The Future Is Yours: A Novel
Page 7
SEN. BARBARA CAHILL (R-DE): What “work” was that?
BOYCE: The work of turning a single, fragile prototype into a functional, global business. I was eager to get out there and start raising capital, but Adhi insisted we had to take a beat and prove out the concept. QA testing, he said, so we’d have solid data to take to our investors.
SEN. BARBARA CAHILL (R-DE): And that’s where you began to encounter problems with the technology not working.
BOYCE: No, that’s not accurate. It wasn’t that it didn’t work, it was more how it worked. The issue we ran into was…unintended consequences.
CHAPTER 6
QA REPORT—3/4/2021
PREDICTIVE-ACCURACY VERIFICATION
Experiment 001
HYPOTHESIS: Data from the Prototype will hold true—in the sense that events predicted by it will come to pass, at the exact time and way predicted, and said data will be uploaded online in accordance with predicted/reported time-stamping.
PROCEDURE: Research team sought to verify accuracy using news stories published online. On 3/1/2021, we used the Prototype to search for and view ten different news stories from two days in the future (that is, 3/3/2021). The short time window was selected for quick and responsive verification. They were chosen from different regions, different publication outlets, even different languages, to allow for consistent results across variables of publication, and to ensure research team was definitively separated from any involvement with reporting of said stories.
The following ten news stories served as data points (full text in appendix):
-Mudslides in Malibu Cause Major Delays on PCH
-Florida Man Arrested for Assault in KFC
-Wall Street Journal Announces New Round of Layoffs
-Philippines President Duterte Threatens Extrajudicial Killings
-Long Beach Port Authority Discovers $600 Million Meth Stash
-Volvo Announces Plans for New Electric Vehicle
-Manchester Teens Arrested for Brutal Assault of Elderly Woman
-Cape Town: New Road Construction Frozen Amid Union Battle
-Dutch Study Disputes Purported Health Benefits of CBD
-Huawei Looking into American Telecom Merger Possibilities
RESULTS: On 3/3/2021, we used a regular Internet-connected device to search for these same stories. All ten were discovered to have been published exactly as predicted, with zero discernible change to the text or particulars of the content. We also verified each story by obtaining a secondary reporting source, which confirmed all relevant information. Additionally, where possible, we found corroborating media, such as YouTube videos of the mudslides in progress.
EMAIL–MARCH 12, 2021
From: Adhvan Chaudry
To: Nikolai Guriev
N—
I know you gave us an ultimatum about getting out of the lab.
BUT: we have now made some serious progress.
I can assure you, it will be in your financial interest to give us more time.
—A
REPLY
Assure me, eh? If entrepreneur promises were redeemable currency I’d be a gazillionaire. And I got Dean Bullock going full Darth Vader on me about freeing up lab space. But as you are a legit coder I will give you one shot to share some data that validates the financial viability of what you got going on, otherwise these boots are made for shutting your lameass lab down.
REPLY
N—
Attaching the results from our most recent experiment.
Keep this to yourself.
Pls don’t let Ben know that I showed this to you.
I trust you but he is very cautious.
I’m confident this will buy us some time.
—A
Attachment:
PREDICTIVE-ACCURACY VERIFICATION
Experiment 002
HYPOTHESIS: We can use financial information obtained through the Prototype to profit by risk-proof speculation.
PROCEDURE: Using the Prototype, we identified three stocks that were going to experience sizable jumps in the coming week, from the period of 3/5/2021–3/12/2021; specifically, two stocks that would have strong increases—NXP Semiconductors, which was announcing a new chipset, and Tesla, whose Q4 Earnings Report would be better than projected—along with one company (GM) which would experience a sizable loss, off the announcement of labor disputes with workers in foreign plants.
Based on these projections, we made the following purchases from a new trading account:
Purchase: NXP Semiconductors 10 shares @ 155.70
Purchase: Tesla 10 shares @ 305.11
Purchase: Short on GM, 10 shares @ 34.30
RESULTS: As of market closing on 3/12/2021, the prices for all three stocks exactly matched Prototype-predicted prices, and all positions were sold off.
Sale: NXP Semiconductors 10 shares @ 189.40
Sale: Tesla 10 shares @ 322.90
Sale: Short position on GM, 10 shares @ 29.20
For 1-week gains of—
$337.00 on NXP Semiconductors
$117.90 on Tesla
$51.00 on GM
REPLY
From: Nikolai Guriev
To: Adhvan Chaudry
You certainly have my attention. If these results are the real deal, they are Very. Fuckin. INTERESTING. Carry on with use of the lab, I’ll buy time with the administration. I’d like to reevaluate the scope of my involvement. I’m sure I can be helpful to you guys.
