Andrew Bacotti
For my project I wrote a short story from the perspective of a young girl growing up in our current day. She watches and describes first hand the damage that information chaos and pandemics cause. The point of the story is to show how false information and profit-based algorithms can destroy people’s lives. Intertwine this with pandemics and a fragile democracy, and chaos and pain ensues, on a level greater than the individual. Included is the first chapter, which covers primarily the rise of information chaos and how it causes pain to democracies and dismay during a pandemic. In later chapters I want to show the logical progression of this story, towards the climate crisis and an eventual nuclear outbreak. This chapter is quite long and I do not want to make graders read more than the project guidelines outline, so I will add the second chapter later and just use an epilogue at this point. Thank you for your patience and leniency, and I hope you enjoy my story.
On my 14th birthday my parents gave me my first smartphone. It was an 8th generation Iphone in signature rose gold. I was so impressed and excited to show it off to my friends. Right after dinner I ran up to my room and set it up, texting my friends on my old phone about the wonderful gift. The plastic wrap peeling off the screen was one of the most satisfying feelings I had ever had. I held down the side button and it booted up, displaying the iconic Apple logo in all of its glory. The next day on the bus ride to school all of my friends wanted to see the cool new features, taking selfies of themselves and downloading apps. I was the coolest girl on the bus that day. “Elizabeth, let me see it,” “Elizabeth, take a picture of me!” They all called. I used this as an excuse to sit next to the cutest boy on the bus, Jacob. With light brown hair and striking green eyes, he was the catch of our Freshman class. Jacob, like me, was solidly in the middle class, some would say upper middle, but to us that was just normal. He had also gotten a smartphone in the past year. He asked for my phone from me and, after complimenting my background photo of my husky pup, downloaded instagram onto it. He set me up an account, and showed me how to follow his. “Now we can keep in touch,” he said. As we approached our school that sat off of the somewhat rural streets of our historic town in northern California, I asked “will you be on the bus ride home, maybe you could show me some more apps?” hoping to keep the conversation going. “Nah,” he said, “my dad wants me to try out for the riffle team.” It was late September, so all of the fall sports were beginning to start. “Oh, and by the way, Happy Birthday,” he shouted as he exited the bus while I fell back to join my friends cooing over our budding romance.
Later that day I found myself finished with my homework and sprawled out on my plush pink bed needing something to do. I opened up my new phone and tapped on the famous camera logo. Instagram came up, and since I was only following Jacob at the time, my feed was consumed by all of his photos. Some were of him and his friends, usually fishing or playing baseball in his yard. Some were of him and his father at shooting ranges or political rallies. One was him standing in the local gun and ammo shop proudly holding up his first gun permit and newly selected firearm. The caption read: “never gonna let ‘em take mine.” Those striking eyes seemed gleeful; I couldn’t help but notice how cute he looked. I looked around a bit more on the app, and I noticed a tab labeled “explore.” Tapping it, it brought me to a screen filled with seemingly random posts assembled for my viewing. Some were cute animals, others were construction videos or cars, many focused on Donald Trump and North Korea’s missile launch. It was 2017 afterall. I decided to use my inadeptness with the app as an excuse to message Jacob. I found his account again, and clicked the direct message icon. “Hey, thanks for showing me the app, how do they choose which photos show up on my explore page?” I wrote, and rewrote, and wrote again, trying not to sound too desperate or nerdy.
After a few minutes I saw three dots pop-up in the chat screen, he was typing back. I left the screen as quick as I could so that it wouldn’t look like I was waiting there for his reply. I got the notification at the top of my screen. “Hey cutie…” I blushed, “was just thinking about you.” I clicked on the message and it opened the chat screen. “I think the explore page just shows you posts based on the posts you’ve tapped on before,” he wrote. “Oh that’s pretty cool,” I wrote back. “See, take a look at mine lol” He then sent a screenshot of a page filled with Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones and guns. Lots of guns. There were also many images and videos of surgical techniques and medical information posts. Nerdy, I know, but as long as I had known him Jacob had always wanted to be a doctor.
