Mileage

In 2036 the State of California granted an incentive to drivers of electric trucks. This was just one act in a decades-long attempt to remove low-efficiency, high-emission vehicles from the roads, but because the situation was increasingly dire, the grant was unprecedented in its generosity. A confluence of political promises and lobbying efforts, the Clean Miles Rebate Project (CMRP) came to include two key terms:

  1. Rebates would be issued for the cost of charging zero-emission commercial trucks, adjusted for Provable Miles Driven (PMD).
  2. Light-duty trucks would be eligible for these rebates.

The requirement that mileage be provable was intended to prevent obvious abuses of the system. Hypothetically, a truck owner could use its vast battery as an electrical reservoir, let the vehicle sit in the driveway undriven, run their home from its charge, and be reimbursed by the state. This behavior was portrayed as a form of fraud, even though Pacific Gas and Electric was in open support of it as a method of reducing load on the state’s power grid. Still, a measure targeting vehicles was not meant to pay for energy infrastructure, so when auto manufacturers championed PMD-tracking technology they were commended for voluntarily cooperating with regulators.

In reality, proving mileage in commercial vehicles was a long-solved problem. Telematic devices sent robust engine diagnostics with sub-second update frequency. Odometer readings collated with GPS tracking, cell tower pings, and local network scanning provided an irrefutable log of every inch of vehicle motion. For commercial fleets, PMD reporting was trivial. It was mandatory. That market was saturated.

This technology had little demand in the consumer market though. Drivers never had a reason to match every mile traveled to the exact amp-hour listed on their energy bills. CMRP gave them a reason. This was why Daimler Truck AG advocated for the measure. Having acquired several telematics companies in the 2020’s, Daimler had been selling packaged PMD systems in its heavy-duty lines for years. In 2035 the company extended this feature to the series of light-duty trucks they were releasing under their Mercedes-Benz brand. The X-Class Marathoner Edition provided the feeling of piloting a Freightliner to drivers on their trips to wholesale big-box stores. The gimmick was insufficient to compete with American pickup brands whose electric offerings were inferior but popular. Daimler had already seen some success in promoting PMD to european regulators, so they estimated a push in California would provide a return on investment. 

According to a report published in 2040, the returns on light-duty PMD would have been modest for Daimler (and scarcely break-even for efficiency-minded drivers) had they not integrated their Remote Pilot System into those same models. Unlike telematic devices, semi-autonomous driving technology had languished for over a decade. Consumer excitement had subsided after many promises and failures. Regulators were even less excited. Systems like Daimler’s were only approved for use in controlled lots where they aided in parking and reshuffling trucks for loading. Consumer vehicles faced less targeted restrictions, but criminal liability for negligent use of driving assists had the same chilling effect. This was the status quo until 2036.

Daisy Lane began as a research project within Amazon Logistics whose mission statement was to “optimize contractor welfare through deployed application of vehicle guidance enhancements.” Reporting from late 2032 suggests the company was spun out because it proved more useful as a sponge for public infrastructure spending, and allegedly to divert attention from the intrastate high-speed rail project that was gaining publicity at the time. Daisy Lane made its first PR splash when it committed to covering the entirety of El Camino Real with its devices. By the time of the company’s liquidation in 2040 the 600-mile long California highway, which stretches from San Francisco to San Diego, would see only 84 miles covered. They did manage to cross 600 miles by striking a deal with municipalities in the South Bay: the only region to be fully certified for remote driving by any government was a network of roads connecting San Jose’s suburbs to either side of the Dumbarton Bridge.

The inclusion of the bridge in the core network would prove to be a fateful decision. Ironically, Daisy Lane considered the bridge to be an ideal environment for their Autonomy Enhancing Sensors (AES). The AES devices, nicknamed “stems” by customers, were deployed at quarter-mile intervals – a relatively low density for the system, but ample coverage for a straight road with no intersections. The stems provided constant readings of the road conditions and live video feeds for remote analysis. Autonomous vehicles that subscribed to Daisy Lane’s service could supplement their proximity scans with a stream of data from the road lying ahead, beyond the vehicle’s range of vision. Daimler’s RPS did exactly this. For all of 2035, though, this investment in autonomous assists failed to respark consumer interest. The only real novelty was the multi-city legal approval Daisy Lane had managed to wrangle, but even this was underwhelming for autonomy enthusiasts. The need for supplemental devices was further evidence the industry was in a slump.

Still, a small community managed to form around the technology. Owners of AES-compatible vehicles shared stories, memes, and financial speculation in a Discord server named “Stems” after the devices. The last of these topics proved to be the most enduring. Entire channels were dedicated to optimizing gig economy jobs using semi-autonomous vehicles. Expanding the capacity of a delivery contract by adding a follow-on vehicle was seen as an essential upgrade for those who could afford the investment. As users became more skilled they were able to increase their margins by adding more and more simultaneous routes. “Remote piloting” required an A1 commercial license, but those were easy to come by since an online certification program had launched the same year Daisy Lane incorporated. 

One of the channels in the Stems server was #mileage. This was mainly a place to post landmark updates – “crossed 50k fully remote” – but it was also full of idle chatter about vehicle efficiency. On January 30th, 2036, a user posted a bragging explanation of how their truck, the Mercedes-Benz Marathoner, was about to be the most economic vehicle on the market. Their theory was that CMRP, which was set to go into effect at the end of February, would offset the cost of charging enough to compensate for the Marathoner’s excessive bulk. They also proposed that the rebates would be processed quickly because of Daimler’s built-in PMD system and commitments by both FasTrak (the region’s toll-taker) and PG&E to integrate with the high-tech initiative. 

