Once upon a time, there was an oligarchy. It wasn’t your usual kind of oligarchy. The oligarchs weren’t officially the rulers of the land. Instead it was a sneaky kind of oligarchy – though to call it sneaky is a bit weird, because for people being sneaky, they were incredibly loud. They just weren’t loud about being in charge. They were loud in a “Hey! Look! What’s That Over There?” kind of way.
The oligarchs didn’t think of themselves as oligarchs, of course. Oligarchs rarely do. Instead, they thought of themselves as benefactors. Saviours of mankind. (Though, in truth, the “man” part was more important than the “kind” part. It turns out that, to save mankind, you have to do some pretty terrible things. Or so they claimed.)
In their own minds, they were Creating a Glorious New Future! A future in which no one would need to work! Or, at least, no one would need to be paid for their work, which was almost the same thing. Actually, it was better, as long as you defined “better” as “better for the oligarchs”.
The oligarchs wanted to free humanity from the tyranny of work. Or possibly from the tyranny of having enough water to drink. On reflection, it was perhaps more accurate to say that they wanted to free humanity (or, at least, the important bits of it) from the tyranny of laws, and taxes, and things like that.
What they felt would be really awesome was freedom from responsibility. After all, creating a Glorious New Future would obviously require the breaking of a few eggs. Or poor people. Or environments. And quite a few laws. But nothing important.
And so the oligarchs set about building a device. The device would write masterpieces the like of which the world had never seen. Or possibly the device would solve tricky exam problems. Or maybe it would be a friend, or even a therapist. Obviously it would save the world from Climate Change, and it would absolutely rescue humanity from the need to be creative or interesting in any way. Honestly, it was going to be incredible… as long as no-one asked the oligarchs what “incredible” meant exactly. It was going to be all things to all people, that much was clear.
Unfortunately, not defining exactly what The Device was for made it rather tricky to build. The oligarchs scooped up a tonne of funding because obviously everybody wanted an All Things to All People device, and they were terribly convincing. They built The Device and set it free with great pomp and ceremony. It could do anything, up to and including flying to the moon! Indeed, it practically had a PhD in flying to the moon! Just watch! Sadly, people did watch, and it flew to the moon in much the same way as a bucket of sewage would. It didn’t get very high (though it certainly smelled high!) and it made a terrible mess when it hit the ground.
Undaunted – for they were Fearless, World-Saving men – they built a second device. The Actual Device was amazing. It passed all the tests, solved all the problems, knew all of the things! It was just a teensy bit embarrassing when it turned out not to be able to solve all of the problems. It certainly solved some of the problems, which was pretty impressive, actually, as long as you were happy with the solution to 2+2 being “a kind of bug”. But everyone was jolly impressed, anyway, because the oligarchs told them to be, and they were terribly convincing.
Obviously the oligarchs did not give up. Clearly the problem was that they hadn’t found the right fuel for The Actual Device. So the oligarchs scooped up more money, built a new device, and fed it everything they could find. They were so good at finding things that they even found things belonging to other people. Because they were building an All Things to All People Device, it was obviously fine for them to take the things without asking. Because The Device was essential to Saving Mankind! This new, well fed device would achieve marvellous things! And they were terribly convincing.
They released The Proper Actual Device, and this time, results were cautiously pleasing. The Proper Actual Device looked and sounded like a really impressive thing, as long as you didn’t look too closely. There was applause as The Proper Actual Device did tricks, and people politely looked away every time one of the tricks failed. After all, some of the tricks were jolly impressive! Some of the results were pretty shocking, actually, in all kinds of horrible ways, but that was The Price of Progress, so the oligarchs said it was ok. And they were terribly convincing.
Unfortunately, word got out that The Proper Actual Device was drinking a huge amount of water, and burning up quite a lot of the world’s atmosphere, in order to do (or, in many cases, fail to do) these tricks, but the oligarchs pointed out that there was simply no other way to build the The Proper Actual Device, and obviously we had to do that, and after all, there was plenty more water and atmosphere where they came from! And they were terribly convincing.
This argument came as rather a surprise to people who were researching ways to build different devices that didn’t drink all the water and burn up the atmosphere (or even steal everybody’s things!), but, to their shock, the world didn’t seem to mind all the water being drunk and the atmosphere being burned, or the things being stolen, and so the devices continued to be built.
The oligarchs still weren’t satisfied. The Proper Actual Device hadn’t actually Saved Mankind yet. So they scooped up more money, took even more water, burned even more atmosphere, and built the Really The Proper Actual Device This Time, or Lucifer, as they affectionately named it. It was truly incredible. The oligarchs basked for a moment, until word got out that they had been feeding Lucifer poor and vulnerable people, so that they could wade around in the rather horrifically grubby innards of the machine and remove the problematic bits. Of course, the poor and vulnerable people didn’t necessarily make it out of Lucifer alive, or undamaged, but the oligarchs pointed out that there was simply no other way to build Lucifer, or his descendants, and obviously we had to do that, and after all, what were a few poor and vulnerable people anyway? Well, who could argue with that? After all, they were Terribly convincing.
Of course, this argument came as rather a surprise to people who were researching ways to build other devices that didn’t eat people, burn up the atmosphere, drink all the water, steal all the things, or scoop up all the money, but simply did one thing, really really well. To their shock, the world didn’t seem to mind the people being eaten, or anything else really, and, even stranger, they didn’t even seem to mind whether the devices even worked, and so the devices continued to be built.
The trouble was, Lucifer still tended to do tricks that weren’t exactly the right trick. Some of the tricks looked kind of right if you looked at them from a certain angle. But some of them were really badly wrong. Plus, some people were actually using Lucifer in ways that the oligarchs encouraged, but also advised against in really tiny print, and they were getting hurt.
Some people were doing things like asking Lucifer for advice, and sometimes it was ok, but sometimes it turned out to be truly terrible advice. The oligarchs found that pretty funny, really, but it turned out that Lucifer still wasn’t very good at being all, or even some, of All Things to All People.
What’s more, the horribly ungrateful people who had had all their belongings stolen were starting to get quite cranky about it. So were the people who had no water to drink, and the people who were finding it hard to breathe.
The horrible, ungrateful people were so ridiculous that they even tried to apply laws to the oligarchy, even after the oligarchs had patiently explained that the laws shouldn’t apply to them, as they were Busy Saving the World, and therefore didn’t have time to waste worrying about trivial things like human rights, or environmental destruction.
The story doesn’t end there. But perhaps we can choose our own ending.
We could choose an ending where Lucifer and his descendants drink all the water, burn all the atmosphere, and eat all the poor and vulnerable people while making sure the people who aren’t poor and vulnerable yet become poor and vulnerable as fast as possible.
Or we could say NO to the oligarchs. Now, admittedly, the oligarchs aren’t used to hearing the word no, so we might have to repeat it a few times. Possibly with a mallet. But we could say no.
Because it turns out the smaller devices that do one thing really, really well don’t eat people, drink all the water, burn up all the atmosphere, or steal all the things in order to be built. AND they work. Properly. No oligarchs required. We could choose to build those devices instead. And wouldn’t that be a fairy tale ending!