Path to Entropy - An Apocalyptic Climax

Download or read book Path to Entropy - An Apocalyptic Climax written by Blade Cort and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-01-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A narcissistic, psychotic oligarch rules over a second-rate, post-apocalyptic domain in the western part of what was once America. Sara, his communications minister, proudly supports him despite his insanity. She tells her team: "Work is work, and you should take pride in it, even when your job is to deny, divert, distract, detract, and deceive." SAMPLES FROM A FEW DYSTOPIAN EPISODES: 79 - TRANSGRESSIONS: No one at the table dared move. They knew what was coming next, and they had enough experience with Ron's histrionics to know not to dive into the middle of his torrential whirlpool of vitriol. Sara's heart was beating furiously, and Imp knew it all. Imp sensed her physical reactions. Her pulse. Sweat. Pupil dilation. Chemicals emitted from her breath and skin. Imp analyzed her eye movements. Facial tics. The number of times she licked her lips and blinked. And she knew Imp constantly monitored her thoughts, to the degree that such tech had been perfected. Ron turned to sneer at Sara. "Not picking on you, sweet child, though it's partially your fault. Maybe much your fault. You understand, little one? I can't have events like this happen. If mine was the strongest or the richest of the domains, then I'd have the power. But people are jealous of me, so they come after me. They salivate for openings like this." 81 - PROPOSAL: "Of course!" she responded. "We know from our prior comms to this cohort that they can be volatile, easily aroused to anger and fear, and highly vindictive and judgmental. We love them for all these traits. But we know we can only go so far." 83 - FOSSILS: To Edgar, Sara was an anachronism in the current context of AI. Who needed a human to create narratives when his AI was more effective? More prolific? His AI could churn-out a thousand narratives to her one. His AI could confuse the world on a whim, creating mindless, meaningless sludge to be farted across the toilet bowl of human networks. Misinformation was kid stuff, but mass misinformation - now that was AI magic. 85 - ARRANGEMENTS: Rasha smacked her lips. "You just identified the problems we are having in gathering data about them. We hoped they'd congregate like other cohorts, create consistent narratives, and develop deep complexity and fervor in their belief systems. If they did this, we could infiltrate them, manipulate the narratives, and put into effect our subtle coercion that all good things in the world always begin and end with Ron, just like what we do with the other cohorts. But we see none of this." 86 - LEVERAGE: "It sounds like something different, though. It sounds like you and your team and other ministers spend most of their time serving Ron's needs. His distorted and disgusting whimsies. His rages and torments. His threats and narcissistic demands. Look, the people I communicate with believe the Earth is in its last days of rotation, at least for humanity. There's far too much tech, too much risk in tech, and too many people or AIs who have too much capability to annihilate us. All this annihilation tech in so many incapable hands like Ron's, without any ethical construct for the race? Imagine that."