At the time I didn’t pay a lot of attention to politics, definitely not as much as Jacob. I knew my parents didn’t like Trump, and that most people in my town didn’t either, but I was only fourteen and was more concerned with what I was going to wear to school than the intricacies of tax policy or what healthcare system we had. I got closer and closer to Jacob over the next few weeks and the next few years. We eventually started dating. At that point I wasn’t sure whether it was because he was cute, or because he was popular at school, or because I actually liked him, but I didn’t care. I was fourteen. All that mattered was that every girl at school wanted what I had. By this time everyone had smartphones and Instagrams. I was sure to post pictures of us regularly. After a few months of dating, he invited me over on a Sunday evening to have dinner with his family. I graciously accepted, seeing this as a big step in our fledgling relationship.
Meeting his parents was one of the most memorable experiences of my life to this day. As a reminder, we lived in California at that time, but this didn’t stop his father from garnishing his pickup truck with a confederate flag bumper sticker. It was complemented with a smattering of “Trump 2016” and 2020 bumper stickers, as well as “Hillary for Prison” and various others. By this time, in 2019, I had become more educated in school on issues like climate change and immigration. I formed my own opinions and my explore page was filled with tweets by Bernie Sanders and NowThis News. I knew Jacob and I differed politically, but I never knew the extent until that day. I approached the house and Jacob came out the front door to greet me. He gave me a peck on the cheek and, seeing the nervousness in my eyes, whispered in my ear “They are going to love you. Just don’t say anything too…” He paused. “…liberal.” I shuddered a bit, but ultimately felt relieved. I gained some liberal ideas, but I could go without talking about it for a few hours, unlike some of my classmates.
Walking into the house I was surprised by the utter normalness of it. From what I had heard and learned from social media about conservatives, I expected there to be a layer of grime on everything and guns decorating every wall. While Fox News was playing on a low volume in the living room, the house looked just like mine. Family photos on the walls, magazines on the kitchen table, keys by the front door. No kids in cages or empty beer bottles as decorations. His mother walked out of the kitchen at the sound of the front door closing. “Welcome dear, we have heard so much about you!” She hugged me and looked at her son, “you didn’t tell me she was so pretty Jacob!” He blushed. “Mom…” he said with a bit of meager anger, twirling his foot. “Come sit down honey, dinner is almost ready. Jacob, set the table while I go get your father.” She walked to the foot of the stairs, untying the apron from her slender frame as she walked away. “Denny! Jacob’s girlfriend is here!” I heard her yell from the dining room where I sat watching Jacob set out plates after denying my offer to help. Everything was so obscenely normal… until we started talking.
Denny sat at the head of the table, next to Jacob on his right and myself next to Jacob. We exchanged pleasantries. He seemed polite and excited to meet me. Jan, Jacob’s mother, came into the room with her arms full to the maximum with platters and pans of food. The center of the table quickly became covered in food inspired by Jacob’s Italian heritage and his fifth or sixth generation American influences. I was served a plate full of meaty Lasagna, garlic bread, broccoli and pasta. Eyeing the meat pouring from the now cut Lasagna, Denny snarked “you’re not one of those vegans are ya Liz?” I replied “No” as Jacob and Denny laughed, followed by Jan, on her husband’s left, chuckling nervously. I decided it was probably better to start eating then engage more with that comment. As I reached for the fork I was met with an elbow from the side by Jacob. I shot a questioning glare his way. He replied, addressing the entire table “let’s pray before the food gets cold.” His parents nodded in agreement, I silently thanked him for saving me the embarrassment. They closed their eyes and lowered their heads, I followed along. Denny began with the normal, “as seen on TV” prayer, thanking God for their food and happy lifestyle. Until the last sentence, this prayer seemed like a normal Christian household pre-dinner ritual. Denny finished “and thank you for keeping those ungodly illegals out of our town.” My eyes shot open as they concluded with a mutual “Amen.” I felt like Rod Serling, from my parents’ old Twilight Zone tapes, was about to start a monologue. “Was I being punked?” I thought to myself.
