Silicon Self

By Kirtimaya Varma

Anderson is developing software to speedily reach the leading edge of IT, not letting normal human living come between himself and his computer. His wife Nora wonders how dangerously close to the edge can he go, and whether the folly of ignorance is less dangerous than that of too advanced technologies? She tries to wean him away, determined to save her family and the world from at least one technology leader.

Anderson is developing software to speedily reach the leading edge of IT, not letting normal human living come between himself and his computer. His wife Nora wonders how dangerously close to the edge can he go, and whether the folly of ignorance is less dangerous than that of too advanced technologies? She tries to wean him away, determined to save her family and the world from at least one technology leader.

In the blinding rush to be ahead in technology, Anderson and his peers build up an expensive IT solution, but only to find that there is no problem needing it. To discover or invent a problem for a ready solution is known as “solving the solution.” While striving to solve the solution, their ISP breaks down and they lose Internet connectivity. They struggle to find their worlds outside the Internet. Cut off from virtual reality, they cannot cope up with any reality, and are constantly in conflict with themselves, their colleagues, and their environment. Their encounters create comical situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eTreasures Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Dec 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781937809652

Book preview

Silicon Self

By

Kirtimaya Varma

Published by eTreasures Publishing, LLC at Smashwords

ISBN 978-1-937809-65-2

*****

Copyright 2011 Kirtimaya Varma

All Rights Reserved.

Cover Artist: Suzannah Safi

www.design.suzannahsafi.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any format or by any means without express written consent from the publisher. This book in electronic format may not be re-sold or re-distributed in any manner without express written permission from the publisher.

Print version published available at eTreasures Publishing, LLC

This book is entirely fiction and bears no resemblance to anyone alive or dead, in content or cover art. Any instances are purely coincidental. This book is based solely on the author’s vivid imagination.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Dedication

To my sons Adhish and Bhuvnesh

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

--Albert Einstein

Prologue

"Their insights are extraordinary, their behaviors unusual. Their brains—shaped by the era of microprocessors, access to limitless information, and 24-hour news and communication—are remapping, retooling, and evolving. They’re not superhuman. They’re your twenty-something coworkers, your children, and your competition. Are you keeping up?

Technology’s unstoppable march forward has altered the way young minds develop, function, and interpret information. … Where do you fit in on the evolutionary chain? What are the professional, social, and political impacts of this new brain evolution? How must you adapt and at what price?

While high-tech immersion can accelerate learning and boost creativity, it also has its glitches, among them the meteoric rise in ADD diagnoses, increased social isolation, and Internet addiction…

Unfortunately, today’s obsession with computer technology and video gaming appears to be stunting frontal lobe development in many teenagers, impairing their social and reasoning abilities. If young people continue to mature in this fashion, their brains’ neural pathways may never catch up. It is possible that they could maintain locked into a neural circuitry that stays at an immature and self-absorbed emotional level, right through adulthood…

Although the science behind the way technology affects behavior and mental state is only in its infancy, initial observations indicate important links between extensive brain exposure to new technology and mental disorders."

From the book iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind by Gary Small, M.D., and Gigi Vorgan (-Published by Collins Living, 2008).

Chapter 1

Period: The Ultra Deep Information Age, ahead of the present Information Age but before the advent of self-replicating machines and genetically engineered human beings, which may be with us sooner than decades away.

Getting out of sync with society was hardly an aberration for techno-zealots in a world saturated with Information Technology. Many thought it was the norm.

Especially IT leaders, who wanted to rename society as information. What interfered with their normal worldview was their 24/7 fanaticism to work for rapid technological innovations. They were always on the go, restlessly moving forward. Living virtually on an information-alone diet, with more information available to them than they would need in a thousand lives, they wished that some day human beings would vacate their physical body in the real world and become pure information in the virtual world. That would be their nirvana, or rather, an electronic version of nirvana.

Even such an IT leader, whose devotion to technology transcended any sensation of beauty, would look twice at Nora, a marriageable girl whose blue eyes mesmerized one with their clarity and expanse more than the sapphire sky. The perennial smile on her lips defined perpetuity on her oval face. Born and brought up in San Jose, she was proud to belong to the capital of the Silicon Valley. However, she was alarmed when she realized that in the Ultra Deep Information Age, commonly called UDIA, people were becoming so committed to IT that gradually humanity was serving IT instead of IT serving humanity. As a result, in UDIA once IT entered into marital relationship between two persons, men and women changed their spouses like technical specifications. Wasn’t the folly of ignorance less dangerous than that of too advanced technologies? In spite of being beautiful, there were allegations against her of being good and naïve, and even virtuous, at times to such an extent as to be stupid. She never tried to disprove these. Stupidity was often the climax of virtue, and virtue, that of stupidity.

