"It was the dawn of the information wars." The narrator's voice boomed, severe and overpowering as an Old Testament god.
"As the Internet evolved and personalized, it was evident that consensus reality was neither needed nor desired. As individuals received increasingly tailored experiences of news, food, friends, clothes, and entertainment, humanity's ability to deal with differing opinions, tastes, and desires weakened. Groundbreaking research from the Zuckerberg Institute in 2025 showed that information could be modeled, propagated, and weaponized as contagions. Exposure to a broad variety of opinions and views built up the cognitive equivalent of an immune system. Once the Oculus AR eye implant became free to the public in 2032, literally every element that a person didn't want to see...vanished."
"The first battle of the Information Wars had been met: for a decade, adoption of the Oculus AR, the Kindle AR, Xiaomi Vu, and Google See grew from hundreds of thousands to millions to billions. Before the turn of the 2050s, less than 4% of the population hadn't joined one AR platform or another. Once the ability to edit reality itself lay in the hands of marketers and psychographists, a quiet guerilla war broke out between the information power brokers.
"Construction workers demolished 'derelict' buildings that housed thousands of people who used competing products. Stoplights were hijacked and automated cars plowed through crowds while the majority of the people in the area were wholly oblivious. Occasinal sabotage of one company's firmware or software via potent memetic viruses was briefly commonplace before treaties were drawn up to keep from such WMDs being deployed. Citiens who consumed unfiltered reality were rarely as loyal or peaceful ever again, and entire cities had to be snuffed out to keep discontent from spreading.
"Instead of red / blue or progressive / conservative, populations were divided by whose reality they consumed, and then further divided by their personal preferences. Liberals saw multicultural egalitarian societies where all prospered; racists saw oppressed minorities struggling while their race thrived, conservatives saw limited government leading to a return to historical lifestyles. Everyone was just happy enough, and just unhappy enough, to live their small little lives contributing effort and productivity to the companies who owned their perceptions.
"Whole populations lived in the same city—the same building—and never saw each other, each receiving only the information tailored to keep him or her most engaged, most productive, most loyal to the brands he or she consumed."
A pause, and a dramatic chord.
"The inadvertent launch by Xiaomi, in 2088, of the most successfully weaponized meme ever developed, brought that all crashing down. In a fortnight, the ARternet was gone, burned out. Destroyed. Millions died in the ensuing violence.
Music played, now, uplifting and hopeful. "What was built after—the new, better uses for AR and VR—has changed the world for the better. It took nearly fifty years to rebuild. Now, citizens see the best of the world around them, yes, but can trust that the government officials who monitor and control their AR headsets have everyone's best interests at heart. There are still struggles, it's true, but those struggles unite us and make us stronger!
"Remember: we have always been at war with East Eurasia, citizen. And we hope you can do your part."
It’s been a while! Here’s a piece I wrote back in June as part of another microfiction trade with my brother.
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Accidental selfie taken trying to unlock my phone... when did my face become a key?? #welcometothefuture #boringdystopia https://www.instagram.com/p/B9FXx_nn0Le/?igshid=1oav8axsq9htd
The year is 2020. Companies are no longer secretly preying on our insecurities to support their business and instead have begun straight up insulting us to our faces to promote their services.
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