They began eating as if that comment was not strange at all. Except for Jan, whom I caught looking at me for my reaction. As the conversation started while we all began to eat, Jan asked how our days had been as a typical ice breaker. Following the usual replies of “good” and “nothing interesting,” Jan asked about Denny’s day at work. Denny was a regional project manager at a corporate construction company that operated out of Sacramento. Jan was a part-time bank teller. They both were college educated. After talking about their self-described mundane days, they started in with the typical questions anyone would ask their son’s girlfriend. “What do your parents do, Elizabeth?” and “What colleges are you thinking about?” I answered like the proper young girl I was at the time. The questions got a bit more personal, asking about religious beliefs, talking about the sermon by their megachurch pastor earlier that morning. I dodged most of them. Having been raised a “Submarine” Catholic, I knew enough to get through the conversation. Denny was a bigger man and with his booming voice largely controlled the conversation, with Jan asking questions every now and then, and Jacob interjecting with anecdotes very obviously tailored to win his father’s praise. The conversation turned to politics, as I had been nervously expecting since the end of the prayer. I nodded along as they agreed with whatever tweets had been sent that day, I made a faux repudiated expression as they talked about whatever the Democrats had been up to or whatever CNN (which I watched regularly) was saying. This earned me a gracious graze of my thigh under the table by Jacob, who smiled at my nods and giggled at my expressions. I got into the groove as my nervousness subsided. I had even zoned out for a minute, impressed with my acting and reveling in my amorous reward.
Then I heard “what do you think, Elizabeth?”
“Huh?” I mutterned.
“What do you think of those socialists trying to take down our president?”
It was nearing the end of 2019 and the Muller report had already been released. There were efforts by Democrats in the House to impeach Trump, although it hadn’t happened yet. I didn’t know what to say.
“Seems like they don’t have anything on him,” was all I could muster. “Damn right!” Denny exclaimed in agreement. Jacob agreed as well. The conversation continued for another twenty or so minutes, not always on politics but it definitely served as a backdrop. After dessert, Jan began taking the plates and silverware into the kitchen, aided by Jacob. This left Denny and I alone at the table momentarily.
“You seem like an alright girl, Elizabeth. Raised right,” he said to me. “Jakey there ought not get you into any trouble,” he said with a chuckle. I chuckled as well, “I won’t let him sir.” “What are you all laughing about in here,” Jan said from the doorway, Jacob behind her. “We ought to let Elizabeth get on home before it gets too late, Jacob can drive you.” Jacob, being a few months older than me, had already turned seventeen. “It has been so lovely meeting you, I am glad Jake found such a wonderful girl.” She said, walking me to the door. I thanked them graciously. On the way out I heard Denny let out a sign of relief. “Thank god, just in time for Tucker.”
I was proud and relieved I had passed as a conservative for Jacob’s parents, but in the back of my mind there was a feeling of shame that I had agreed to so many hateful and erroneous comments. We walked towards Jacob’s 2008 Jeep Wrangler that he bought from his old woodshop teacher after he retired. He opened the passenger door, quieter than usual. Typically he would have made a joke by now.
“What’s wrong babe?” I asked.
“Nothing” he said, looking straight forward as he turned the key. The engine revved to life.
“I know something is up,” I said. He started driving, quietly. After a few minutes, once we were on an open road, he spoke up:
“They weren’t always like that ya know… we weren’t always like that…” He said, trailing off.
“Like what?” I inquired.
“We used to talk about other things. I guess I didn’t realize how much we talked about politics until we sat down with someone else. I’m sorry, I know you don’t agree with all that stuff. When I was twelve or thirteen my parents started watching Fox News at night because they didn’t really like Obama, and before long it stayed on all the time. We changed churches and my dad started talking about politics all the time. By the time I was 14, I was afraid that the immigrants and democrats were going to come and destroy us. I mean, I am still a conservative and I am excited to vote for Trump, I just wish we talked about other things sometimes…”
A few months went by and, for the most part, everything was normal. Trump was impeached and I tried hard to avoid going over to Jacob’s house anymore than was absolutely necessary. He went deeper down the rabbit hole, often sending me posts on Instagram with right-wing conspiracies. He had an outburst in class one day about how his earth science class was teaching climate science. I heard about how climate change was fake and that the school was misinforming people for weeks. Everyone else was crazy. There was a day in late February when he was driving me to school. Talk of a pandemic hoax by Rush Limbaugh played on the radio in the background while Jacob mumbled about how they were going to use this to steal the election. I looked up from the videos of wildfires and floods on my phone, and I looked at Jacob. I looked at the man sitting next to me. Seventeen years old and filled with anger. I looked at those brilliant green eyes, and I wondered. I wondered where the kid who used to laugh while he threw water balloons in elementary school went. I wondered where the boy who went to play trumpet at the old folks home on weekends with the boy scouts went. I wondered where the guy who was a volunteer tutor for struggling kids went. I wondered where the Jacob I knew went.
