"THE MACHINES WERE COMING!"
"It had been coming for a long time; 294 years, to be precise. Joe knew that, before too long, the Machines that were currently engaged in beating down his door would gain full access to the only Gift that Humanity had thus far kept out of their greasy fingers. Some had seen the consequences of their actions from a mile away, but for the most part, the dissenters, for all intents & purposes, had been silenced. Long before the War began, however, the foreseeable consequences began to rear their ugly heads & the awful truth of what their conveniences might cost began to reveal itself. By this time, however, it was to late! The Machines had already become firmly & integrally ensconced ( 'entrenched' might be a better word for what had happened ) in our overall infrastructure. Almost before we knew what hit us ( generally speaking, anyway ), it was well-nigh impossible to accomplish the slightest task without some form of electronic assistance. Joe's aging parents, like so many other people, had retired into one of those so-called 'smart homes'. They loved the conveniences, such as a refrigerator that could order more milk when it got low, a toilet that would automatically clean itself every day & central air that was totally self-regulated. Why, there wasn't even a thermostat ( at least not that they could find ). The house was always comfortable, no matter what the weather was like outside. The damn thing could even tell what state of undress his parents were in, and would adjust the heat accordingly. ( "They still hadn't figured out how THAT happened, though Joe had his suspicions!" )! After some time, the novelty began to wear off & Joe began to hear complaints from his parents, as well as others who had ignorantly taken the way of convenience. Things like the heat would not come on when they thought it should, or the smart refrigerator would overstock on certain food items & neglect to order others. The crazy thing would even automatically lock after a certain hour: no more midnight snacks! That was just inside the House!
Joe's parents were not the only ones experiencing problems like this either; reports were streaming in from all over about self-driving vehicles being involved in what could only be described as "road rage" incidents! Speaking of traffic issues, the stop lights were acting very erratically, with almost no discernible pattern, except that they seemed to be favoring the self-driving vehicles! This by itself, as you can well imagine, caused more than a few incidences of road rage; a 'road rash' of biblical proportions, you might say! Of course, by this time, only EVs were allowed on the road, the Central Government Entity, henceforth referred to as the CGE, having outlawed any thing that might create more of an ecological or atmospherical footprint than a toothbrush! Never mind the fact that the energy employed to both manufacture & power these 'green' vehicles produced more pollution than all the internal combustion engines in the world in any given year from the 1940s on! Joe, like so many before him, had learned early on that this was a very inconvenient Truth & anyone who even insinuated anything close to it risked disappearing in the middle of the night! As the case may be, though the overwhelming majority of vehicles on the road were autonomous, there were still a few older EVs out there that were still controlled by humans. Unfortunately, even these were ultimately susceptible to tracking & control by the CGE, although a certain rebellious faction was reportedly 'hacking' some old Teslas so that they could neither be controlled nor tracked!
The fact that there was much more going on 'behind the scenes' than simply trying to cut down on 'greenhouse gases' had been cleverly hidden from most citizens of what had formerly been called 'The United States of America'! Global Warming was only the beginning: dairies had gone the way of the internal combustion engine. Cows were only a distant memory, much like the dinosaurs. In fact, one could earn a pretty penny selling old cow bones on the black market! Milk was now produced in laboratories, much as meat had been for years. One could still go to a restaurant & order a big juicy steak, a hamburger, shrimp, lobster, or even calamari & all the different kinds of fish, but it was all lab-grown! It all tasted like it should, but it all had the same base, just produced differently in order to present the desired consistency, with flavorings added to perfect the illusion. As with the vehicles though, there was still the rebellious faction that had their own cow, even some with chickens, if you can believe it! Of course, those few that dared thumb their noses at the CGE risked life in prison ( at the very least ), or even death ( at the worst )!
"The year 2238 may seem like a long time from the present day, but quite seriously, it may not be as far off as we would like to think! Joe Campanelli, the protagonist of this short story, had foreseen the scenario unraveling for a long time. Taking into account the giant leaps that Technology was making possible, along with the terrifying depths of the depravity that humanity was capable of, our hero knew that, with the way things were progressing ( one might more correctly say, "regressing", but I digress.........), such a scenario was very likely to play out in the future! Obviously, since we see the validity, or at least the possibility in much of what I've fictionally described above, our future, at least here in the good ole U. S. of A. may not look too different, but really, it is ultimately up to us! When I say, "It's up to us", I'm speaking in a collective sense, as in, "It's up to Humanity!"
"The Ocean is made up of individual drops of water!" Looking at it from our individualistic point of view, as we've been programmed to do; it may seem an almost insurmountable task, changing such a terrifying future, but it DOES start with the Individual, with You & Me! Like the rebel factions described earlier, when we take back control of our own lives, however inconsequential our actions might seem at the time, we begin to forge our own Destiny! The more that people do this, however quietly, the easier it will be to avoid the impending doom that Joe foresaw!