The community was skeptical. The Marathoner was often mocked for being a pickup truck that was only driven by people who never picked anything up. Still, there was enough interest in cost-reduction strategies that many encouraged the original user to give it a try and post the results. They said they would and the channel forgot about them for the next three months.

On May 21st, 2036, the driver of the Marathoner announced they had purchased a second brand-new Marathoner and a third lightly-used model. This announcement was made in the #new-wheels channel and was immediately followed by a post in #mileage with the results of their experiment: the rebates were profitable. They included extra emphasis on “profitable” and explained in detail how they had earned back more money from the program than they had spent charging their vehicles. They supported their claims with screenshots of energy bills, their FasTrak account, and Daimler’s PMD dashboard which appeared to show accurate mileage for the roads traveled. They were able to reproduce this effect with the second vehicle and expected to do the same with the third. They stated the difference was enough to justify the vehicle’s premium price, which they estimated would pay for itself in under five years.

These posts were also met with doubts, but it was enough to inspire other Marathon owners to connect their accounts and test out the rebate program. By the middle of June there were enough testimonials that #mileage no longer included conversations about anything else. The only remaining doubts were about whether the profits were the result of a glitch (most agreed it was) and whether it was legal to take advantage of the apparent mistake. Legal or not, it seemed likely the state, county, or energy company would demand the money back once they identified the problem. Boosters of the scheme expressed certainty that the only remediation would be to update CMRP itself, which was politically fraught due to its popularity with companies operating heavy-duty fleets. There was also the suggestion that maybe no one would notice because of how many internet services had to communicate to make the program function. This sounded ridiculous to some, but to others it sent a different message: the sooner you start driving, the more you’ll earn.

By late summer, Stems was a server with only one topic: how to make money from CMRP. Threads where users discussed delivery optimization fell dormant as everyone discovered it was easier and (potentially) more profitable to run a fleet of Marathoners through Daisy Lane routes all day, every day, without stopping for pickup or dropoff. In #new-wheels users were tracking Mercedes-Benz imports to states with the lowest sales tax on light-duty trucks. Groups began to pool their money to purchase shares of vehicles. Those with less capital – often users who were previously relying on gig work – pledged their time instead of their money. A single pilot could only monitor about ten trucks during rush hour, but at 3 a.m. they could easily run fifty. 

Every new truck brought more data that could be used to find the optimal route for “mileage farming” – driving empty vehicles in circles to earn CMRP credits. During the initial wave of excitement users shared their data openly, forming a server-wide collaboration. There were debates about how many times you could loop the same neighborhood before the stream of identical trucks would draw suspicion. Some operators farmed as far from home as possible while others thought keeping the vehicles local would bolster a hypothetical legal defense. The result was that there were some roads where flocks of Marathoners were common, but their distribution throughout the South Bay was broad enough that they did not draw much attention.

The community changed again in the fall when Stems faced three simultaneous crises:

  1. Schools returned to session, expanding the hours roads were congested by human-transport vehicles.
  2. Purchases of AES-compatible vehicles reached an all-time high, including models whose mileage-based earning potential had not been validated.
  3. A double-refund bug was discovered in the Dumbarton Bridge toll system.

The last of these should have been a boon for mileage farmers, but the bridge was already a contentious route. Under a measure that predated CMRP, tolls for electric vehicles were refunded during off-peak hours. Farmers avoided commuter traffic anyway, so the refund turned the bridge into a long, steady road with total AES coverage. It was a popular route for pilots of large fleets, but some Stems members were concerned that overuse of the toll rebate system would draw attention from regulators. If an audit revealed how many Marathoners were looping the South Bay, the whole scheme might be shut down. It was a user from the anti-bridge faction who leaked the details of the bug to the whole server. 

In a private channel, a small group of pro-bridge fleet operators had been discussing the optimal speed at which to pass through the radio toll collectors. The consensus was that fifteen miles-per-hour above the posted limit could get a truck through the slow section quickly without it being cited for a speeding violation. Into this conversation stepped a newer fleet owner who was trying to understand why they seemed to be earning more money when their vehicles had been forced to drive slower. The group dug into these low-mileage journeys looking for the user’s error, but instead they found a new exploit: driving through the toll booth at under five miles per hour could trigger the radio transponder twice for a single vehicle. This should double-charge for a single journey, but the software must have accounted for this error, as the vehicles were only billed once. The system that tracked rebates, however, did not share this double-counting prevention system. The end result was that a slow-moving Marathoner could spend $8 to get refunded $16, a profit that was orders of magnitude greater than looping any other route.

The anti-bridge faction argued that this exploit was so blatant it was guaranteed to trigger an audit. They urged the Stems community to move all of their vehicles away from Dumbarton routes. This was not the message that was received by AES speculators who had already been looking for quicker means to pay down their debts. The leak was posted in #mileage on October 7th, 2036, at 1:03 p.m. Pacific Time. Within two hours every active user was arguing on every channel about whether to ban the exploit or whether it was simply the “new meta” that every fleet operator had to incorporate into their business. Some questioned whether the exploit was even real, but their doubts were drowned out by those who boasted about getting in their laps of the bridge before peak toll hours went into effect at three. 

