Living?

We are being watched. Privacy is a laughable thought because we are always watched. If you want to be a part of modern civilization, you will accept this fact. With the use of cameras, GPS and microphones in smart watches, phones and smart glasses\H.U.D’s, there is never a time that you are not being listened to or when your location is unknown. The truly maddening part is that we not only allowed this to happen, we made it happen. People were worried about being tracked with microchips implanted under their skin but then chose to carry them in their devices without a second thought.

Our government began funding and subsidizing smart technology about 30 years ago. At first, the technology became very affordable and then it was free. The people rejoiced that information and communication was available to everyone regardless of their status in life. There were no payment plans, no monthly charges or fees, just free technology. The catch? You signed a one time, non-negotiable contract that allowed the government to track you, listen to your conversations at all times and record video without any prompts. This began as an option for those who didn’t want to pay for technology, but over time it became the only way to acquire new technology. It started with phones and now, it includes all smart tech: wearable, home based, and public.

We have no real choice or control of what we see when it comes to media and advertising, there are no skip or ignore buttons for advertisements and once it starts we cannot mute it or shut it off. Everything is coordinated and chosen for us by an algorithm the government had created to keep people distracted and docile. If someone makes a statement the government finds threatening or disagrees with, that person will disappear for a minimum of one week or they may never return; depending on whether or not that person is seen as needing reprogramming or as a threat to this way of life.

A convenience to this way of life is that crime rarely happens, it is essentially non-existent. With personal devices constantly recording audio and video, fixed cameras around the cities and solar powered drones, equipped with artificial intelligence and tranquilizers, monitoring and following suspicious individuals, premeditated crime is impossible. Random theft or assault can occur but the offender is easily found and will be taken away for an undetermined amount of time.

Government funding has also been used to advance other technologies. Therefore, robotics has also made leaps and bounds in the recent decades. This has made many farming, labor, and service jobs obsolete. In a very short time, people were no longer needed to perform these jobs. This resulted in an already booming population and a lack of need in the workforce; euthanasia is now implemented on anyone who becomes labelled as “low value”. Long-term care facilities were shut down or repurposed as low income housing, as anyone who cannot support themselves becomes a “burden” to society and are euthanized. Homelessness has been eliminated, as anyone who was unemployable, or unwilling to complete an education program to become employable, was labelled “low value”. In addition, to reduce the population at a sustainable level, any man or woman involved in the conception of two children is required to have a vasectomy or tubal ligation regardless of the number of partners they have had.

Wake up, hygiene, eat, work, eat, tech time, exercise, hygiene, sleep. Day after day, week after week, on and on; this is the common person’s routine. The exercise program is considered optional but no one wants to take the risk that their value number might drop too low due to poor health. Are people happy? No. Are they free? By no means. Is our society trapped between the fear of living without technology and a fear of losing their purpose? Absolutely. People are trying to compete with robotics for jobs now and once a machine is more useful than you are, you need to upgrade your skills, or lose your value permanently.

However, there are small groups of us that have chosen to be cast out of the cities rather than euthanized and others who have chosen traditional and natural methods over technology. Those who live in the cities call us Thals, which is a short form for “neanderthals” as we are seen to be stupid and devolved to choose such a life. For Thals, there is rarely electricity and no running water unless you count rivers. Those have been forbidden to us by the cities and are only an option for groups who have escaped from the cities with solar cells, generators, and batteries or have been able to scavenge damaged ones from garbage dumps. We have had to relearn to live completely off the grid. When someone is ill, we do our best with natural remedies, but since we do not have modern medicines, any illness or infection can become life threatening quickly.

I have lived in both of these worlds and it is hard to say which is better. Regardless of which life you choose, life expectancy is nearly impossible to go beyond 60-65 years as you are either euthanized or die in the wild of a normally treatable illness. People tend to work harder and struggle more but live happier, freer lives in the wild. There are more unavoidable dangers in the wild than in the cities though. Survival depends on access to a food supply, shelter from inclement weather and the possibility of animal attacks and wounds from insect bites. The knowledge you have in your head is ultimately the only protection you really have for survival.

