Fiction Fragment: Skateboard Punk

Digital camera in one hand and a half eaten protein bar in the other Joe Smith entered the apartment’s parking lot. He’d worked for years to build up that long, hard green bar beneath his online pen name and the last thing he wanted was to lose “reps” because of a post that was made in anger, without considering the needs of the Shredded and Jacked Up Off Topic community first. To wit, he had failed to adequately document his claims, which was almost the biggest sin a poster could commit. Being respectful to women and implying that lifting heavy objects was time poorly spent were arguably bigger violations of the societal norms, but only just. We live in an increasingly visual age and this means pictures tell the story, not words. Whether the subject was fornication, deadlift statistics or in this case a damaged vehicle the need for visual confirmation was always of paramount importance. To make such a rookie mistake was shameful and it certainly did nothing to improve an already bad mood.

A severe hangover and the possibility of being carpet-bombed with little red dots of disapproval were only the two most immediate problems. Then there was the damaged truck, the possible job loss and now they were talking about banning him from the his gym after he unpacked the contents of his stomach on the front desk, sexually harassed the lady of virtue controlling said desk, took a piss in the kiddie pool downstairs and probably a dozen other horrible acts that the black out had mercifully obscured. Worse, as far as Smith was concerned, no actual lifts had been performed and, thus, no gains were made. Why couldn’t he have done some insane, brown liquor auto-piloted deads in between kicking over a stability ball rack and trying unsuccessfully to masturbate to a breast cancer awareness poster? There was nothing for it.

The sun was high in the sky and the light and heat it was generating quickly became oppressive. The melting protein bar fell to the tar with a wet plop. Smith forced profanities through a dry throat as he threw the remaining portion of the diet supplement against the brick wall of the apartment house in an impotent act of defiance.

Essaying the full extent of the wounds suffered by his automotive penis stand-in did little to improve an already foul mood. In the harsh glare of the midday the full extent of the injuries were now visible through squinting eyes. One headlight was completely broken, its shape distorted like a boxer’s eye swelling shut in the late rounds. The dent directly adjacent resembled a rabbit punch from a titan and it was only good fortune that had allowed the wheel-well to maintain its integrity. If the unknown object had been struck at a slightly different trajectory no amount of having symbolic resemblance to scary animals or stones would have prevented the vehicle from being crippled, perhaps even totaled. As it was, the bulk of the damage to the working man’s sports car was superficial.

Unfortunately Smith was more a glass half-empty thinker. Add to that the strange fastidiousness of your typical truck owner that seems in deep contradiction to the message conveyed in the marketing and it was the spark for another blow-up.

“Aw fuck.” Snap. Picture taken. “I can’t believe this shit.” Snap. “Look at the paint job. Fucking ruined!” Snap. Snap.

“Whatcha doing, dude?” A skateboard carrying twelve-year-old interrupted the accident documentation. “Takin’ pictures for the in-surance?”

“Get out of here, poser. Do you even ride?” Joe puffed himself out like something out of the nature channel, his massive upper body threatening to tear his stained undershirt. If this little fuck wanted a symbolic dominance ritual he would get more than he could possibly handle.

“Yeah, I ride. Just watch, bitch.” The towheaded Future of America zipped past on the board, slowed down only slightly by the keys he was digging into the side of the truck.

“You’re fucking dead! You hear me?” The precious resource of youth was already zipping down a hill and well out of the range where that sort of threat could be made good. This inherent problem did little to prevent the explosion of the balls-to-the-walls lifting loose cannon. “Fuck! I’ll throw you like a kettle bell you little fuck!”

A few minutes and a near total emotional meltdown later the pictures had been merged onto the information superhighway and all was well, at least in that particular arena.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.    

News You Can't Use: Time Traveling Robots Could Punish ‘Future Crimes’

Need some extra things to worry about? Watched Terminator and/or Minority Report with the sound off in some bar before passing out in your own vomit and are convinced it's some sort of message? Well, you've come to the right place. Today we're going to address the issue of robot time travel and how it will be used to enforce political correctness or keep you from de-tagging mattresses and so forth. A leading expert in Spaceology and Reptilian-American studies has a lot to say about this topic and you would be very wise to heed these insane ramblings.

Privacy expert Brad Templeton warns that artificially intelligent robots could one day comb through digital data left by Internet users and retroactively punish them for “future crimes” that were not detected or considered to be a crime at the time.

I'm no privacy expert, or even especially competent or trustworthy, but I'm pretty sure this would be a "past crime" with no grandfather clause rather than something out of an Austrian bodybuilder plays a android production. Oh well, I guess it's still rather outrageous and shocking. When you're promised time travel and artificial intelligences going back into the past to use the L.A. phone book as a kill list and you get this instead there's going to be a certain amount of foot-stamping and complaining.

During a recent presentation at a Singularity University event

Another Singularity University snob. We all couldn't go to P.O. Box college, Mr. Egg Head.

Templeton, who was the Chairman of the Board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation for ten years, said that the mass recording of our movements, activities and opinions could one day be a treasure trove for technologically sophisticated dictatorships to punish sinners.

Hopefully there will be some attractive and racially diverse teens, possibly with various super powers or archery skills, to battle against this evil.

Noting that AI is still in its very early stages, with facial and speech recognition still relatively primitive, Templeton said that this wouldn’t always be the case and that, “We have to worry about the threat of time traveling robots from the future.”

You pretty much have to. From now on my entire life will be built around the idea of surviving an attack from the robotic weapons of a future dictator sent back in time to prevent me from completing that "Surf Monkeys" review.

Artificial intelligence will eventually surpass the human ability to recognize things, which when combined with today’s obsession of recording everything via social media and the movements of cellphones being tracked, will create a dystopian scenario, according to Templeton.

Do robots dream of electric selfies?

“That’s all being recorded and in the future they’ll be able to analyze that and they’ll be able to ask ‘are you now or have you ever been a member of some strange organization?'” said Templeton.

Have you ever photographed your own buttocks using a bathroom mirror? Don't lie to me, human, I can see everything.

“You are committing sins of the future that you don’t know are sins yet,” said Templeton, illustrating the idea with the example of how Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, a practice that was commonplace at the time yet is condemned today.

Time to send some of that liquid metal back to 1776 to take out one of the founding sinners.

It’s not inconceivable that online speech considered acceptable under today’s free speech laws could also be denounced as “politically incorrect” in future, with the sinner subjected to retroactive fines or re-education.

Yeah, because that's only something that will happen in the far future and isn't already occurring with clockwork regularity.

I saw this great little independent film at the Festival D'Avoriaz...

Most people are smart enough not to post incriminating activities, but our understanding of “right” and “wrong” is through the lens of today’s morality. Will the people of the future agree?”

I like to think the people of the future will spend most of their time silently cursing our names in the hell they've inherited, not scanning decades old "vines" for thought crime.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

He was forced out of Mozilla in 2014 for the crime of opposing gay marriage in 2008.

Also Jean Claude Van Dame 'Timecop' is a closer premise, but definitely got to get this guy out in public more and learn some social skills.

Something tells me stone and papyrus may outlast digital in the long run.

Our lives are a farce.

I was just about to post a snarky comment to this story when a robot from the year 2138 suddenly appeared and said "Don't even THINK about it!"

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.