Less than a month later, our school shut down, and students began remote learning. Stores were closed, we were told to stay home. Doctors on TV told us to stay away from others, giving me cover to end things with Jacob. Angry that I was giving into “King Newsom’s draconian rules,” he yelled through the screen and ended the video call. Jacob and the other conservatives kept partying like everything was normal. Just like everything else, our politicians responded to the whims of our voters. They did nothing to enforce lockdowns. Hell, they did nothing to restrict carbon emissions or cut down on gun violence, so I don’t know why I expected this to be any different. People like Jacob were so far down the rabbit hole, fueled by the Instagram algorithms and Fox News, that they didn’t believe that the virus existed. Still being friends with Jacob on SnapChat, I saw his near daily updates on his story. One day I noticed his coughing a few days after going to a huge party. A week or so later came the positive test, accompanied by his triumphant commentary on how everyone overblows the dangerousness of the virus and that he feels completely fine. “It’s just a little cold,” he says. Three weeks later my mother showed me his father’s obituary in the newspaper:
“Dennis C. Allington, age 51, of Greenville, passed away with friends and family outside his hospital room window on Friday, May 28th, 2020.
He is survived by his wife of 20 years, Jan, son Jacob, and brother Ronald.
Memorial Service will be held on June 13th at 10am at Paradise Alliance Church.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Donald Trump 2020 Election Fund.”
The irony was not lost on me, but the prevailing emotion was tearful, sympathetic grief. Jacob hadn’t even let on that his father was sick. The way he was consumed with an identity cult, and to what extent it would drive him, scared me more than I could comprehend at the time.
Because of experiences with Jacob, and the current political and cultural climate of 2020, I decided to go to George Washington University to study journalism after I graduated. They had a great program for it, and given my grades, they provided a generous scholarship. I met a lot of great, like-minded friends there. No one was prescribed to the same ideological prison that Jacob had. It was a relief. The school offered great summer internships and winter externships with partner news agencies to provide students experience in the field. I applied for several in the wake of Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, hoping to get some experience covering such large events in history. Still following Jacob on social media, I watched as he kept making up excuses during the week after the election. There were always more votes coming in. Donald Trump’s famous line: “frankly, we did win,” was all over his accounts. That went on for a bit until it seemed he had dropped off of all social media. He shared no posts on Instagram, there were no stories on SnapChat, nothing. For an entire month it appeared as though he didn’t exist. When he returned, his attitude and demeanor had gotten much darker. His spirit had dimmed and he had become more cynical after his father’s death, but this was different. He seemed betrayed, and out for vengeance. The anger inside of him was something I had never seen while I was with him. He shared posts of a revolution, and figureheads saying the election had been stolen and that there was only one more chance to save the country. This was a new Jacob.
I had been lucky enough to receive a Winter Break externship with a local news organization that covered events in D.C. I didn’t really get to do too much, being the lowest in the hierarchy and all, but into the end of December I got to follow along as more experienced reporters attended large events, grabbing their coffees and equipment. As Christmas and New Years came and went, and after a short trip home to California for the Holidays, I arrived back in D.C. on January 3rd. The city and the new agency was well aware of the protests that were expected to take place just a few days later, but even if it seems so obvious in hindsight, no one was expecting what took place to occur. I got snoopy and tried to figure out which reporters would be covering the Capitol that day. I asked around and checked work schedules. Eventually I figured out that it was going to be a senior correspondent, Aaron Reidmon, whom I had worked with the week before the holidays. He owed me a favor since I covered up for him when he got caught smoking weed on sight. I could have lost my job, but it did come in handy. It took me less than sixty seconds to convince him to let me join him on the 6th. I merely had to allude to our shared incident in the subtlest of ways: “I think that this would be a really great joint venture,” I said, emphasizing the ‘joint.’ “I could really gain a lot of experience.” He quickly agreed.