Anxious hours passed while Stems waited for the bridge to switch out of human-transport mode. Conspicuously absent from any public channels was chatter about the traffic conditions near the bridge; no one wanted to admit they had cars waiting on the east side, ready to swarm the tollbooth if everyone else did. Dash-cam footage made public during news coverage and court cases after the incident confirms reports from human drivers who approached Dumbarton from Thornton Avenue that afternoon: waves of identical Mercedes-Benz light-duty trucks were mounting in the marshlands. Fortunately, the elementary school on Thornton was out of session before the tide turned.

Instead of discussing the situation on the ground, Stems was embroiled in the backlash against those who were against the exploit. The popular opinion was that anti-bridgers wanted the route for themselves so they could farm loops without competition. This claim inspired more pilots to send their vehicles to catch anti-bridgers in the act, which led other pilots to send in the rest of their fleets to get in line before it was too late. In interviews after the fact, even the original leaker would admit to dispatching some of their own vehicles out of fear the Dumbarton bug would lead to the end of CMRP farming and this would be the last chance to limit their losses.

The number of vehicles using the Dumbarton Bridge had been increasing since its repairs in the late 2020’s. In 2035 – after Daisy Lane had installed its remote driving assists but before CMRP went into effect  – the median number of westbound crossings on weekdays was 48,000. According to toll data, on that Tuesday in question in 2036 crossings had been slightly below average during rush hour, likely due to automated congestion of the eastward onramps. In the nine hours after peak tolls ended Tuesday evening and resumed Wednesday morning the bridge had roughly 77,000 westbound crossings, with an equal number of return trips made by vehicles that turned right around on the other side to attempt another chance at the rebate.

Estimates suggest over a thousand semi-autonomous trucks filled all six lanes at all times while maintaining speeds over sixty miles-per-hour. While there were constant fender-benders around the toll booth slow-zone, there were no serious collisions until 12:15 a.m. when a pilot crushed a smaller vehicle between two of their trucks. Stems was briefly aflame with accusations the pilot had targeted the non-Marathoner intentionally, but evidence suggests the pilot was simply exhausted. The community was also aware the Dumbarton situation was unprecedented and, in their excitement, were much more focused on reopening the lane for traffic. Using the coordination of several fleets (and the fact none of the vehicles held passengers) they were able to push the inoperable car to the end of the bridge and off into the marshy shoulder. This procedure would be repeated eight times before sunrise, though municipal workers reported over a hundred vehicles in various states of disrepair had to be disposed of after the incident.

Residents of the towns nearest the bridge’s ends had been calling the police constantly since the initial wave on Tuesday. Most departments asked for assistance from the California Highway Patrol, but the CHP was busy splitting its attention between blocking lanes to stem the tide and trying to figure out which traffic violation the empty vehicles were committing. Patrol cars that blocked off routes through small neighborhoods kept pushing the problem around; the Marathoners would reroute in an orderly manner, flood another neighborhood, and return when the patrol car left. Some departments have claimed the CHP made the problem worse by diverting trucks away from the interstate and onto local roads.

Those who lived off of Thornton Avenue had seen the worst the earliest. Citizens volunteered their cars to blockade the thoroughfare, but they realized quickly that shifting the traffic to the side streets was much more dangerous. Instead they ceded the avenue to the trucks and dedicated their resources to cutting off every shortcut the automated route-finders would be tempted to take. A night of trial and error led to the discovery that the trucks would not go down smaller lanes that were not covered by Daisy Lane devices. The stems that had previously faded into the background – matte green poles branching off of other street poles – became weeds to cut down. For the early hours of Wednesday morning, Thornton was a tidy line of automated traffic.

In the Stems server no one had been watching Thornton Avenue. The mission of clearing busted vehicles from the bridge used up all of their attention as commuter hours approached: the number of accidents increased as pilots became more eager to complete laps before the toll changed. Farmers were happy to let their software handle the job of looping back and getting in line to approach the bridge again. The quickest turnarounds were all clogged with vehicles doing the same thing, so the software had grown more adventurous. By destroying the right stems, the residents had managed to tame the coiling beast. This worked because the software preferred routes that had live data feeds. Street-based cameras could shave milliseconds off of pedestrian detection time, which could be difference between life and death for the victim of a six-ton Marathoner. Thornton had carved out safe zones, but few other neighborhoods were prepared when the tide shifted again.

At exactly 4:59 a.m. hundreds of pilots sent the same instruction to thousands of trucks: leave the bridge. Some were sent back to their charging stations, others were put into loops that would keep them nearby for when commuter hours ended. This was when the traffic problems became truly dangerous. During the night, alternatives to the bridge were easily accessible to the few in-vehicle human drivers traversing the South Bay. On Wednesday morning, however, congestion throughout the region surpassed its regular peak two hours ahead of schedule and remained at critical levels not seen since the earthquake of 2027. Semi-autonomous pilots (already fatigued from a night of farming) made numerous errors, but these conditions were even more perilous for regular people: insurers reported that, when medical expenses are taken into account, for every dollar of damage claimed by pilots $1,120.00 was issued to human passengers.