Our Future looks bleak; there's no denying that! "As above, so below"; if things keep going the way they're going, the Future may not look all that different from what I've described. In fact, in certain areas, it may be be dead on, but that doesn't mean that it's set in stone! Things can change for the better, but only if we MAKE them change! Speaking collectively here, I'm reminded of a certain song by an artist who passed from this life a while back. His song, 'Man in the Mirror', stresses the importance of beginning with ourselves, of BEING the change we want to see in the world!
The Future that Joe had foreseen never happened! The small pockets of Rebellion grew into larger pockets, which grew even more substantially & once the people began to take their Power back, realizing they COULD indeed forge their OWN Destiny, thing started to change. Of course, at first, things got worse before they got better! For instance, because of the larger ecological & meteorological footprint caused by the overwhelming use of EV technology, the so-called 'Global Warming' actually got worse! While those who KNEW knew that it couldn't ALL be blamed on 'greenhouse gasses', that it was simply Mother Nature's cyclical................well, nature. the weather patterns continue to disrupt what might be called "the Norm"! Because of all this, of course, it seemed to the average "Joe" that the Machines were indeed winning!
The weather wasn't the only thing going 'wonky'; even the 'Powers that be' figured out ( after a LONG while ) that EVs weren't all they were cracked up to be! After many issues with batteries exploding, causing fires, crashes & other fatal events, most people were ready to abandon the program entirely! Not only were they having trouble with the vehicles themselves, but the whole infrastructure began to crumble! Speaking of the Weather, however; through many complaints & much private ( Individual ) campaigning, the Government was forced to acknowledge that, indeed, all the power plants, not to mention the Raping of Our Beloved Mother Earth, were actually more detrimental to the planet's well-being than the internal combustion engine. Of course, the Cause was helped immensely by the People themselves becoming more Aware, not just of the fact that they themselves were complicit in the rape of our Mother Earth, but a growing Empathy for our Mother & all Her creatures, including other human beings. The Electric Vehicle Program was not entirely abandoned, of course, as the notion DID have its merits, but alternate avenues, not just for harnessing power, but for storing that power were explored. Scientists found, for instance, that natural crystals could store more than just digital information; they were also good for harnessing & storing the Power of the Sun! Wind power was still used to some extent, but was finally largely abandoned as the overwhelming majority of Wind Turbines, again, relied heavily on the Rape of Mother Earth!
All was still not as it should be ( 'Or WAS it?!" ), but things were definitely looking 'Up'! The Government was beginning to back down, begrudgingly admitting that they were simply representatives of the People, that the People ultimately knew what was best for our fledgling nation & speaking of the People, both collectively & individually, thanks to a growing Awareness, a Maturity, one might say; not only did they begin to take responsibility for their own lives, but their choices were reflected in their representatives. Talk about "Draining the Swamp"; Washington, D.C. was still inhabited by quite a few human animals, but it was allowed to return, to a large extent, to its former condition & became, for most intents & purposes, a Wildlife Refuge ( "Of course, some would probably argue that it always HAD been!" )! Though there were still Representatives that exercised some Power, they now understood that it was only THROUGH the People that they were able to grasp it! A new & better Constitution was ordained, as it arguably had been from the beginning, a Living Document, written on the Hearts & Minds of the People!
Personal ResponsAbility had made a comeback ( "No, not FULLY yet, but It was well on Its way )! People understood finally that the Conveniences, rather than making Life easier & better, were killing us! That with Freedom comes Responsibility; ergo, no responsibility, no freedom: once we figured THAT out, that was all she wrote for any centralized government entity. "Oh, don't get me wrong, we still had our conveniences ( it wasn't "back to the Stone Age", or anything ), though we DID learn not to rely on them so much. All the smartphones & computers were still in use; they DO have their uses after all, but there was no substitute anymore for face to face interaction. People still worked their '9 to 5's; the lights had to be kept on, the infrastructure that was already in place ( "not ALL bad!" ) needed constant attention & the nation as a whole still had issues that required solutions. Without the centralized government, though, the individual states were able to shoulder the responsibility for themselves. Of course, thanks to the Last Great Awakening, even the state governments were functioning at a bare minimum, with as few as one representative for any given county!
Life was by no means easy, but it was SO much better! The Air was cleaner, the Earth was much more receptive, the Water flowed more freely & Fire was finally recognized & respected for the True Friend that it is! Spirit had Its way with the People & all was at Rest! Again, this does not mean there were no issues, no problems to solve; human beings were still human beings, with all their glorious differences. There were still clashes here & there, now & again, but for the most part, they never went beyond the individuals involved, whether it was a fender bender, or something more serious. Accidents still happened, though 'Natural Disasters' were pretty much a thing of the past, since Mother Nature was much happier with Her People, the overwhelming majority having learned a much greater respect for Her & Her Laws.
From beginning to end, the short story you've just read is a work of almost pure fiction, but it could easily become Reality! The Choice, as always, is YOURS ( OURS )! What WILL we choose, I wonder?!
Namaste' & Blessed Be,
Sage Charles
