The Circle

by Dave Eggers

became concerned that there was no RSVP or communication of any kind

all this stuff you’re involved in, it’s all gossip. It’s people talking about each other behind their backs. That’s the vast majority of this social media, all these reviews, all these comments. Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication.

But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs

contact you’re purveying. It improves nothing. It’s not nourishing. It’s like snack food. You know how they engineer this food? They scientifically determine precisely how much salt and fat they need to include to keep you eating. You’re not hungry, you don’t need the food, it does nothing for you, but you keep eating these empty calories. This is what you’re pushing. Same thing. Endless empty calories, but the digital-social equivalent.

eliminated my ability to just talk to you.”

pushing, it sounds perfect, sounds progressive, but it carries with it more control, more central tracking of everything we do.”

Individually you don’t know what you’re doing collectively.

Secrets are the enablers of antisocial, immoral and destructive behavior. Do you see how this is?” “I think so. But—” “You know what my spouse said to me years ago when we got married? She said that whenever we were apart, for instance when I might go on a business trip, I should behave as if there were a camera on me. As if she were watching. Way back when, she was saying this in a purely conceptual way, and she was half-kidding, but the mental picture helped me. If

what if we all behaved as if we were being watched? It would lead to a more moral way of life. Who would do something unethical or immoral or illegal if they were being watched? If their illegal money transfer was being tracked? If their blackmailing phone call was being recorded? If their stick-up at the gas station was being filmed by a dozen cameras, and even their retinas identified during the robbery? If their philandering was being documented in a dozen ways?”

we would finally be compelled to be our best selves. And I think people would be relieved. There would be this phenomenal global sigh of relief. Finally, finally, we can be good.

In a world where bad choices are no longer an option, we have no choice but to be good. Can you imagine?”

if we have no path but the right path, the best path, then that would present a kind of ultimate and all-encompassing relief.

We don’t have to be tempted by darkness anymore. Forgive me for putting it in moral terms. That’s the Midwestern church-goer in me. But I’m a believer in the perfectibility of human beings. I think we can be better. I think we can be perfect or near to it. And when we become our best selves, the possibilities are endless. We can solve any problem.

We can cure any disease, end hunger, everything, because we won’t be dragged down by all our weaknesses, our petty secrets, our hoarding of information and knowl...

it’s gone too far, and that this tool, which is far more insidious than any human invention that’s come before it, must be checked, regulated, turned back, and that, most of all, we

need options for opting out.

We are living in a tyrannical state now, where we ar...

it was increasingly troubling to be amid the madness outside the gates of the Circle.

like a Third World experience, with unnecessary filth, and unnecessary strife and unnecessary errors and inefficiencies—on any city block, a thousand problems correctible through simple

enough algorithms and the application of available technology and willing members of the digital community. She left her camera

Mae knew that eventually she’d convince them, that it was only a matter of time, for them and for everyone—even Mercer. He and her parents had been late to get PCs, late to buy a cellphone, late to everything.

It was comical and it was sad, and it served no purpose, to put off the undeniable present, the unavoidable future.

how can we require anyone to use our services? But we have to remember that there are all kinds of things that are mandatory for citizens of this country—and these things are mandatory in most industrialized countries. Do you have to send your kids to school? Yes. That’s mandatory. It’s a law. Kids have to go to school, or you have to arrange some kind of home schooling. But it’s mandatory. It’s also mandatory that you register for the draft, right? That you get rid of your garbage in an acceptable way; you can’t drop it on the street. You have to have a license if you want to drive, and when you do, you have to wear a seat belt.”

“We require people to pay taxes. And to pay into Social Security. To serve on juries.”

“and to pee indoors, not on the streets. I mean, we have ten thousand laws. We require so many legitimate things of citizens of the United ...

Eliminate lobbyists. Eliminate polls. It might even eliminate Congress.

If we can know the will of the people at any time, without filter, without misinterpretation or bastardization, wouldn’t it eliminate much of Washington?”

a fully engaged populace, and when you do, the country and the world will hear from the youth, and their inherent idealism and progressivism will upend the planet.

Demoxie was purer, was the only chance at direct democracy the world had ever known.

Once it’s mandatory to have an account, and once all government services are channeled through the Circle, you’ll have helped create the world’s first tyrannical monopoly.

What it means for personal liberties, for the freedom to move, do whatever one wants to do, to be free.”

Why wouldn’t the wisdom of three hundred million Americans be taken into account when making a decision that affected them all?

the ideological purity of the Circle, of real transparency,

“The Rights of Humans in a Digital Age.” Mae scanned it, catching passages: “We must all have the right to anonymity.” “Not every human activity can be measured.” “The ceaseless pursuit of data to quantify the value of any endeavor is catastrophic to true understanding.” “The barrier between public and private must remain unbreachable.” At the end she found one line, written in red ink: “We must all have the right to disappear.”