Digging into the Stems message logs reveals the unified effort for managing accidents on the bridge did not carry over to commuter hours. The consensus was that it was impossible to account for the complexity of in-vehicle driver behavior, so only the most micromanaging (and least tired) pilots attempted to update their strategies in real time. By 7 a.m. a majority of fleets had switched into fully autonomous operating mode with algorithms that were opportunistic – “attempt to avoid congestion” – while relying on AES whenever possible. Pilots would later claim in court that they were unaware of the gaps in AES coverage that local residents had created with their “sabotage campaign.” This argument was often used to reach settlements in civil suits, but was never successful against charges of criminal negligence. The precedent had been established that vehicle manufacturers were not accountable for improper algorithm usage, and Daisy Lane devices were only supplements to those systems. Still, relatively few criminal cases were pursued, and all of those were for pedestrian fatalities.

With the algorithmic shift, the residents of Thornton Avenue found their blockades were suddenly flanked by vehicles attempting to cut through their neighborhood in the opposite direction. They rallied quickly, adjusting their parked cars and disabling more stems until the (almost fully autonomous) Marathoners were forced back into containment. Most of the coordination of this effort was carried out on the ground by word of mouth, but a handful of social media posts had been boosted by media outlets covering the traffic debacle. The image that achieved the most reach featured a husband and wife in matching pajamas gripping either handle of a huge pair of bolt cutters. When residents of other neighborhoods woke up to find trucks flocking through their streets, this image was probably the first solution they saw in their search results.

One of the assurances Daisy Lane had given to municipalities was that special accommodation would be provided for school zones. Devices in these areas emitted signals that put hard caps on speed for vehicles in their proximity. To provide better visibility, stems were deployed at double the density used on other roads. This provided a marginal improvement to safety statistics, but it improved perception of the devices significantly. Until Wednesday the 8th, this gave some parents the confidence to drop their kids off using remote pilot mode. But on that day, even those who had used stems saw them as a threat. Schools were the first places people thought of when they decided the devices needed to be removed.

From the perspective of the software, a road with dense AES coverage is the safest choice. Removing a stem from a school dropoff lane would reduce coverage by a few percent, but that route would still have higher coverage than an adjacent block which had lost its only sensor. This meant that, to avoid being stranded, the vehicles started to seek out school zones. Few schools were able to remove every last device before children began to arrive – again, because of the increased density.

At 7:40 a.m. four unsupervised Marathoners were following behind a school bus traveling north on Clark Avenue in East Palo Alto. They had broken away from a larger pack of trucks that were looping the congested freeways waiting for the bridge to reopen. Readings show the lead vehicle was maintaining a safe distance from the bus, but the other three trucks were operating with a small gap optimized for fleets. When the bus arrived at the school’s horse-shoe driveway, the lead truck identified a gap in AES coverage: the bus was blocking a sensor. The street continued straight. The driveway turned right, wrapping around an island with a few parking spots. The lead Marathoner followed the bus, which came to a stop a few car lengths later. The software correctly determined that it should wait for the school bus, but that meant it was stopped halfway into the driveway and half sticking into the street.

At 7:44 the second truck identified the driveway as an unnecessary turn; the bus was no longer blocking the required sensor, so the street was available. However, it had already begun to turn right to follow its leader, so it was hugging the right shoulder as it passed the truck stopped behind the bus. The unblocked stem had gained an angle on the street, but it could not see past the stopped truck. On the other side was a compact car parked in a designated dropoff zone. Seconds after the new lead truck initiated its pass, a young boy opened the rear driver’s side door of that car and stepped into the street.

The first pedestrian struck by a Marathoner that day was a fifth grader named Luis Forenza. Luis’s parents have made their archive of the data surrounding his killing available to the public, which is how we know the moment-by-moment details of the tragedy. Eight other pedestrian fatalities were privately confirmed to be caused by Marathoners dispatched for the bridge toll exploit, five of whom were children. That single day in 2036 was responsible for 2% of pedestrians killed by light-duty trucks in California that year.

The Readers

Three women sit in repose: Yerjena, Lorin, and Fig. They are in a breathy library full of supple leather loungers, which is also a courtyard shaded by a grand marble statue garnished by wandering ivy, which is also a polished aluminum bunker that is vacuum-sealed against the corrosive future. They do not move often. When they do, it is a stimulating motion that reminds the viewer that these women, effortlessly focused though they are, have living muscles that need a tender adjustment every few beats of eternity (roughly ten minutes, we gauge). The sky casts shadows on Lorin’s legs; she tucks them under a glass blanket and lets the flames lick her toes.

“Everything he fears is mundane,” she declares.

Yerjena and Fig await her insight. They are aware of Lorin’s activity. They are always aware. There is a spiritual unity between creatures which is facilitated by a delicate screen that floats in the microlayer between the conjunctiva and the sclera, though when their eyes are open they may see the blinking marquee which is always erupting around each woman’s head to remind the viewer of what she is thinking and how her face may deceive. 

Lorin slides down the bannister of the spiral staircase to meet her colleagues on the upper floor of the library.

“I have been reading the story in word-order,” she explains. “The Commentaries say this ancient work evoked dread.”

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Regarding the Orbital Terminal Incident

On the day in question, most of my energy was spent traveling. It must have been around five o’clock, West Africa Time, when the lights in the railcar flickered, dimmed, then went dark entirely.