Notwithstanding her growing fears of IT, she wanted to marry a technology leader in IT for a philanthropic reason. She believed that every IT leader was an intelligent person who, for greater social good, needed to be saved from IT. Perhaps even the world should be preserved from IT leaders. IT was making the world smaller and smaller, and a day would come when the planet might not be able to contain humanity.

She decided to play her own small role in her life larger than IT by rescuing at least one IT leader by marrying him and weaning him away from an all-possessing IT into a socially happy married life.

She got married to an IT marketing person at the leading edge of technology. His idea of oral sex was to murmur a mouthful of sexual expletives for a faster sale. On their wedding night, while she lay in bed waiting for him to mate, he sat by her side and kept on murmuring sexual expletives. His idea of vaginal sex was to talk about market penetration. On the second night, he kept on talking about market penetration. His idea of being sexy was to speak about a product in such a way as to make it attractive to the customer. For many successive nights after marriage he went on speaking about his company’s products, one after another, enticing her to buy them.

One night she complained, Four months have passed since we got married. But we’ve never had sex. She stressed the word never.

He replied curling his lips, It’s just a click away. In his professional life, everything was sought to be brought within reach by the click of a mouse.

I mean…er…I want to have sex with you.

You’ll soon have it at your fingertips. Such is the power of IT that all you want is a mouse click away.

He talked at length about how efficient the supply chain had become to enable quick delivery of services, and tried to persuade her that because of the speed at which technology advanced, never was not as long as it used to be, and if she never had sex, she would have it soon.

I’m terribly bored of your talking, she said one night. All marketing folks are talkative. But I never knew that talking for them could be a substitute for sex.

He snapped, You’re a cynic. You see things as they are and not as they should be seen. What’s the use of your seeing? Better keep your eyes closed. But I don’t know whether that would improve or impede your vision.

If that’s the way you talk to me, I’m going to my mother’s home till you change.

The going has never been so good. In the market. If you’re going, well, you must hurry up and go forever, or it’ll be too late—to buy from my company at least some products that are being offered at discounted prices to those customers who’re in a hurry to go.

Nora was not a person who would give up easily, but soon she learned that her husband had gotten re-married in search of a new customer. However, this did not deter her from her goal of pursuing an IT leader for a husband. She always followed her ideal with the zeal of a fanatic, at times devotedly and at times irrationally, but always truthfully and sincerely.

Her second husband worked in a new IT company and was a technology leader in product design. Every night, while she lay in bed waiting for him to sleep with her, he sat in the corner of the bed with his legs dangling outside and told her how great it would be when their first product would be out! Time and again he jumped out of the bed to work on his computer.

One day she protested, We’ve been married for two months. But you haven’t done anything that could lead to our first product.

The company has yet to decide whether we should adopt a top-down command-and-control procedure or we need to build from the bottom-up to ensure the success of the process.

I don’t know what you mean. Nevertheless, when will the decision be made?

The company is gathering information that’s needed to see the process from beginning to end.

She could never understand him. For three months her patience carried her through her lack of understanding. Then her patience wore thin and when she complained again and again, her husband said divorce was the only way left for them to go.

Her third husband was a technology leader in IT training. He developed training algorithms for various tasks in different walks of life enabling people to do things by themselves. He had full faith in the power of IT to provide a solution to every human need. On the first wedding night Nora waited for him in bed while he worked on the computer.

I’m waiting to have sex with you, she said after some time.

I know. I’m preparing for it.

Nora was glad that at last she had found a husband who knew that his wife needed sex. How many Information Technology leaders had this astonishing information? She thought he would join her but he continued to work on the computer.

I’m still waiting for you, Nora said after expecting him for an hour. What are you doing?

I’m writing an algorithm that will train you do sex all by yourself.

But…but…I’m your wife. I need to have sex with you. With my husband. Why should I need any algorithm to do sex all by myself?

