The Future

by Naomi Alderman

Why does anyone want to kill anyone? Only three reasons: something you are something you have something you know

“Symbols for food, drink, empty your bladder. And look, the real world’s not like that. The world doesn’t exist for our convenience; it doesn’t talk in our language. The wilderness doesn’t have symbolic drawings to tell you where to find food or where it’s safe to take a piss. Where you find a sign in the real world, it’s a sign made by the thing itself:

soldiers are no use in that scenario. Money rapidly ceases to have value and then what have you got to offer them? You’re just a body taking up resources. Even if you have the code to the food stores or something, they lock you up and torture you until you give it to them.”

There were no clicks or eyeballs in the sensible, reasoned middle ground, and all the money in the world in encouraging users to rush to treat the extremes as if they were the center.

the sephirot of the Kabbalah,

Martha knew she was truly alone. Now and forever. Her friends in the valley would always understand why she left but not why she’d stayed. The Enochites would understand why she’d stayed but never why she left.

“You escaped a death cult with your life. We’re in extra time. We don’t really exist. We can do whatever we like. I want to consider some extreme solutions. I want to do whatever it takes.”

A moment of sincerity in this world of symbols and evasions had more than natural worth.

But this is the thing humans do. Knock knock, says one, can I come in? And though there’s no reason at all to let someone in, though it’d be safer and more sensible and involve less reorganizing of plans to keep the door closed, this is what we’re like.

We walk into illusions gladly, eager for release from our encircling selves.

What comes after despair? Hope, if you’re lucky. It is dark before the dawn but the dawn always returns. At least on this planet. If you’re not lucky, what comes after despair is brutality. “Whatever has been done to me, that is what I may do to others; and whatever others have done, that is what may be done to them.”

That’s a rule of infinite vendetta: scroll back years through a social media timeline, the worst thing you can find another person has done is totally legit to do to them. But then, that’s the worst thing you’ve done, and it’s legit to do it to you.

I am never going to know how to live without a community of purpose. I am going to keep looking for this for the rest of my life, whatever happens.

The more things are illegal, the more profit there is in illegal enterprise.

If they want nature, make them look at screens. If they like quiet, make the world noisy. If they want community, split them up. If they want time to think, interrupt them all the fucking time. If they want real human companionship, tempt them with artificial