Chapter 1
The Party
“Hey, have you seen that new app?”, asked Jaden.
“Yeah, I love it. I’ve been playing it for 9 hours straight.”, Bradley replied, emphasizing his contentment.
“I know dude. Why read your phil [philosophy] book when you can play this.” “De cart”, “Mario Kart!!”
Two hours passed. After an abundant amount of expletives and infighting, some of which was physical it was time for something new. Bradley exclaimed “Jaden! Josh! This is the best freaking app in the world!”
Military-Industrial Money, Enslavement of the Proletariat, was the name. It taught the players to lose all of their money, and to support a value system whereby the poor live miserable lives, and the rich have power and get more powerful. It taught lessons, and it was tailored for the open-minded, untampered, virgin youth of today. Its graphics were top-notch, its features bedazzled; its front-screen was covered with enough rugged eye-candy to make most male boys drool, it had guns, quite nice ones-- and fancy cars. Why wouldn’t they be nice-- where would taxpayer money go to otherwise? Obviously, it needs to be on luxuries. It taught people the value of weapons, and the respectability of autocrats.
Jaden, Josh and Bradley loved the game. They agreed with everything about it. They agreed emotionally and sympathetically with its lessons. “Follow orders, sacrifice money, be _cool_” they thought to themselves. Indeed, the game taught that being “cool” meant living in a dystopia, one where nuclear fallouts were not only the norm and tolerated, but happened every other decade or so. It impressed upon the minds of the youth of today that “we” are hopeless, that any good person should follow orders obediently, and murder with weapons anyone who shows any manifestaton of critical thinking skills or defiance of the status quo. It impressed upon the minds of innocent, open-minded future workers and leaders that obedience was key, and it was key to support bankers unwaveringly. “Financial crises are a sign of the working system!” “The working system is the working system.” characters in the game said. “COAL IS COOL, COAL IS SUCCESS, COAL IS THE NEW BUDDHISM” one semi-prominent sign read. Evidently, supporting large coal companies was the road to personal spiritual freedom, to salvation, and even to enlightenment. How enlightened of a statement.
Samantha and Kari watched the boys.
Kari liked what she saw. “Coal is the new Buddhism”, she commented upon. “Damn straight it is.” she exclaimed. “And this is why Trump is great.”
“I love Republicans, always have. We need coal, we want coal, coal makes everyone better. Buddhism sucks, we need coal. Let’s put us first.”
She flicked her phone, going back to posts which she commented on. One of them read “Flat earth, it is true”. She remarked, “How can the climate change, when there is no atmosphere really? The gases just go up.” “Hoax!”
“The military makes us great. That’s where money should go, sacrificing to be cool is the only way to go.”, Josh said.
Appalled by what she had experienced, Samantha ran to the bathroom, nauseous, and actually started to vomit.
“This has got to stop.”
