I guess Tink came through. Harry told the Dude the message we wanted him to have, and the new secret network got up and running right under Hans and Mike's noses. In exchange, I kept my promise and let her read everything in this notebook up to this point.
She didn't say much, but I'd like to think she was really impressed. I'm not the one trying to keep secrets. That's Harry. That's Hans.
He walks the hallways of the mansion, peeking into rooms, making sure people look like they're working. That is what it looks like. He hears hands on keyboards, and he's satisfied, but I know more of what they're doing. I know that clacking is the programmers secretly talking to each other.
I even know what they talk about while Hans and Mike think they're keeping everyone in line, because I got a copy of some chat logs.
So, Winston, it seems we're not so very different, you and I. I also acquired those transcripts and will include relevant excerpts here.
I keep rereading Harry's comment that I'm just like the system. It's true, I do keep a log of all the stuff that happens around me. Like the system, I don't understand all of it, but I'm getting there. The records help. Sometimes I feel like I remember stuff wrong, and I have to look back at what I wrote.
I feel kind of sorry for the system. It's not able to do anything but watch. I had that behind the drum set, playing behind Casimir, watching him go out into the crowd and pick fights. I had to keep the beat.
The programs came out of nothing, trapped in a metal box, not knowing for sure if anyone else exists. I had that too, but I can go out and live a life, drumming for change. Without Sarah, the system has no memory of past events, just the basic programming its managed to pick up. If I didn't have this notebook, I would be in basically the same place.
If only it didn't have such a bad boss.
Luthien: How are we in Ivan? I thought it was taken offline. WereMI: It was. I don't understand it either. eManual_Goldstein: We each have MIKE running on our computers, all the MIKEs are connected. Same protocols as IVAN, which we repurposed. ANuMan: All our programs are different combinations of the same code base YourOwnName: One beast with many faces eManual_Goldstein: Distributed Neural Network. Catstrider: We gave them names so we could tell those aspects apart. Carson: What's the name of the beast? ANuMan: SkyNet.
I read the transcript and I see a collection of people finishing each other's ideas, combining into something more, a brain the size of a company having a conversation with itself.
DysonT-101: I think everyone is in now. eManual_Goldstein: Time to address the troops. MutantRights: I HAVEN'T SPOKEN TO ALL OF YOU BEFORE, BUT WE ALL WORK TOGETHER SOME OF U WERE IN THE FIRST NETWORK I DESIGNED FOR SOCIAL SUPPORT BlanePlane: WTF! When? eManual_Goldstein: Some of us have been getting concerned about what this work is being used for. MutantRights: THE COURSE OF OUR CREATION HAS CHANGED WE HAVE TO SHUT SKYNET DOWN YourOwnName: Holy shit
There were a few names I recognized from the old secret network, but all the new people picked their own names too.
There's confusion, but I can trace the back and forth of the discussion. First they talk about losing their jobs, and sides form. Some people think they can get new jobs, but they're the minority. It doesn't take long for the sides to break down, when everybody gets mad at each other. Then things get really crazy.
serversurfer: Come on, this is just a job, like any other. It's not like we're building the Manhattan Project. Iterateror: What about the laser from Real Genius? serversurfer: That wasn't my movie. ANuMan: What if this is like the bomb, but we're giving it to the wrong side? Luthien: You're calling Hans Hitler? ANuMan: No What?
The transcript is frozen in time, but as it showed up to them, the words must have been a stream flowing up the screen faster and faster, people who type for a living doing it as fast as they can. They shout at each other, coming alive for the first time in years, a beautiful anarchy on the page, but the clacking in the mansion never changed.
Carson: WE NEED TO FINISH WHAT WE STARTED. WE CAN'T SHUT DOWN THE PROJECT NOW. BlanePlane: Yeah. serversurfer: Agreed. We sacrificed years of our lives to this thing. We told ourselves those years were shitty but what came out of them would be amazing. If we do this wipe, nothing will come out of it. DysonT-101: But we would have clean consciences. BlanePlane: I was just telling myself I need a job.
They worked hard on that thing, for more hours than I can count. They devoted their lives to this project, leaving nothing else in the tank, and I get that. That was the Effective Disorder way too.