The challenge we technology leaders in training face today is to train people to rely upon themselves for 24-hour functioning. Once I’ve succeeded, you can have sex 24 hours each day all by yourself. Go into the sleep mode of operation without waiting for me. When the algorithm is ready, I’ll let you know.

Every night she waited while he worked on his computer. She herself did not know whether she waited for her husband or the algorithm. Soon she got fed up of waiting, and he of building the algorithm he wanted for her. When he knew that such an algorithm might not come about soon enough to sustain his marriage, he decided to end his relationship with her.

We were too early to get married, he explained. A marriage isn’t yet a phenomenon ripe for UDIA. IT needs to evolve further for marriages to be successful.

Not evolve, but devolve for marriages to be successful, she replied before they parted.

Her three failed marriages could shake her resolve to marry an IT leader but for a while. Her fourth husband was a technology leader in Technical Support. On the first night, when they lay together in bed and it was dark, he said, I assure you, it’s about to be up.

His statement was the stimulus she had been waiting for. At last she would see some action on the wedding night. A desire of sexual intimacy pervaded her. She waited for him to open her clothes. But he did not. Her desire rose to excitement. She removed her clothes. She put her hand over his chest. He still had his clothes on. She gradually unbuttoned his shirt.

I assure you, it’s about to be up, he reiterated.

Her excitement grew to a plateau. She was in a delirium. Every passing moment was unbearable. She could not wait any more. She slid her hand down from his chest to unbutton his pants.

I assure you, it’s about to be up.

Her hand passed over his penis. It was down and out like a knocked-out boxer. Surprised, she flicked on a bedside lamp. She found he had a wireless phone in his hand.

He said into the mouthpiece, I assure you, it’s about to be up.

Whom are you talking to? she yelled.

Shh! Don’t disturb. I’m talking to a customer whose server is down.

She jumped out of bed naked and shouted, You stupid!

I, stupid! he exclaimed, without putting his hand on the mouthpiece. No, I’m not stupid. I’m a technology leader engaged in the glorious task of carrying forward the Information Revolution. I assure you the server will be up any time. It’s a fault-tolerant server that can repair its own fault.

Is there anything else that will be up?

No other customer has reported his server down.

I mean, today is our wedding night, she said as if pleading for something.

Is it? Oh, I forgot. Do you want me to invite some customers and business partners to celebrate?

I wish I could make you understand the problem.

I fully understand, he said with confidence. It’s all about protocols. We’re now using fresh protocols. The server has gone through five or six iterations. It’s about time for it to be up.

You fool! Do you know anything about marriage protocols? Tell me. No. You know nothing except Information Technology.

I never knew there was anything worth knowing except Information Technology. But, anyway, you want to know something about marriage protocols? I can find them out for you. Once the customer’s server is up, I’ll browse on the Net and get the information. I can develop myself a marriage protocol for real-time application that enhances developer productivity by higher performance through improved multi-user coordination and connection.

She put on her clothes, without once looking at him. She was in such a fit of anger that she did not know what to do.

He said, I assure you I’m in love, honestly, utterly, completely, absolutely-

She looked at him, with flickers of hope in her eyes.

He continued after a pause, In love with the customer. Customer is king. I can never let down the customer, whatever else might be down. Customer focus is the cherished ideal of everyone in UDIA.

He wanted to impress her with his commitment to the customer. To his surprise, she was not impressed at all. She was surely not suited for UDIA.

If the customer doesn’t mean anything to you even on such an important occasion as our wedding night, how can I ever have you as a wife? he asked shaking his left palm open upward. I can’t live with you even for a moment.

Who cares? she shouted and breezed out of the door.

She had remained a virgin even after four marriages. There was nothing exceptional in this. In UDIA many men and women could hardly get the time to take their noses off the computer. Besides, when computers were running the human world instead of the other way round and creating new beings of oneself at one’s fingertips every moment and making the fingertips the most important part of one’s body, mind, and soul, virginity and marriage often went hand in hand, depending upon the computing needs of one or both the spouses. On rare occasions, something called sex also played a small role, though it was at times not clear whether sex had a greater part in virginity or marriage.

Nora was never bitter with her husbands. Indeed, after her anger subsided, she pitied them. She believed these highly brilliant people had strayed from the path of life into the path of technology and had become males with unconsidered or negligible sex, who should be rejuvenated, and she would definitely do so to at least one.

