Security, Safety, Privacy: PICK TWO

Guest Post by Blake Jessop

Subject: Security, Safety, Privacy: PICK TWO
Fr: Khloé Kasahara
To: Blake Jessop, Crystal Huff, Sarena Ulibarri (+894 others)
 
Dear everyone who matters,
 
How is a joke even supposed to work if you can’t hide the punch line? Check it out:
 
Knock, knock?

Who’s there? Wait, never mind, we already know. It’s Khloé Kasahara and her weird haircut and scrambled citizen identification number. Put your hands against the wall, Kasahara. Stop resisting or we will employ patriotic measures! Drop the weapon! Blam, blam, blam, blam! She was reaching for a weapon. What was it? Ear buds… yes, in her ears.
 
See? Is that funny? Did it even make sense? No. Nix. Not at all. Okay, maybe it’s a little funny, but the point is that it subverts the entire point of comedy, which is ironic, because the point of comedy is to subvert the point of the society making the jokes. Humor is supposed to be a mirror that shows us who we are, except that now someone else gets to look at the reflection because they think we’d cut ourselves on the glass.
 
Is this getting weird? Sorry. What I’m trying to say is that we’re at a kind of crossroads where we have to decide what’s really important to us. All any of us want is security, safety and privacy. The problem is that there is no practical way to have all three; you have to pick two.

It’s pretty obvious which combination we’ve already got, because someone is watching literally all of us, literally all the time, and then using that information to maintain order. I’m having a hard time deciding which option I’d drop so I could have privacy back, but anything would be better than the government getting its grubby electronic hands on my search history, email list, or cat meme folder. Some things are sacred.
 
Mass surveillance has finally crossed the line, because this isn’t funny anymore.
 
Love,

Khloé
 
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Re: Security, Safety, Privacy: PICK TWO
Fr: Blake Jessop
To: Khloé Kasahara
 
Dear Khloé,
 
Stop emailing me this stuff. My social credit score will tank and the Argus Panoptes system will send me to some kind of black site with a bag on my head. Seriously.
 
Blake
 
***
 
Re: Re: Security, Safety, Privacy: PICK TWO
Fr: Khloé Kasahara
To: Blake Jessop, Crystal Huff, Sarena Ulibarri (+894 others)
 
Two things.
 
First, cowboy up, boot-licker.

Second, you’re acting as if I don’t cryptozoologically encrypt everything I do on the internet. But Khloé, “cryptozoological encryption” isn’t a real thing. Tell that to the Gunther’s Bush Frog DNA I used to scramble my symmetric ciphers. Tiny frogs suffered so I could email you privately. Show some respect.

Second for the second time, why does everyone act like it’s inherently weird to stand up to the state? Are our ideas such dangerous secrets that the total loss of privacy is necessary to stop us from thinking them at all? Are we that convinced that nothing will change? Seriously, stop what you’re doing and go look in a mirror. See that? That is where change comes from.
 
Come to think of it, does the AI even enjoy oppressing us? Has anyone even asked? What kind of gods are we, exactly, when the life we create is just a paranoid, amplified reflection of ourselves?

Man, I’m talking about reflections and mirrors a lot. Is it getting tedious? Don’t bother telling me; I have an idea. Maybe it’s time to stop beating around in the weeds looking for frogs and do something more concrete. Or not concrete, glass. I think it’s time we all took a really good look at ourselves, if that’s what we’re doing, and I do mean all of us. Me, you, the AI. Everyone.
 
See you — or not,

Khloé
 
P.S. Sarena, can you post this on the website at some point? I think it’s going to be important. You’ll know when. K thx!

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​Blake Jessop is a Canadian author of sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories with a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Adelaide. You can read more of his political speculative fiction in the second issue of DreamForge Magazine, or follow him on Twitter @everydayjisei.