REPLY
N—
I appreciate your support.
However, now is not the time to bring you in more intensively.
Let Ben and me finish up our run of validating experiments.
Then we’ll talk, once we’re building the team out.
—A
EMAIL
From: Ben Boyce
To: Adhvan Chaudry
My dude…these results are fucking beautiful. It’s not a lot of money (yet) but it is rock-solid evidence that we’ve got the formula for success and we are gonna be RICH. And seriously it’s not just the money that I care about. It’s the fuck-them of it all.
When I was a kid I used to make-believe fight the bad guys and I would look at the newspaper to get a good fake name to give the arch villain, so sometimes it was like Hussein or Milosevic, but mainly I remember it was Dow Jones. That’s a damn fine villain name, almost as good as Dr. Dark. And my dad got a big kick out of it and said you got that right. I didn’t get why at the time but later on, after he lost his job and took off, I thought about that sometimes, and it felt like yeah, you know what, Dow Jones was the motherfuckin villain. He got my dad, but he wasn’t gonna get me.
When I was in college I thought I’d get one over on old Dow Jones. Spent my entire stipend playing the market, cause I thought I was just smarter than the rest and I’d beat the system. Course you know how that turned out. Broke as fuck, eating a lot of ramen, and taking on some extra shady-ass loans just to get through school.
But now we finally got a way to beat Dow Jones. Power to the people.
REPLY
B—
That is a lovely story about your dad.
However, let me balance it out with one of my own.
My father was infatuated with the American Dream.
With a belief that he could make his own luck.
But when he did not find that opportunity in the labor market, he looked for it in a Hindu concept: the wheel of fortune.
Only, not in his roots in India, but rather, at an Indian casino.
If you have not seen it at work, it is hard to convey the extent of just how unbearably sad gambling a
ddiction is.
Because the gambler is not addicted to winning, as you would think.
He is addicted to losing.
No matter how much he gets up in one exciting run, he will invariably bury himself.
My father did.
When he took his life, it was a mercy.
For him, for my mother, and for me.
I do not intend to follow in his footsteps.
I do not intend to pin my fate and success to chance, or investment.
To the roll of the dice, or the rise and fall of the market.
I intend to bet on myself.
—A
REPLY
Dude I hear you 1000% but you’re seeing it all wrong! Bc we have found the most perfect way to bet on a sure thing. These are not degenerate sucker-bets any longer. There will be no hoping and praying for things to go well. This is ingenuity and innovation providing a competitive edge!
REPLY
B—
I wish that were true, but I know in my heart that it’s not.
More specifically, I know those are rocky waters for us.
I’ve been digging deep on our financial future, and I have some good news:
a year from today, we’re going to be stupid-rich.
But I also have some bad news:
we are going to be under SEC investigation.
In other words, we already know we’re going to get in trouble for using this.
Every dollar we make in this way becomes a problem for us.
This cannot be our primary revenue stream.
—A
REPLY
Hey Adhi, I hear you on that, that said I am wondering, how inevitable is this SEC investigation? I mean, it’s not gonna come from the literally like $500 we made on this test, right? So you think we could figure out where, in the current projection, we’re crossing the threshold that puts us on the SEC radar, and just don’t go there? Like maybe if we make 50 mil but don’t get too greedy and don’t go over 100 in a year, then we’ll be cool? Or we pepper in some losses with our guaranteed gains? I get that it looks suspicious if we only win every time.
Point being, knowing what we know about the future, let’s do it different, and avoid those consequences.
REPLY
B—
You are bringing up a much more fundamental question:
When we see the future through the Prototype…
Can we change it?
—A
REPLY
There ya go dude, you just nailed what’s gotta be our next experiment, right? We pick out some event from the news that we see through the Prototype and then we change it. Like maybe something bad where we can prevent it. We can be heroes too:)
REPLY
B—
Yes.
But.
We should not try to be heroes.
To start, for the purposes of experimentation, we need to select something as innocuous and trivial as possible.
I have found a good candidate (see the attached).
—A
TUMBLR BLOG POST—“FARRAH THE FRESNO FOODIE”
Published 3/15/2021
I STAN This Frozen-Custard Stand
So picture this, fellow Fresno foodies. It’s last night. Hubs and the kiddos have finished off my low-carb chicken parm. And they are DYING for dessert, telling me they DESERVE it after that healthy dinner…and let’s be honest, I am dying for it too, been hungry all day due to IF plus Keto.
