the ending of this Tale, do everything you can to live a very long time; and, take a little of that time to find a few members of our new humanity...

By Alexander Zoltai

From: United States

Website: https://nfaa.wordpress.com/