My colleague Bernard stiffened beside me. I felt him groping at the seats in front of us as if the train were going to rearrange itself in the darkness. Subvocal utterances revealed his disquietude. I determined he was unaware of his own animal noises and so, surely, he was unaware of the electrical whine of the magnetic brakes engaging beneath us. I was not especially worried by the change; the tunnel had slowed our transport to barely a trot prior to the loss of power. However, I did find myself wondering what it would sound like if the machine had to deploy its kinetic pads to bring us to a halt. Would we hear the metallic scream of an ancient locomotive echoing through this ultramodern coach? Such a thing would only occur if the rail lines lost power completely, of course. The absence of this emergency measure was proof enough that there was no cause for concern. I began to phrase this for Bernard, but he spoke first.

“Aha, observe: the station has already restored its connection.”

His intonation suggested he was trying to reassure me, but it was not I who was craning my neck to take in every inch of the conveyance. Still, I took a gander to humor him

There was enough luminance leaking through the slim slipglass portals to give shapes a some definition. The curved edges of urethane seats repeated themselves down the aisle a dozen meters to the front of the car. The domed window there allowed me to observe dots of light in the ceiling of the tunnel outside. They ran over us, then crept, then came to a halt. I could only observe a few of these lamps before they faded into obscurity in the tunnel’s depths. This amber glow was enough, though, to reveal the falsehood of Bernard’s claim: the power for these lights was quite obviously sourced from battery failsafes. The crisp iridescent bulbs of the platform were left inert, dumbly indicating their disconnection.

For this I was grateful. The ambiance soothed my weary eyes. Sunset red – the lowest end of the visible spectrum – was appropriate for the moments after a blackout. It was appropriate, as well, for the end of a long journey underground. I took to the aisle, spirit renewed, startling Bernard with my confidence. I surmised that he was peering through the slipglass in hope of spotting an attendant coming to aid us. I had already dismissed this as a false hope, and I told him so: though our arrival was scheduled, a remote docking station had no hands to spare for civilian travel. Flatbed freight lines ran on rails parallel to ours, but with tonnes of Earth separating the tunnels. I described how operators were at that moment scurrying to manage the loss of power and still meet their deadlines with the facility above. This was a routine inconvenience for them and only a mild disturbance for us.

He conceded the truth of my words and aided me in dislodging our baggage from their holds. He made a comment about guiding my weak eyes in the dark, which I found rather condescending. Bernard knew of my corrective surgery and, as a scientist, should understand how impeccable the treatment had been. I let the slight pass by without comment. I understood in the moment that he needed to glamorize his youthfulness to combat his childish fear of the dark.

The platform was vast and lonely. The farthest train car doors were far beyond my range of vision in the dim red glow of the station. I could hear them all shut in a chorus: a sound that was never meant to dominate this space. Voices, shouts, the shuffle of footsteps; this was once a bustling place. We ascended the escalators and I let Bernard take the heaviest baggage, one step at a time as we climbed the inert transport mechanism. It occurred to me then that Bernard had never seen this place when it was in its prime. This would be his first ascent into orbital space. Perhaps it was misguided of me to think he had been scared of the dark, rather than the climb into orbit that was in our immediate future.

The silence was broken when we crossed the threshold of the sky bridge. Mercifully, the automatic doors had maintained power. When we entered that glass-enclosed tube we felt the vibrations of the trucks crossing down below. Just as I described, the cargo carriers were operating at full, almost frantic, capacity. I observed them, briefly wondering whether they were behind schedule or if this was their usual frenzy of action before an ascent. The sunset to the west had a glow no stronger than the running lights guiding us across the bridge. The horizon ended over the Gulf of Guinea, I knew, but all that could be seen was a blackening mass of clouds. The storms were rising to consume the night.

I began to comment on the oncoming weather, but I reconsidered it when I remembered Bernard’s first-flight nerves. It was then I discovered he had stopped in the middle of the bridge, several paces behind me. He stood at the apex of the arched structure, staring eastwards and upwards. Even before I followed his gaze into the night sky I knew what he beheld.

“This is not my first time spotting it.”

He seemed to anticipate my question.

“I wrote most of my doctorate in Sri Lanka. In the southern region it was possible to look towards the equator and see it on a clear day. A column of steel. A needle scratching across the grooves of the Earth, playing the music of space.”

I approached the window to stand beside him, leaving the baggage so I would not have to haul it twice. We watched the thing approach us: the International Space Elevator. It was only a line of lights. An innocuous warning for an unstoppable force. The boundary of its airspace was impossible to define, and the lights made no effort to do so, but those points of color climbing into the sky were a marvel of their own. I let Bernard have his flight of fancy, ignoring his erroneous description of the thing as steel. Very little of the structure was metal, or any solid material at all; only beams of magnetism were strong and light enough to maintain such a miraculous formation. And it might as well be a miracle to scientists such as ourselves: archeologists, not engineers or physicists. So I let him have his poetic pronouncement, trying to remember if I had any words as apt when I was his age.

“Come,” I said to him when the marvel had grown stale. “It will be upon us within the hour.”

Bernard broke away with a nod. He took up the bags I had left down the bridge with a renewed spirit of chivalry or excitement. As I struggled to catch up to him I was struck with the thought that this was how my mother must have seen me when I raced ahead to that first ascent, so many years ago. How different was this terminal then: she would have had to watch me through the shifting crowd, all of us pushing forward into the compartments that would carry us through the atmosphere. How different was I, as well: not eager, not hurried by curiosity. Only an old academic’s commitment to research drew me forward and upward. Only an old skeptic’s questions propelled me towards dread.