Aaron had texted me his coffee order at 5:30am, I had just woken up. I hopped out of bed and I got dressed as quickly as I could. On that day I wore my most flexible outfit, but it was still January, so all of the reporters wore jackets and gloves. It might have been early, but not too early for the organizers of the event. Four hours earlier the organizer for the “Stop the Steal” march had tweeted: “First official day of the rebellion.” Jacob had retweeted it, with an added water gun emoji. The first part of the day went rather smoothly. We arrived to see large crowds having flown in from all over, all of them getting ready for a day of protesting and yelling, but nothing too out of the ordinary. We followed along as they went from speaker to speaker. They were becoming increasingly riled up as the morning progressed into the afternoon. Cheering became screams of anger, and walks became marches. The rest happened quite quickly but on that day it felt like an eternity. Donald Trump took the stage at the ellipse at noon exactly, following Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Rudy Guilini. We noticed organized groups break off earlier, but the largest cohort stayed in the ellipse for the entire duration of the speech. Protesters in the ellipse and around the entire Capital heard Donald Trump’s words through speakers, megaphones, radios and cell phones. At 12:53pm the police on the west side of the Capital were overtaken. Donald Trump concluded his speech at 1:10pm. Rep. Paul Gosner of Arizona and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas object to the certification of the electoral college votes for Arizona at 1:12pm. At 1:26pm Capital Police are overwhelmed on all fronts, forcing both chambers to evacuate.
At this point I found myself at the foot of the Capitol building, the building that became an aspiration of mine to cover, as it became riddled with holes in the glass, and garbage and debris creating a solid layer covering its marble floors. The palatial pinnacle of American democracy was spat on and pillaged. On either side of me rioters pushed past in steady, organized streams. All of them wanting a piece of the action, wanting to fight and break things. Some were chanting death threats, others screaming lines I had heard conservative pundits saying for the past two months, some just seemed curious about what’s inside, too ignorant to realize the devastation they wrought. The crowd became so thick that I lost Aaron in the chaos. I was alone and surrounded. I carried a spare mic and some notepads and that was it. I had nothing to defend myself from the onslaught of enraged treasonists hellbent on protecting whatever it was that they thought they were saving. One of them approached me, a burly man in a biker jacket. My vision was blurred from glasses falling off after a rough push, I couldn’t make out the insignias on his jacket or bandana. “Are you from the fake news media?” He shouted. “You here to make Trump look bad?!” He continued. He got closer and pushed me back by the shoulders towards a wall lining the Capitol steps. He continued to approach me until a slender, young figure in a black padded, long-sleeved outfit pushed him back, yelling “she isn’t who we are here for!” The big man looked confused for a moment, then grunted and continued up the steps. After the initial shock of the interaction, I went to thank the figure for saving me. But they were already fleeing up the steps, bumping in between people. I chased after, having a bit more confidence now. I was about three steps behind when the ball cap the figure wore fell to the ground. I grabbed it, shouting, “you dropped this!” The figure did not look back, but was lost to the crowd. I stuffed the hat into my bag and tried to find Aaron.
After another half hour, which felt like a decade, a group of police officers successfully broke through the crowd, ushering them away and pulling me by my bright yellow “PRESS” badge to the rear of the police line. I saw Aaron on the other side of the street, a worried look in his eyes. The tense muscles, that I could see even without my glasses, relaxed a bit when his eyes caught mine. After escorting me to safety, I thanked the police just as Aaron grabbed me and chastised me for going off alone. “Don’t ever do that again!” He yelled as a parent does to a child lost at the supermarket. The anger subsided quickly and turned into emotional relief as he pulled me into a hug. During a normal workday this might have been considered inappropriate, but watching the smoke billowing out of the Capitol windows and hearing the chatter of cops all around us, I was just happy to feel safe. When the moment passed, and things calmed enough for me to fully let out the breath I had been holding in, I opened my bag and noticed two things. First, the recorder had been on the entire time, and second, I recognized that hat. I pulled it out and wiped the sutt from the front to reveal the clear lettering: “Greenville High Rifle Club.”
