Artificial Selection: A Near Future Thought Experiment

Chapter X

When the flash from the suspect first struck Michael's eyes, Michael fell back into his chair and covered his eyes in pain. Michael's blindness and dizziness lasted for only half a minute due to his distance from the flash. Fortunately, he was able to regain his composure as soon as Nicholas and Alexandra pulled him up. Jay wasn't so lucky.

Only thirty seconds passed, but it was enough for people's long-restrained resentment towards ArtTech hegemony to boil with their crippling fear of the impending mass poverty, eventually brewing a mixture of negativity fueled a chaos of barbarism that hadn't been seen for decades.

At first it seemed to be the unionists who stood up. For the first three seconds, they just stood there in silence and held their banners high, making a proud and silent protest over ArtTech's new encroachment into another major field of employment. They understood that if ArtTech controlled the art and humanities field, then the remaining ten percent of population who were employed would also suffer greatly. In the end the only career field remaining would be of artificial intelligence construction, and it will definitely be dominated by ArtTech. The inequality would dramatically augment, and all the wealth would be siphoned by the top 0.1% of the population who had ties with ArtTech.

The silence only lasted three seconds when people standing near that suspect unionist was  also harmed by the flash that blinded Michael. Somebody let out a curse word. Then there were some more swearing. The curse words seemed to have ignited a ton of explosives in people's raging chests, for they suddenly began roaring a derogatory rant. The hatred culminated in their voices as years of their suffering in poverty and dangers of society were instantaneously unleashed into the auditorium.

Then the technologists decided to shout back. It was mostly the extreme left and right shouting, but their zealous belief had seemingly inspired the others around them. The technologists also shouted back degrading remarks, only without much swearing. The more educated technologists decided to use profanity as a marker of their social status, though Michael personally thought that calling the unionists thieves, murderers, and rapists weren't a very educated and high-class response.

Unfortunately there was reason behind that stereotype. Many people who were replaced out of the workforce were unable to find any jobs in the new humanities industries and artificial intelligence sector. The meager welfare symbolically provided by the government and ArtTech could solve only the tip of the gigantic iceberg of the poor people's problems, and, just like an iceberg, the wealthy ones at the top of the hierarchy and unable and unwilling to see beyond the surface into the crises of deeper water.

Compelled by the desperation to sustain their family's survival, the poor people had realized that the law was no longer by their side — it couldn't even ensure their basic survival. Consequently, many of them decided to give crimes a try. If successful, they could sustain the family for another few weeks, and if not, the worst case was a life sentence in the prison with two guaranteed meals a day. That had been the worst case possible until the technologists decided to arm themselves with more superior weapons and serve as the criminals' own jury, judge, and executioner.

The unionist creed of equality, rights, and welfare undoubtedly fascinated these criminals. Unionists didn't decide to become criminals. Criminals decided to become unionists.

Although there was an understandable reason behind the unionists' crimes, the society didn't deem it anyhow justifiable. The technologists — the wealthy and powerful — made up almost the entirety of the victimhood of unionists' crimes. Therefore, in the auditorium right here right now, it had also been the technologist's last straw. They stood up and rapidly fired back with a cascade of insults.

At that moment, Johnson was standing on stage. Despite his experience with mobs, protests, and chaos, he had never expected nor foresaw an unrest of such magnitude developing right in the middle of an ArtTech facility. He could only follow the usual procedure — extending out his arms, saying politically correct things to comfort people, and telling the guards to be ready to suppress any violence.