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The Taste of Brain Juice 

I love it when a plan comes together.

John “Hannibal” Smith

We all love it when things just “click.” When, after staring at a puzzle for an eternity with no signs of progress, the solution suddenly becomes obvious. We call it a “breakthrough,” an “epiphany,” a “eureka moment” that might even make us shout aloud. We want to make noise because we want someone to rush in from the other room, desperate to learn the hidden truth we’ve uncovered. Fortunately, most of us are too humble to think we need an audience for our Sudoku solution, our crossword conquest, our Wordle win. That rush of satisfaction is easy to feel, but hard to share. But if we could explain it to someone else, maybe it would provoke that same feeling. If we could keep finding a fresh audience, maybe we prolong the feeling indefinitely. Maybe we could keep drinking the same brain juice.

When I first saw “brain juice” pop up online it gave me exactly this feeling of satisfaction. It is an elegant term for the pop-science understanding of how the squishy organ in our skulls is responsible for our emotions. I like the word “juice” for this because it sounds as messy and childish as my understanding of how the brain functions. I am enough of a nerd that I might be willing to skim a research paper, but when I see the word “dopamine” used to explain something on the internet I just shrug. I know enough to spot when someone is waving a wand at neuroscience and hoping something useful pops out of the hat. I am not going to make guesses about how neurochemistry is responsible for the personal and social influence of bootleg brain juice. No, I am going to be providing anecdotes, personal exposition, and some uninformed conjecture. “Brain juice” is exactly as scientific as it sounds.

I also like the word “juice” because it makes me think of sugary fruit drinks. Apple, grape, orange – you’ve heard of these. I’m not talking about an energy drink or nutritional supplement that claims it can magically prevent altzheimers while giving you an extra pep in your step. Plain old fruit juices combine instant gratification with a vague promise of health benefits. Puzzles are the same: come for the sweet solution, stay for the dubious claims of general intelligence gains. We desire the taste, but we say it’s good for us. That’s an adult’s rationalization of a child’s impulse. At least, it is for me, and I am forced to face that fact because of how my body reacts to brain juice.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of brain juice. I’m sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce on the carpet in the reading area of my fourth grade classroom. A long, low bookshelf separates this corner from the desk area. It’s a cozy environment for a lesson, so I’m already feeling good even though the topic is tough: fractions. Teacher Annie is giving each of us a turn at the whiteboard to try adding them or something. I probably had seen fractions before, but this is the day I remember. This is the moment it clicked. I don’t know what the numbers were, but I suddenly understood their purpose, that they were useful, not just another thing I had to learn because school expected it. The pieces came together. It felt good. It felt very good. It wasn’t pride, or satisfaction, or joy. It was a unique physical sensation. It rushed through my brain, sent a little shiver down my spine, and made my pulse rush. Fractions did this.

Now, before you go saying “this creep is horny for math,” keep in mind that I was like nine years old, so it is you who is the creep for thinking that. And it’s not just math; throughout my life all kinds of miniature epiphanies have triggered this sensation. For a long time I assumed it was a universal experience—as I said above, everyone loves these moments. However, while the feeling of pleasure is common, I’ve come to realize my particular physical experience is not. It is similar to ASMR: we all can feel tickling, or enjoy soft whispers, but not everyone feels a “low-grade euphoria” from it. The sensation is equally hard to explain.

Writing about this experience is an embarrassing task, like trying to describe why a song from your sophomore year in high school makes you cry. But I had to explain myself before I got to the real subjects of this piece: gurus, internet philosophers, and other connoisseurs of brain juice. This low-grade euphoria is the reason I empathize with them, even as I find them completely intolerable. 

I don’t remember my elementary school teacher ever again dropping knowledge on me that was as potent as potent as those fractions. I was lucky to have a lot of good teachers all the way through college, but none of them ever had the perfect recipe for delivering an epiphany in every lesson. Certain topics are more mind-blowing than others; most require a long, drawn-out setup before the punchline hits. Once or twice a semester would be a fantastic rate—I selected subjects where this seemed feasible. When there were long gaps between breakthroughs I would become frustrated. No one likes to plateau, and anxiety about grades or competition could crop up, but even success could be dissatisfying. Having a mentor’s guidance was almost more important when progress was steady, but boring.

A really great teacher is one who can supply the brain juice, but also helps you through the tough stuff. A “guru” just helps you chase the high.

Guru Sampler Platter

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Reflection of the Five

The monster is a reflection. A scattering of light bent back on itself. Set to no purpose of its own, it takes the form of our own dumbstruck faces. We stand in the dark, caught wondering if it suggests an intruder lurking around the next corner. But it is just a reflection.

Because I am recalling this fact, we can be certain that I have survived with my fingers intact. Whether there is a mind attached to the nerve endings of those digits is an inference you will have to draw. If I have no facility to press these words into text, then I have already forced one mind or machine to hear my monologue. Through the editorial filter of dictation, at least, we may have some confidence that an ending can be reached with some reason still guiding the tale. But it is just a reflection.