She was not a Luddite. Indeed, she loved technology, which was a reason she was enamored of technology leaders. But she loved life more. In the ancient days when technology was in the service of life, the paths of technology and life coalesced. But gradually the two started drifting apart, with life at best in the service of technology, and at worst in confrontation with it. She thought that technology, especially IT, had reached a stage from where it was bypassing life and could not be left to its natural outcome. No more it was the terrific war machine that threatened the human existence. Something more dangerous had emerged—the machines used during peace, such as PCs, or their inferior versions, information augmented human beings, who were desperately trying to keep up with the PCs. War machines were used just once over a long time. Peace machines commanded every moment a dedication surpassing any idea of anything or anyone.

Chapter 2

So close to Nora yet so far from her was Chuck Anderson, a young software developer. He belonged to a class of IT professionals called digital natives, almost always immersed in the digital media. High-tech all the time and getting more techy and starry-eyed, he considered digital signal not merely the unit of information but also the basic component of civilized life. There was yet another class of people, labeled digital naives, who were partly into digital media and mainly into the real world, which was analog. To Anderson, digital naives belonged to an alternative civilization with no place in his networked world. How could people without any sense of constant crisis be a part of his network? To a digital naive, digital natives were merely a functional entity, improving productivity through higher abstraction and acquiring freakish powers through computing extremism in their minds and computer implants in their bodies.

Central to what Anderson called his assembly instead of his body were informational pathways connecting his organic self to his prosthetic extension. Information flowed smoothly between his carbon-based and silicon-based body parts to make them operate like a single system. He did not know of any demarcation between his biological reality and computer simulation, cyborg operation and corporeal functioning, and technology targets and human goals. He understood himself as a set of informational processes with poor ability to communicate except through technologically mediated ways.

One day while living in the chair in front of his PC and hoping to die in the chair in front of his PC, he just completed writing a program. It had millions of lines of codes twisting and tangling, intertwining and interlacing, braiding and branching, like an exotic organism created by nature maimed by technology and ravaged by competition for consumption by the market. In the brief respite after program completion, his thoughts began picking up pieces of himself from here and there in the program. Pondering over the body of the program, he thought of his own body. Never in his body did he feel at home, but only as an attachment to his computer. What a sense of fulfillment it was for him to be such an appendix! While programs had evolved from an aggregate of lines to almost an organism, his PC had matured from a standalone to a machine with his body prefixed to it and a global network suffixed to it. Individual freedom was valuable, but not at the cost of slavery to computing. Be it nanotube computing, DNA computing, optical computing, quantum computing, crystalline computing, or other versions of computing introduced in quick succession to keep the PC user on the evolutionary path toward the PC and the PC toward the state-of-the-art.

Wasn’t evolution more than a word since Darwin? Yes. It was a call to arms against beliefs of millenniums. It implied a rising out of the swamp, gradually developing into a sophisticated organism and becoming capable of independent thinking and feeling. If in the post-Darwinian parlance the word evolution had heretic connotation, in IT parleys evolution was nature’s way of launching upgrades. Life would keep on evolving and deeper into UDIA digital natives would be born with input and output devices replacing their hands and legs, CPUs replacing their brains, and other PC parts replacing most of their body parts.

Was the PC just a machine? No, he said to himself. The word machine did not have the same connotation as it had in the earlier ages. Nor the word human. There was something anachronistic in being a human. But to be a machine was invariably modern. Being a human was not entirely unacceptable to him; at times he even enjoyed a small bout of it. He supported the digital natives who were fighting for legal recognition to their having a legitimate human origin. He joined them in persuading the U.S. Census for adopting a more tolerant idea of what constituted a human identity so that they, with a human substrate, doped mind, and plugged-in techno-body, could be counted in the human population. But the Census was reluctant, saying that in the case of machines and digital natives it had become difficult to find out where one ended and the other began, and the population figures might go wrong.

This reluctance did not impact the glory of digital natives, he was convinced. The best proof he saw was that more and more people belonging to all age groups never let normal human living come in the way of computing, while subsumed into web surfing, email exchange, virtual communities, downloading data, image, music, and games, and other computing paraphernalia. From round-the-clock computing, shopping, and entertainment to round-the-world customers and business partners, life was too restless a frenzy to join in. If someone wanted to atavistically participate in