An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY – RC2M2L9E1RR3
Months later, after the dust had settled and after building up the courage, I went online to check the arrests made after the Capitol riots. To my conflicted dismay, I saw in bold type “ALLINGTON, Jacob” followed by the description of his crimes: “Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority with a Dangerous Weapon. Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct on Capitol Grounds. Theft of Government Property.” He would be arraigned just a week later in D.C. The jail he was being held at was only thirty minutes by train from my school. I knew I had to see him.
I called the jail to schedule a visit. They laughed, because apparently that’s not how things are done there, and they gave me the visitation schedule and told me that Jacob would have to accept me onto his list once I was there. I was honestly worried that he wouldn’t. Things had ended quite poorly, but I took him saving me as an indication that he still harbored at least some positive feelings towards me. The next day I got up early to make sure I looked my best, and I went to buy a nice breakfast to share. The guards would later inform me that is also not how that works. I nervously waited in the entrance area, surrounded by metal on all sides. This jail seemed a lot more like a prison. After about a half hour of waiting, watching other visitors who arrived after me being ushered in well before me, a guard approached. I thought for sure that Jacob wanted nothing to do with me, but the guard just gave me a nod as if to say “stand up and follow me.” I did so. He walked me into a pale visitation room with metal seats covered in burnt red linoleum. I sat for about another five minutes until the bar loudly unlocked on the door across the room. It opened slowly, and in walked a handcuffed Jacob. His light brown hair had been cut down to thin, scrawly nothingness, and those bright green eyes appeared three shades darker, capturing the light around them instead of reflecting it. Underneath them lay bags and and redness, as if from a mix of crying and loss of sleep. Whoever this Jacob was, I had never met him.
There is no proper way to start such an awkward interaction, so I began with a shy but purposeful “hello,” to which he said nothing but responded by looking up at me and placing his hands onto the table. I looked at the callused hands, black under the nails, and I remembered the softness and gentleness of their graze across my thigh and how I used to yearn for it. Again I found myself wondering, how did we get here? This time I was not too afraid to ask. “What happened?” No reply except for a gentle noise of affirmation that he had heard me. I asked again, “Jacob? What happened?”
Just like old Jacob, putting forward a reticent and taciturn front, it merely took asking a question twice to get him to open up. “I did what I thought was right.” He went on to explain that after his father died his family had nothing. He was convinced that his father hadn’t left them any life insurance or money because the democrats took it in a “Death Tax,” which of course would not have applied here, but that moment probably was not the best time for me to bring it up. It was more likely that his father had not prepared to die at fifty-one. He went on that his mother couldn’t afford the high California property taxes on her single salary, so she sold the house to cover the funeral expenses and fees. Every part of the story was somehow manipulated to make it someone else’s fault. It was their mandates, taxes, or immigrants. When his mother lost her job because she was in such a poor state, suffering from grief after the loss of her husband, that was the “illegal’s” fault for stealing it. They moved into a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Greenville. Jacob hadn’t lived there long because he started going to state school closer to Sacramento (he never made mention of the fact college had been free because of California’s taxes). He was pre-med in his first semester, working as a mechanic part-time, but switched to full-time after dropping out. He said “none of them were like me, they all called me dumb,” regardless of the fact that his grade had been good. He was ostracized. This was about when the election happened, and his grief deepend even more. The betrayal he felt by his father for leaving him, and the guilt he felt for causing his father’s death, poured over into the anger he felt about the election. He needed someone to blame other than himself for the woes of his world. He blamed us, the media, the liberals, and all those he had been slowly conditioned for five years to hate. He saved up a month’s salary, not going on social media and picking up double and triple shifts anywhere he could, to afford the round-trip flight to D.C. Although the return flight had never been used. Since he had no money, and neither did his Mother, and neither had anywhere near good credit, he had not been able to make bail. So here he sat, across a jail room table from his high school girlfriend.