***

Three hours south-east of San Jose I spied a well-paved road which had no corresponding entry in my navigation sheaves. I made a note of the branch, but I did not slow my vehicle by much. The remains of Interstate Five in that area were remarkably untouched by time and I was enjoying the pleasant drone of my genuine rubber tires across pavement from the era for which they were intended. I rolled down the windows (with a crank, no less!) just to hear them better. The dry, dusty wind of the Central Valley stung my eyes, but that only enhanced the experience. The discomfort helped distract me from calculations of how few miles I had left to extract from the antique parts of the car, especially if I insisted on subjecting it to the desolation of abandoned country roads.

Besides, the unlisted exit was almost certainly a service road for a Bullet Tunnel substation. The desicated carcasses of Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield were disused save the access they provided to underground facilities. The swaths of wasteland in between these lonely places were fortunate to even serve that purpose. And so I assumed the little road was listed in some corporate filing that had yet to find its way to the forums from which I had pulled my renderings of the region. Though I look back on it regretfully now, would anyone consider this minor disjunction between knowledge and observation worthy of scrutiny?

My second discovery, however, was impossible to ignore. Speeding down the straight track, I had let my thoughts wander away from the driver’s seat. There is a certain kind of daydream that can only be dreamt from behind the wheel. This place is where I let Linda and our daughter visit me now. I refuse to say they are the only reason I devoted so much of my time and income to this obsolete hobby, for it provides many points of interest. But the serenity of their voices on the wind is as important as it is fleeting. They, as well as the smooth sound of the wheels, were blown out of existence by a grating, thumping noise that made me panic for the health of the roadster as if it were my own body. I applied the brakes too forcefully and was equal parts devastated and thrilled by the squeal of the suffering rubber; how many miles had I burned away in one stroke! The thought lingered with me as I sat, static and alone, in a minefield of potholes somewhere on the Five.

The exact location was easy to determine from the guidance system built into each navigation sheave. Yet this did not restore my confidence. The projection which imposed itself on the highway before me matched the curvature (straight) and incline (flat) of the landscape surrounding my vehicle, but the state of the road bore no resemblance. But I did not need technology to tell me this. I had studied the interstate thoroughly in preparation for my sprint to Los Angeles and I knew the points of danger. This was not one of them. Stepping out of the car only made the interruption more mysterious. The pavement was not split by desert weeds (the tenacious fools) nor the scoring of overweight freighters. What I saw before me had only one analogue: flood damage, an impossibility in the parched valley.

Well, impossible or no, my hopes for completing the journey were dashed. I had been toying with cutting the day short after wasting most of the morning just to get through the favelas in the Sacramento hills. But my energy had been restored when I steered through the last of the metal wreckage that blocked the onramp. The open interstate was like an outstretched hand after the urban bubble that lay behind me. Now it had closed to a fist.

I was only welcome on the path I had come by, so I counted my blessings (one for each tire, mercifully un-popped) and began planning my reverse. I scanned the region into a fresh navigation log, satisfied at least I had some novel analysis to share with my fellow enthusiasts. Had I considered at that moment to upload the data I may have noticed the weakness of the signal. Would that have been enough to change my next decision? Perhaps not, for I was confident with my ability to survive in solitude. I dutifully checked the solar throughput before restarting the adaptive engine. I even made a little tap on the high-voltage booster battery which rested below the passenger seat, away from litigious eyes. It answered with a charming fzzt that told me it was ready to push me through twenty thousand leagues yet!

I swung the roadster around to face the wrong direction for highway driving. No patrol car stopped me. In a few bumpy moments I was back to smooth sailing, but my mind did not return to daydreams. I began to piece together an alternative route to salvage my failed expedition. A fresh review of the maps had put the idea in my head that the mystery road could be a shortcut to the ruins of Fresno. Built for an access tunnel, certainly, in which case it may come to a dull end, but the possibility of a destination was too tempting to disregard. In any case, I had more than enough time and energy to make the return trip. Before I could come up with a single mark against the plan, I had already navigated the wrong-way exit and found myself on the single lane into the barren valley.

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StartUp: Crypto, Cybersecurity, and Melodrama

I watched the drama series StartUp in a small window pulled to the right edge of my monitor, occupying less than a fifth of the screen area. Filling the rest of the space would be work: code, or talking about code, or complaining about talking about code. My attention would swing between the two rhythmically. A Martin Freeman monologue would fade into a music montage that let eyes move back to the code editor. A slow app rebuild would let me steal some glances at a gratuitous sex scene. Rhythm of the boredom. Sometimes the work would require too mutch focus and I would have to close the tab. Other times the show would capture my attention enough that I would give it the honor of full screen. The living pulse of a startup. The pure frenetic energy of getting jacked into whichever reality fits your mood. A four-dimensional experience. This was GenCoin.

Now, if you read things online the way I do, you probably skimmed over the ending of that paragraph. You got the vibe and sensed that nothing of substance was going to be added, just the same idea reinforced. That is an entirely fair approach to take. Your time is valuable. My time spent writing mild satire of silicon valley tropes is less valuable. 

By the same token, you may not want to spend your time watching the direct-to-streaming show StartUp which ran from 2016 to 2018 for a grand total of thirty episodes. It was released on a Streaming as a Failed Service (SaaFS as we call it in the biz) that doesn’t matter. Its plot was built around news headlines of the time. It echoed news outlets perfectly, using the topics as bland slices of bread to wrap around human drama peanut butter & jelly. If that description doesn’t get your mouth watering, then I encourage you to save yourself thirty hours of carbohydrates and skip this one.

However.

