Marshall Brain: Manna

So Manna put it all together and took the liberty to unplug me. As I finished the dismissal interview and left the building, I had two robotic escorts. The robot on my right addressed me as a robotic bus pulled up. The bus looked to be about half full.

“Jacob Lewis105, you are now unemployed. Do you have other means of employment?”

Of course it knew the answer, but this formality could not be avoided. “No.”

“Do you have guest status with any resident?” The robot asked.

“No.”

“Do you have means of support unknown to me?”

I suppose I could have stashed a cache of gold under my mattress, and this question allowed me to declare it. Such a cache would, of course, be grounds for arrest, so I was screwed either way. “No.” I was without any means of support.

“In accordance with ordinance 605.12b, you have been assigned room 140352 in building 16, resident quant C. This assignment provides you with suitable housing and nourishment to sustain your life. Please board the bus.”

That was how you ended up in Terrafoam. The system knew you had no means of support, so it “gave” you one. You could leave terrafoam once you regained a means of support, but there really was no way to do that unless Manna gave it to you.

Was it prison? Yes. But there were no walls. The food was good. The robots were as nice and respectful as they could be. You could walk outside wherever and whenever you wanted to. But there was an invisible edge. When you walked too far away from your building and approached that edge, two robots would approach you. I had tried it many times.

“Time to turn around Jacob Lewis105. There is construction in the next zone and, for your safety, we cannot allow you to proceed.” There were a hundred reasons the robots gave for making you turn around. Construction, blasting, contamination, flash flooding, train derailments, possible thunder storms, animal migrations and so on. They could be quite creative in their reasons. It was all part of their politeness. If you turned around you were fine. If you made any move in any direction other than the one suggested, you were immediately injected and woke up back in your room. I had only tried it twice.

It was a nice day. The sun was shining and the temperature was mild, so a lot of people were out milling around. Burt and I had decided to walk down along the river as far as the robots would let us. I was wearing the same coverall everyone else was, and I unbuttoned the top two buttons because the sun made it warm.

“Today’s your one year anniversary in terrafoam. How’s it feel?” Burt asked.

“I’m thinking that there has to be a way out of here.” I said.

“I know what you are saying. I try not to think about it. But it’s not that unusual. Over the course of history, billions of people have lived this way. Think back to when you were living in suburbia. Your parents had a 3,000 square foot house and the pool at the turn of the century. You were living it up. Unfortunately, at that moment in history, there were billions of people around the world living in poverty — they were living off a dollar or two per day. Meanwhile, your family had 300 dollars a day. Did you do anything about it? Billions and Billions of people living in third-world countries, squatting together in the dirt, crapping in ditches. They would walk down by the river just like we are doing right now and say to each other, ‘There must be a way out.’ They could see that they were lost — totally wasted human potential trapped in a terrible situation. Their kids and their kids’ kids forever would live like this because there was absolutely no way out. Did anyone stop to help them? Did you stop to help them? No. You were too busy splashing in the pool. Those billions of people lived and died in incredible poverty and no one cared.”

Burt could really get on your nerves like that. This was not the first time I had heard this soliloquy. It was depressing, and true, but after the third or fourth time it got old. Of course, he had been in terrafoam a lot longer than I had. I guess he’d had a lot more time to stew about it.

And he was right. No one helped the billions of people living in poverty at the turn of the century. And no one would help us now. The world simply did not work that way. If you are living a comfortable life in a comfortable neighborhood with a swimming pool in the backyard, what do you care about anyone else? You are immune to their problems, so you keep on splashing and swimming. It never occurs to you to help them, because it is so abstract.

“There has to be a way out of here,” I repeated.

“Are you insane? You can’t redesign society. No one can.” Burt laughed out loud as he said it. “Let’s see, if I’m a rich person living in a gorgeous, walled city in incredible luxury, let’s see, would I want to change things???? Hmmm. Hmmmm. This is a tough question. That’s why you are insane. You are never going to change anything. We will live and die here. The rich have no need for us anymore, and they certainly are not going to spread their wealth around to us. Hell, why didn’t you give your swimming pool up at the turn of the century to help the people starving and dying in Africa? Or even other Americans living in poverty?” Burt was enjoying his cynicism.

“It wouldn’t have helped anything. One swimming pool would not have helped anyone in Africa. That was the problem — even if you, as a person, wanted to help, there was no way to help. That’s why we need to redesign society. Society should not allow one little group of people to live like royalty while 80% of the people on the planet are starving to death or living on welfare. Why would we create a society like that? What good is it to have people with billions of dollars, while the majority of people starve?” I asked.

“Society has always been like that. You lived like that when you were a kid. Did you care?” Burt asked back.

“No, I didn’t. But I should have. We shouldn’t design a society like that — it’s like the Nazi’s designing the death camps.” I said.

Burt replied quickly, “Tell that to the Nazis. Tell that to the people living like royalty today. They would give you a thousand reasons why they deserve what they’ve got. They worked hard. Blah blah blah. They would also gladly tell us why we, and all the other poor people and welfare recipients, don’t deserve anything. It’s exactly the same logic that allowed you to have a swimming pool while half the world starved to death. It makes no sense, unless you are the one with the swimming pool. Then it makes great sense to you. And the people with the swimming pools have the power to enforce it, so that’s how it is.”

“But that’s stupid.” I said, “What possible justification is there for a whole population of people to be living on welfare or to be living in dirt shacks and starving?”

“Did you think about that when you were swimming? Of course not. That is not human nature. Out of sight, out of mind. You could not see the people starving, so you did not think about them. You didn’t care in the least.” Burt said.

I replied, “We could change it now. Robots are doing all the work. Human beings — all human beings — could now be on perpetual vacation. That’s what bugs me. If society had been designed for it somehow, we could all be on vacation instead of on welfare. Everyone on the planet could be living in luxury. Instead, they are planning to kill us off. Did you hear that women were trying to drink the water out of the river? Some people think they’re putting contraceptives in our food in the cafeteria.”

“Yes. I also heard that the river water makes you incredibly sick. The robots don’t even try to stop them.” Burt said.

“They need to boil the water.”