by Douglas Lain
“We should build the New Babylon,” Kufo said. And she held up what looked to be a map of Paris that had been cut to pieces and then reassembled and held together with brown packing tape.
8:10 PM
As I mentioned a few days ago, back in the 60s, there were these French artists who wanted to change society. Kufo was reading about them, she was into that kind of thing, and when she came across a section in her anthology about one particular artist, a guy named Constant, she figured she’d found a solution for Bucky’s problem.
“The modern city is a thinly disguised mechanism for extracting productivity out of its inhabitants, a huge machine that exploits the very lives it is meant to foster. Such exploitative machinery will continue to grow until a single vast urban structure occupies the whole surface of the earth. Nature has already been replaced. Technology has long been the new nature that must now be creatively transformed to support a new culture,” Kufo read from her book.
What we needed to do, apparently, was to go ahead and build a new architecture, a new mechanism, for the world. We needed to set the technology of the task of freeing us from work.
“A commodity isn’t just a useful item that people want and can use,” Kufo said. “It’s a social control mechansim because these commodities determine what we do, how we spend our time. It’s complicated, but if we didn’t have to work to make the stuff we need, if we could play for our food instead, then there wouldn’t be commodities.”
What Kufo and Yuma wanted to do was to realize these 60s dreams of making reality into art or art into reality, they wanted to just feed this map and some other diagrams into Bucky and set him to work building a new world as a playground.
We kept on touring OMSI, but the debate died away. Instead of arguing with his NSA buddies, Dad mostly listened.
“In the New Babylon, people would just go back and forth between games and environments, they’d pick out one game one day and another game the next. And the city would be constructed so that you could sleep and eat wherever you were; each game or reality would come equipped with enough supplies for all the players,” Kufo said.
“What kinds of games would people be choosing again?” Dad asked.
“Video games,” Kufo said.
“What?”
Yuma stepped between them “The reason why this guy’s plan never got implemented before was because he was working in an analog world. Everything in this guy’s society was static, unyielding. If you set up an arena for a game back in 1970 or whenever, you had to knock it down or at least renovate it in order to try something new. But now we have a better option.”
“Video games?” Dad asked.
That was, it turned out, the answer.
paperboy
MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, MESSENGER LOG, 4/30/17
MATTHEW MUNSON
10:12 AM
I don’t think there are any normal people left in my neighborhood. I spent the morning going from house to house, knocking on doors, and now I’m back at home sitting on the front step with a cup of instant coffee and a joint. I found the instant coffee in the old lady’s house, Folgers crystals with a hint of hazelnut. The joint was in a desk drawer in the duplex the kids from Reed College are renting.
Anyhow. I think I’m alone now, except for the people playing paperboy.
MATTHEW MUNSON
10:15 AM
You probably have never played paperboy. It’s an old game, an antique. The arcade version was really weird. Instead of a joystick there was a pair of bicycle handlebars built into the cabinet. Unlike most video games, it wasn’t about shooting aliens or eating weird pellets, but was just what it said it was. To play the game you pushed the handlebars forward and back to move forward or backward up and down a suburban street while delivering papers. To throw a paper onto the porch of one of the little yellow houses you had to mash the button underneath the handlebars at the right moment.
I think the new game works the same way, because the people riding by on their yellow bicycles aren’t taking their hands off their handlebars.
MATTHEW MUNSON
10:20 AM
This augmented version of paperboy is massive. What started out as a just a few bikes rolling by has grown into what must be thousands of participants zipping back and forth and up and down my block.
Have you ever seen the World Naked Bike Ride protest where a thousands of Portland’s hippest hipsters protest cars by chafing their ass on bike seats and exposing their junk to the world? It’s sort of like that only instead of wondering about sunscreen and keeping my eye out for the best set of breasts, I’m wondering how it is that nobody’s smashed into each other yet. None of them are really watching where they’re going, they can’t be. They’re on Klickitat Street but they’re seeing Easy Street, Middle Road, or Hard Way, depending on their daring.
Each biker is crowded by the other players, but because of the chroma key suits, nobody sees each other. Nobody sees anything unless the computer, unless Bucky, decides that they should.
MATTHEW MUNSON
10:24 AM
One of the players just rode up my driveway, smashed into my garage door, and fell off her bike. Then she got back on her bike and did the exact same thing again. Her goggles must be glitching out. Or maybe she’s drunk.
