The Collapse of Freedom

In the near future, personal freedom is rescinded for the sake of safety by the United Nations. Governments control all media created or consumed.

       In 2077, the network of networks that created the 21st century's global hyper-connectivity known as the internet was deemed a homeland security threat by every country belonging to the United Nations. We had found new ways to hurt each other. The internet was once a way to connect and reconnect with each other, a place to share scientific advancements, a place of trade and business . The problem is that humans have always found a way to pervert every advancement, no matter how innocent, into a weapon of war.

      You may remember learning in history class about the early 2000s and the birth of the cyber attack.  Even by 2018, cyber warfare was in its infancy. Today, the global stock market is still recovering from a dynamically redistributed ransom-ware attack that held the world's banks hostage for 9 months. Once back online, the media was forced by multiple governments to manipulate the public's confidence in certain stocks to inflate share prices by broadcasting misinformation.

      When the massive bubble popped, the United Nations began controlling all media created or consumed. The prediction that nuclear weapons would bomb us all back to the stone-age was replaced by a near equally horrific reality. You couldn't even read an e-mail from your Mother without questioning if it was modified or completely counterfeit. Phone calls would be automatically disconnected if certain things were brought up. Verbal communications were monitored by a net of parabolic microphones and cameras. The net even extended to every residence. Every letter at the post office was read by authorities before being delivered. At some point, they stopped resealing the envelopes. At least 28 code languages were being deciphered each month on average in the United States alone. We all lost our family communities due to the nature of our modified communications, leaving us all completely alone.

      The freedom of speech was entirely confiscated and only existed as an idealistic right of the past. It didn't stop there; the right to own a gun was rescinded, curfews were instated, traveling out of state required a permit, mind altering substances were banned, and 58% of the population were incarcerated at any given time.

      The human mind created the concept of slavery, and that same mind created the concept of freedom. We had all forgotten that freedom was simply a concept. Just like the concepts of perfection and safety, freedom isn't real.


BY:   Ken Wojcicki