Bandwidth (Analog #1)

by Eliot Peper

Like memory, history was synthetic. Humans thought of both as factual records, but study after study confirmed that they were more like dreams, narratives constructed and reconstructed by the mind to fit the demands of the present, not the reality of the past.

The tragedy of the commons—overexploitation of a shared but underregulated resource by individuals for selfish gain screwed over the community as a whole. What made matters worse was that the loss was widely distributed, diffusing political will, while those few who captured the gain fought tooth and nail to maintain their benefit as free riders.

“But even something as inconsequential as wanting a lawn in front of our homes isn’t a true choice. It’s the product of a never-ending series of historical accidents. We take the world we’re born into for granted. We imagine that we control our thoughts and dreams. We think we’re free to be who we want to be. But there’s this vast hidden architecture that shapes us, and we don’t even know it. It’s like we’re actors in a play who don’t realize we’re working off a script.”

“Ultimately, the only power we have is to choose how we see the world,” she continued. “We don’t control what happens. But we do get to decide how to interpret what happens, how to synthesize it, what to do next.”

Given how many people lamented the inevitability of climate change, it was surprising how few actually bet on it.