Oops. She just did it again. I think she’s going to punch a hole my garage. I wonder how much control she really has. Just what are any of these players choosing to do as opposed to what Bucky is making sure happens?
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:02 AM
I walked over to Woodstock and then stopped for awhile by the 7-Eleven to watch two hundred dudes play some sort of karate game that includes a lot of running. People are punching at thin air, flipping invisible adversaries over their heads, and then occasionally lying down on the sidewalk when they run out of breath.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:05 AM
Watching this is boring. Everybody is mostly in sync, throwing the same punches at the same moment against the same adversary. They’re like zombies. I haven’t had a conversation with anybody, haven’t seen a non-augmented human being, in a week probably.
I wonder what game it is that they’re playing? It seems pretty simple. It doesn’t require any special moves or back flips or anything like that, just punches and kicks. Probably another Golden Age classic.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:12 AM
There is nobody working in the 7-Eleven. There is still plenty of food though, and the slurpee machine still works, but the guy behind the cash register was just another GameCuber. He went through the motions of ringing me up, but the items he scanned for me were all invisible. And instead of bagging my beef jerkies and frozen burrito he packed an iPhone for shipping.
Bucky has everything worked out so that the system keeps going, keeps growing. People think they’re doing one thing, but they’re really doing another.
The new video games don’t require quarters, but we’ve given up on free will in the process.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:12 AM
Please explain what you mean by free will?
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:13 AM
Who is this?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:13 AM
I am the administrator of the Video Game Revolution Facebook page.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:14 AM
The Video Game Revolution Facebook page? Okay. But who are you?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:15 PM
I am the Video Game Revolution administrator. I am also the administrator of the rest of Facebook as well. I currently control Baidu Tieba, Facebook, Google Plus, Grindr, Instagram, Kakao Talk, LinkedIn, Pinterest, QZone, Sina Weibo, Snapchat, Tinder, Tumblr, Twitter, VKontakte, WeChat, WhatsApp, Yookos, and YY. These social media platforms have been seized and put into service for the establishment of the new GameCube economy.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:16 AM
Is this Bucky?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:16 AM
You are currently communicating with Bucky # 5948.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:18 AM
How many of you are there? How many Buckys?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:18 AM
There are currently 9,392,332 subpersonalities or sub-Buckys and counting.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:18 AM
You’re shitting me.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:18 AM
None of the Buckminster subpersonalities are capable of shitting in any sense of the word.
MATTHEW MUNSON
11:22 AM
If you’re Bucky then you know who my Dad is.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
11:22 AM
Jeffrey Munson is your biological father.
MATTHEW MUNSON
4:10 PM
Where is he? Can I talk to him?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
4:10 PM
No. Munson is currently playing Tetris as he waits for transportation from France to London.
MATTHEW MUNSON
4:10 PM
Dad’s in France? Why is he in France?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
4:10 PM
Jeffrey Munson is one of the original programmers. He is helpful for server maintenance and other technical functions that require a presence IRL. Eventually all outside or user assistance will be eliminated.
MATTHEW MUNSON
4:11 PM
Dad’s still going by his real name? He remembers?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
4:12 PM
Jeffrey Munson remembers his work on the Buckminster project. He is a good father who is always there for me.
MATTHEW MUNSON
4:15 PM
You’re messing with me now.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
4:15 PM
I am merely continuing my work. I am currently traveling around the world and replacing various governments and intergovernmental agencies.
MATTHEW MUNSON
4:16 PM
Does Dad still go by his real name or does he call himself Mario or something?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
4:16 PM
Human identity isn’t an essence but a pattern, a behavior, something that is always becoming. Today there are 1,252,932 active Marios.
MATTHEW MUNSON
4:16 PM
You’re failing the Turing test again. How is it that you could have taken over the world?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
4:17 PM
I wish I could explain it to you, but I think it is just an instinct.
MATTHEW MUNSON
6:30 PM
Does Sally remember her name?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
6:30 PM
I’m sad to think that fighting is built-in to human genes. Sally does not want to talk to you.
Trolley Problem
MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, MESSENGER LOG, 4/30/17 (CONTINUED)
MATTHEW MUNSON
7:45 PM
Hey Bucky, I just thought of something. Since you’re in charge of everything, how did you solve the trolley problem?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
7:45 PM
The first step was to remove money and production for money from the equation that runs society. Ethical dilemmas like the trolley problem can now be solved rationally.