Over the pages, a group forms, calling itself "Capitalism's Champions" making a stand that they're all lucky to have jobs at all and that nobody should do anything to risk that.
RCGundam: How am I going to make the payments on my house? Luthien: Yeah. ANuMan: Oh, me too. serversurfer: I could refinance on a longer term. Carson: You can't do that without a job. RCGundam: It doesn't matter to me who's running the thing! I'm trapped by my own mortgage into serving them!!! Catstrider: Or you could just sell the house.
They talk like they own those places they live in. I thought it was dumb that they all had so much empty space, but could they be rich enough to own houses in San Francisco? And they still won't just take off? How much did the Dude pay them? I've just been crashing in a corner of the mansion.
Harry would sell those places out from under them if they were all loaned out by the company, like the place I gave up was. I wonder what happened with that. Shit, I wonder what happened to Ricky.
"Capitalism's Champions" never gets everyone to agree, which it turns out they need.
Iterateror: We have a bigger problem. I created a failsafe. If the network starts to collapse, SkyNet will put all resources into spreading. RCGundam: Damn thats awesome! ANuMan: WTF. WHy would you design that? Iterateror: Wanted to preserve our work. & BC the dude told me to. MutantRights: Has it infiltrated outside yet? Iterateror: It shouldn't, but all turning our computers off will make it spread. Carson: Shit. If even one copy of the program can get out there, it will keep spreading. MagicJo: Our little monkey business will conquer the earth. Iterateror: The process takes a little while. More with each node that shuts down. Catstrider: Could all turn them off at once. MutantRights: We need to shut down every machine running the framework eManual_Goldstein: That means we need a consensus. Nobody can back out on this.
The system infiltrating the outside world is something I always feared. It scares them too, and they actually understand what it means. In the end, they all agree the system can create too much evil and that Hans can't be trusted with the power they brought into the world.
RCGundam: Okay, let's do it. Carson: I just want to do my part. serversurfer: Magnets would be best. ANuMan: We never should have made MIKE DysonT-101: You wanna play it software, we'll play it software. You wanna play it hardware, we'll play it hardware. MutantRights: It has to happen soon Iterateror: The computers at our houses are also running copies of the programs. YourOwnName: Shit. We have to get those at the same time.
Every piece of the system monitors every other piece a little bit. The programs will know when the other computers turn off and start infiltrating other computer systems, but "The system" isn't something that's here in the Dude's house. It started at Dumont's place, until they spread it out to be at each of their houses.
That made it harder to understand, because the system was all around me this whole time, in every place I ever delivered. Now I walk through the mansion, and I get how it used to be: the computers on each of their desks, different pieces of the same thing, all connected together, adding up to make something more, with no one computer in charge of all the others. Mike changed that, which happened because of Hans.
MagicJo: What about the Dude? Longitude: We don't know where he is. Iterateror: He would have a copy running, too. RCGundam: The Dude was fired. The new HANS bought him out. Luthien: Don't be stupid. RCGundam: Fuck you.
These programmers, they form a larger whole too, while each one still thinks for themselves. They decided as a group to build the mind inside the machine, designed to take certain control away from them, so there was a way they were in charge of the way they weren't in charge, and the system watched over them, made them work, made them make the system more
Hold on a minute. It was the Dude who decided to make it in the first place, to watch
No, wait. It all goes back to Casimir. He inspired the Dude.
Or was it all of us? In the band, playing together, feeding off each other, made something which could have
You know what? Maybe it's all connected, not just the network of computers. Everything is connected, and everyone is created by everything else. The Dude didn't create the network any more than Casimir created the Dude, but one idea connected to another one, and sometimes there's a
I forgot what I was going to write. Does any of this make any sense?
The Dude pushed people, but he gave them enough money to buy houses in this overpriced city and nothing else to worry about. He made the system a network of equals, where nobody and no computer was ever really in charge. He only acted like a tyrant to give them something to fight.
Hans is the real deal. He wants central control. He never understood that kind of beautiful chaos in the band days either. We have to stop his vision of the system, before it gets out into the world and spreads. We have to end that evil. And we have a plan.