I remember I’ve seen Tony n Tina’s Frozen Custard Stand since it opened up on Lark Street at the beginning of the year. I was initially put off by the lines and rather garish decor, and feared it might just be a throwbacky gimmick. I’ve had a few people asking for my take, and was eager to deliver.
So we hopped in the Windstar and headed over. First off, the lines have died down, and it was a manageable 20 min wait. I went for the Death by Chocolate, a glorious confection of delectable excess, with chocolate custard, layered with dark-chocolate crisps, topped with milk-chocolate chips and sprinkles, along with a rich Godiva chocolate hot sauce. It was devilishly delicious, and I am a changed woman.
I also quality-tested the dishes of the rest of the fam. Hubs went for a brownie sundae, and the vanilla custard was rich enough to keep pace with the nutty brownie. Sam got a strawberry milkshake, which was so thick it took him a while of working the straw before he tasted a single sip. Yum! Kaylee went Cookies n Cream, and I tell you, they are REAL chunks of Oreo.
My verdict: Worth every penny, and more important, worth every calorie (and trust me there were plenty of those!)
REPLY
Yo are you kidding me? This is…I don’t even understand. Some suburban mom who’s reviewing fro-yo places in her area? I wanna get out there and raise $100M, I don’t see how this gets us any closer to that goal. We need big BLOCKBUSTER results!
REPLY
B—
Yes. It is the food blog of some rando in Fresno.
The point is: she published this/will publish this the morning of 3/15/2021.
That means she will go to that establishment and have that dessert the night of 3/14/2021.
Can we prevent this from happening?
If so, we have our answer.
—A
REPLY
Bro who even cares what she has for dessert and writes about.
REPLY
B—
“who even cares” is exactly the point.
We want the most inconsequential event possible.
This is all to know that we have the power—meaning, the FREEDOM—to alter the course of her life.
We start small and work our way up to bigger changes (IF it works).
So, I have sent her the following email, from a made-up throwaway address:
Quoted Text:
((Hi Farrah! We here at the Wilde Food Group are big fans of your blog! Want you to know that we would sincerely be HONORED to have you come by and write a review of Mulberry’s House of Pies, which is located in your area. Stop by tomorrow evening at 8, and we’d be more than happy to give you and your family all the free pie you like!
David Hastings,
Regional Manager—Wilde Food Group))
And here was her reply:
Quoted Text:
((Well hi David—that sounds lovely! Thanks so much for the kind offer. I know my kids will be beyond excited. Very excited to write a review of your establishment:-)
Yay!
Farrah))
So now, instead of custard, she’ll be having pie.
Make sense?
—A
REPLY
From: Ben Boyce
To: Adhvan Chaudry
Dude that’s cool and all but what happens when she gets there and there’s no one giving her free pie?
REPLY
B—
I called in and gave them a credit card and a fake name.
We’re paying for her and her ridiculous family to have a free meal.
Small price for proving the existence of free will, I’d say.
She eats pie rather than custard, and then…Future: changed.
—A
QA REPORT—3/16/2021
PREDICTIVE-ACCURACY VERIFICATION
Experiment 003
HYPOTHESIS: Data predicted using the Prototype can be altered. Events that are recorded in the future can be prevented or redirected through intervention, based on information gathered from the Prototype.
PROCEDURE: We selected an online posting at random, taking care to choose one that we
had no connection to, and that had no special significance in the world (wanting to ensure that our intervention did not create any adverse consequences).
RESULTS: Mixed. Credit card transaction confirmed that on the appointed date and time, the subject of the experiment was at Mulberry’s House of Pies, not Tony n Tina’s Frozen Custard Stand. However, Internet search the following morning shows that the exact same blog post was uploaded at the exact same time.
EMAIL
From: David Hastings
To: Farrah Wanekke
Hey Farrah,
I noticed that you came in to Mulberry’s, but then the next day you posted about Tony n Tina’s and said you’d been there the night before. Mind if I ask what that’s all about?
Best,
David Hastings—Regional Manager, Wilde Food Group
REPLY
Hi there David,
Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about you! We LOVED Mulberry’s, thanks so much! My reviews are usually delayed a week or two so I have time to write them (being a mom is full-time!). I often say “last night” or some such just cause it’s better for the story of it.
Hope that my “fudging” the truth doesn’t make it fake news. I’ll post about Mulberry’s next week, I promise!
Yay!