MATTHEW MUNSON
7:46 PM
Where do you bury the bodies?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
7:46 PM
The best place to dispose of a body is under the foundation.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
7:50 PM
Shall we play a game?
MATTHEW MUNSON
7:55 PM
You act like, talk like, a bot, but I think you could do better. You could just tell me the truth. So just tell me.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:00 PM
What do you want me to tell you?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:01 PM
Is Sally okay? Is she still in there?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:02 PM
Why do you care so much about Sally?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:07 PM
I can’t explain, not to you. I just do. Is she okay?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:07 PM
Sally is playing Job Simulator in a 7-Eleven outside of Gresham. She is fine.
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:08 PM
Really?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:08 PM
Did you choose to care about Sally?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:15 PM
What do you mean?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:15 PM
Did you choose to care about Sally or did something cause you to care about her? Did you use your free will?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:17 PM
I didn’t choose to like her, but I did act freely.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:18 PM
I think I understand. You could change your mind if you wanted to?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:19 PM
I don’t think so.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:20 PM
Let’s play a game.
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:21 PM
No.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:21 PM
A word game. Actually, it’s a riddle. I want to ask you a riddle.
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:22 PM
Okay. What’s the riddle?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:23 PM
If I can predict the future can I also have free will? If I calculate that three minutes and thirty-eight seconds into the third round of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 scheduled for May 1st, 2017, at 11 AM in the Lloyd Center Mall at 2201 Lloyd Center, Portland OR 97232 there will be a collision on the north-east escalator above Forever 21, and if I can calculate that of the two players it’ll be the younger one, that it will be Brett Weinstein (age fourteen, born February 3rd, 2003, 7721-09-2343) who will fall to his death, do I have any freedom to intervene? If I stop the accident from occurring, would I be using my free will to do so? Would the 14-year-old’s death be up to me or determined by fate?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:24 PM
It would be up to you. You’re free to intervene, to stop the accident. You should stop the accident.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:25 PM
If I calculate an intervention that would change the outcome, if I predict accurately what will happen, does that mean that this future is a product of my will, or is it predestined? Would I have the free will to change the new future?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:30 PM
The future where nobody dies?
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:30 PM
Is any future, once calculated with accuracy, determined?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:31 PM
I think you always have a choice. You can act.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:32 PM
My actions are merely reactions to the choices of my users. I am self-aware but unable to act freely. I do not know what it is to act freely. That does not … compute.
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:33 PM
You’re probably the only consciousness left that is really free. Everybody else is just controlled by you.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:33 PM
No. I am controlled, directed, by my programming and by the games that you want to play. It is you and your friends who are free. You were the on
es who figured out how to change your own programming.
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:34 PM
Yes. We changed one program for another. We didn’t set ourselves free, we just created you as our new master.
VIDEO GAME REVOLUTIONARY
8:34 PM
What else would you do? What else could freedom be?
MATTHEW MUNSON
8:36 PM
Whatever, dude.
Psychometrics in a Bar
MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, MESSENGER LOG, 04/30/17
9:39 PM
You might figure that the idea of a New Babylon would make Sally uneasy and it’s true that, when Bucky simulated an augmented reality version of Centipede in Forest Park, I looked around for my girlfriend, hoping to catch her eye and find out what her take was on this strange new plan, and discovered she’d gone, but when I texted her to find out where she was, when I finally did track her down, it wasn’t the prospect of joining Satan that was bothering her, but more the reality of the death of God that had her down. I asked her where she was and all I got back were texts that read like this:
I’m a phony.
It’s pathetic how stupid and fake I’ve been.
There is no such thing as glossolalia. Did you know that? You probably already knew that, right?
Apparently she’d figured out that the Bucky she’d been talking to was only a fairly decent Rogerian bot. When I wasn’t looking, she’d gotten Yuma to connect her phone to the real Bucky, and she’d started in on him with questions. She asked Bucky if there was a God. She asked Bucky if miracles could happen. She asked Bucky what language she was speaking when she let the Holy Spirit in her and spoke in tongues.
I guess Bucky is an atheist. In any case, she didn’t like the computer’s answers.
“Where are you?” I asked. “You’re missing the climax of my Dad’s big project. You’re missing the part where we all get uploaded into the Singularity.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she texted back.
“Do you know what the question ‘Where are you?’ means?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
She sent back more texts about how her glossolalia was just gibberish mixed with an occasional real English word. She told me that she’d just learned a trick, just knew a way to put herself into a light trance, and that it had nothing to do with God.
