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Before this journey he had never thought of the modern world as a machine— with humanity just the cells of its body.
As a cop, he found it difficult to accept that the law was an illusion. If the powers that be identified you as a threat, right or wrong, you were destroyed.
“Well, the public doesn’t really decide anything now—they just select from the options they’re given.”
“No conspiracy necessary. It’s a process that’s been happening for thousands of years. Wealth aggregates and becomes political power. Simple as that. ‘Corporation’ is just the most recent name for it. In the Middle Ages it was the Catholic Church. They had a great logo, too. You might have seen it, and they had more branches than Starbucks. Go back before that, and it was Imperial Rome. It’s a natural process as old as humanity.”
“Look, there’s nothing wrong with people admitting that they’re owned. That’s the first step in becoming free. They just need to admit it.”
flow. “Storing data is so cheap it’s essentially free, so data brokers record everything in the hopes that it will have value to someone. The data is aggregated by third parties, linked to individual identities, and sold like any other consumer data. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s an economy, but an economy these people know nothing about. They’re tagged like sheep and have about as much say in the matter as sheep.”
And I tell you that Americans are fucking ignorant about their freedom. They’re about as free as the Chinese. Except the Chinese don’t lie to themselves.”
Nursing anger against people long dead is a waste of one’s life.
“Megalomaniacs always justify their actions by saying how necessary it is.”
The Major chuckled. “You’re not the first freedom fighter whose head I’ve put on a stick, Loki. You all fall in the end—usually betrayed by the very people you think you’re saving.”