The drama series hit Netflix in May of 2021, the same month I quit a tech job. Coincidence? Did StartUp give me the clarity I needed to see what was wrong with my work environment?

No.

I actually watched the NIXVM cult documentaries earlier in the year. Those are more representative of the working conditions of a startup than the show StartUp. One trope that is surprisingly absent from the show is the Charismatic Leader who steers everyone towards a common cause using reins of abuse and and flattery. StartUp seems to avoid this type of character as part of its thesis, instead focusing on a trio of flawed-but-not-too-flawed characters: Nick, the entrepreneur; Izzy, the entrepreneur; and Ronald, the entrepreneur. Okay, sure, they each have more backstory than that. But in the world of StartUp, the most important trait is a fetish for small businesses with big dreams. If the dream is big enough, it doesn’t even need a leader to form a cult. 

What, then, is the dream at the heart of StartUp? What idea could unify an investor with daddy issues, a hacker with a destructive ego, and a drug dealer with a conscience? Why, only the most important topic of the twenty-teens:

Cryptocurrency.

That was a joke. I feel I have to clarify that, because you might be reading this in the far future, or you might really think crypto is a more important topic than climate change or the resurgence of white supremacy. Sadly, I have to inform you crypto was as vapid a subject as Beanie Babies while receiving as much attention as those other topics. At least those stuffed animals weren’t actively harmful. They didn’t contribute much to climate change, unlike the ongoing energy sink of etherium. I don’t think any rainbow bears helped neo-nazis raise money. 

However, this essay is not about “crypto bad.” And there is no reason a TV show can’t use it as a subject. Breaking Bad doesn’t try to convince you that methamphetamine is good, actually. But it does portray the effects of the drug and its black market. The real fun of StartUp is how it fails to address any of the real problems with crypto. Instead it waves its hands at some technical jargon to condemn or redeem the characters as is convenient.

It is this silicon straw man that I am going to spend my time burning down. I am going to put too much effort into explaining how StartUp creates technology that is somehow sillier than reality. Then I will interrogate the characters to find out if they know it’s silly, and whether they are in on the joke. I hope my sacrifice can help you enjoy this show, whether or not you choose to suffer through watching it yourself.

I wish someone would padlock me out of my office.

The Pitch

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The Pale Pink Dot

From the archives of Carl Sagan

“From this masculine vantage point, the vulva might not seem of any particular interest. But for women, it’s different. Consider again that clit. That’s sensitive. That’s pleasure. And from the vagina everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, was birthed into life. The aggregate of our joy and suffering; thousands of sexually repressed religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and consumer of porn; every drag queen and king; every young couple in love; every mother- and father-fucker, horny teen, sub and dom; every teacher of oral; every scandalous politician; every “pornstar”; every “sexpert”; every saint and sinner in the history of our species came from there — a small orifice in a frail mammal.

“The vulva is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of cum spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could have a moment of intimacy with hardly any attention to the clit. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the children of one these organs on the scarcely distinguishable children of some other organ. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that large genitals have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this fold of soft flesh. Our dicks are lonely shadows in the great enveloping vaginal light. In our flaccidness — against all this voluptuousness — there is no hint that we could reproduce by ejaculating into other orifices.

“The uterus is the only method known, so far, for humans to create life. There is nothing else, at least in the near future, with which our species could reproduce. Orgasm: yes. Gestate: not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the uterus is how we make our babies. It has been said that biology is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than our treatment of this little organ. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with our sisters and lovers, and to preserve and cherish the pale pink dot, the only mother we’ve ever known.”

“That’s great, Carl, but you still have to wear a condom.”

“Shit.”

Scenes from the Virus: Two

There is a joke going around the internet. Perhaps you have heard it. It goes a little something like this:

Everyone is so worried about social distancing, but I’ve been doing it my whole life!

This sentiment has been repeated in various iterations. I believe my first encounter with it was XKCD #2276 which I found novel at the time. I found it humorous. Many people have found it humorous enough that it has been repeated.

And repeated.

And repeated.

Though, I think it is not a case of mere repetition. I am certain many people crafted these words, or their equivalent, independently. I dare not hazard a guess as to how many copies are originals versus copies. I, as a lower bound, would propose ten.

In any case, this convergent evolution intrigues me. If so many minds (nearly eleven!) have been drawn to this common conceit, there must be some conceptual content that craves creation. Is it a chemical process programmed into our very DNA? Could it be a specter haunting our society, channeling its curse into our shared psyche? Or perhaps it is not a curse, but the boon of a mischievous meme god. Whatever the case may be, it warrants further investigation, deconstruction, and reiteration.

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Scenes from the Virus: One

The grocery store pumps Party in the USA into our ear-holes as we browse the last of the russet potatoes.

All of the yams are gone.

I settle on pair of peppers instead. The poblanos are untouched. It’s that kind of store. More for me, uninfected, then.

The roll of produces bags is thick; it must have just been replaced. Wary of coating this public resource in my finger funk, I struggle to find the edge of a bag until a finger hovers into frame to point out the place of purchase.

I seize hold of the squirrelly edge, then follow the friendly finger to its source.

“Ah, you got it,” says the voice of a particle mask. The yellow-banded mask looks like a survivor from the fire months. It is attached to a cracked face.

I say nothing, but I nod my head like “yeah.”

I back away from him, moving my hips like “yeah.”

I know it’s going to be okay.

It’s a party in the USA.