My wife and child were both taken from me and euthanized. My wife’s life was taken because of an accident that resulted in paralysis. The medical costs outweighed her usefulness and I never had a chance to say goodbye before they took her from me. My child was euthanized at the age of three when her intellectual disability became evident. After losing them both, I chose exile from my city with a quickly assembled hiking pack of non-perishable rations, as many supplies as I could carry, and my wife’s heart-shaped locket pinned to the inside of my left breast pocket with a photo of my wife and daughter inside.

Disconnecting from technology left me with headaches and a craving for stimulation. It took days for me to feel comfortable with how quiet the outside world was. I began hiking through the fields that transitioned into forest outside of the city heading east in hopes of running into a settlement. As the days passed, I attempted and failed many times at hunting to extend my food supply. Thankfully there were many fresh water sources surrounding the city I came from, so my risk of dehydration was low. Three weeks of hiking passed before I came across a settlement of 23 people ranging in ages from 27-48 years of age. They greeted me with caution and when they were assured that I had recently deserted my city, they welcomed me on the condition that I was willing to share what I had and would help maintain the shelters and gardens. In return, they would teach me to hunt, fish, forage and build a shelter for myself.

I chose this life because I had nothing left for me in the city. I had no purpose. I would rather live without conveniences, since it was the supposed conveniences that removed from my life what I loved. All I had been left with was a monotonous job that would be obsolete in a decade. City dwellers may have information at their fingertips, but it is useless because they are too lackadaisical to see that their lives have lost meaning. They have become mindless drones, doing what they are told. They have no personality, no sense of individuality, or humanity. They just go along with whatever the government directs, without objection or question; pay attention! I was the same way until the trauma of losing my family shook me awake.

In the wilderness I have found purpose in labor, creating, and community. Life is not soft. The work is hard and the dangers of the wildlife are plentiful. Many small towns and cities were abandoned once automation of jobs began and euthanasia eliminated most of the elderly population that inhabited the smaller communities. As people from the cities tend to keep to the city they are born in now, there is little travel aside from automated transport trucks and road maintenance. Animals have been taking back any land that is not used for farming. Animals do not tend to go near the small settlements of us Thals, as we are not the easiest prey when in our numbers and there is more area for wildlife to spread out in now. However, we need the meat from animals to survive out here, and hunting them can put us at a great risk if you are not skilled.

This is my life now, and since I have been in this settlement, it is the first time I feel like I have really been living. Unplugged and free, with goals and ambitions that are my own, rather than my goals directed toward completing a task for a superior so that my “value” will not decrease. I write this now, on paper, so it cannot be easily detected and destroyed, with the hopes of reaching those in the cities with the message that we all need to unplug and take a step away from technology. Technology is beneficial, true, but we are letting it rule our lives rather than using it to improve them. With the automation we have, we should be living luxurious lives with short work days and plentiful resources, but instead, we have allowed our superiors to use it to control us and restrict our freedoms. Living in the wild is an extreme step but it has been a necessary one for many of us who see the errant path our society has chosen. There is a middle ground and we need to overthrow the powers that be to find it.

You, who live as prisoners in your cities, have little choice as to what you do in a day. Are you happy even though you want for nothing? Are you fulfilled doing a job you have to do by threat of death? Break free, destroy the devices that they are using to watch and control you and let us use what’s left to recreate our world. We have the ability to prolong life but choose to end it. We have the ability to feed more people, but choose to limit our supplies. We are letting those in power take away our choice, our loved ones and our purpose for living, and I for one, cannot allow this injustice to continue.

I beg you to open your eyes and see for the first time that your life has been beaten and shaped into someone else’s image and not your own. Don’t let your children be subjected to the same conditions of living in a comfortable form of slavery. These are not the iron ages and serfdom should no longer exist, but we have let it. If we take away their eyes and ears they will not be able to stop us. Take control and discover what it means to truly live life!