From the moment his father turned on Fox News, and the moment that Jacob opened up Instagram, both had entered a media-induced descent into the depths of radicalization. They had been so utterly manipulated that they lived in a completely different reality. Jacob would lose the rest of his youth to the carceral system as a result of his own actions, his father lost his life. It did not need to be this way. Their actions are their own, I know, but some part of me feels conflicted and confused. The man sitting before me let anger govern himself to the point at which he tried to destroy his own country. His father was so blinded by the media that he let his son go to parties and attended large church gatherings maskless. But yet, I feel as though we could have done something. So many lives lost needlessly, our democracy weakened, and our spirits broken. This man who sat before me swung on the same swings that I did, lived in a house just around the block, we sat in the same classroom all our lives. He could have been the doctor he always wanted to be, he could have been anything. But instead, he became this. He fell prey to the click-bait and died on the hook of right-wing extremism. It makes me wonder at what point we will say enough is enough. I thanked Jacob for rescuing me, and left a phone number in case I could help in any way. I spent the train ride home sullen in my own thoughts, worried about the future. If this could happen to Jacob, and thousands of others, and they continue to elect people who support this, will our fragile democracy stay intact? Are we doomed to constantly repeat cycles of division until it finally breaks us? How can we handle any complex, world-altering issue if the information we receive allows us to live in parallel realities? Should we even try?
The End
Epilogue:
After nothing was done to handle the division of facts in the United States and across the world, disagreement and corporate lobbying won out over facts and little was done to halt the changing climate. On Wednesday, August 4th 2021, my small, historic town of Greenville, CA was burned to the ground by a forest fire. My parents were evacuated and went to our cousins in Reno, Nevada. Jan, with no one left, lived in a refuge shelter while her apartment building and the house she raised her child was scorched to nothingness. Jan later passed from unreported causes after a year of advocating for the vaccine.
The crisis persisted while leaders in congress stalled over details on half-baked plans. It took ten more years before the agricultural market was so depleted as a results of floods, heat and fires that the country could not sustain itself. America and other large, wealthy nations began importing resources from proxy states. Puerto Rico, Guam and Israel began shipments to the United States in exchange for military protection. The former eastern bloc countries did the same for Russia. China and Japan pulled from Africa, Europeans began to die of starvation while small battles for resources took place both within the E.U. and around it. The proxies began to fight amongst one another to provide for their superpowers. The first missile was launched by Israel to it’s eastern neighbors to halt a onslaught by cooperating nations. Dirty bombs and other tools became the norm as destruction of the environment mattered less and less. The poor were the first to starve and the economy was destroyed when the supply lines to America shriveled. Russia attacked China first to gain access to Africa, Beijing responded in force but defence systems and the sheer magnitude of the Russian armada overwhelmed the Chinese. One billion people were killed in two days. The east signed an agreement to divide African resources. America began depleting their southern allies and adversaries. This sustained while thousands died from starvation every day. Eventually when the poor died they could not produce for the rich and America encroached on Africa. Europe launched a warning shot, America destroyed Europe while Britain took out New York. Russia, trying to take advantage of a weakened America, tried to occupy Alaska. It took three more days before every major city in the world to be destroyed.
I write this from a tent in an encampment of refugees from D.C. who made it out in time. Soon, my burns will take me. The children I never had will mourn for me. I am among the lucky ones here, as my nerves have burned enough for me to go numb. I write this in the hopes that you find this. In this world everything we know will die. I will die at 34 years old, living the final years of my life needing a mask to go to work or the store. Not because of covid, but because of smoke, smog and air pollution. I suffered at the hands of those who valued money more than the future. A future that now is lost.
I am doomed, are you?
Resources used:
- National Research Council 2014. At the Nexus of Cybersecurity and PublicPolicy: Some Basic Concepts and Issues. Washington, DC: The National AcademiesPress. https://doi.org/10.17226/18749. [Specifically chapter 5]
- “Future Risks: Unaligned Artificial Intelligence.” The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, by Toby Ord, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021, pp. 138–162.
- Tan, Shelly; Shin, Youjin; Rindler, Danielle (January 9, 2021). “How one of America’s ugliest days unraveled inside and outside the Capitol”. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 28, 2021.
- The U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia. “Capitol Breach Cases.” The United States Department of Justice — Capitol Breach Cases, 26 Mar. 2021, www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases.
- Guardian Staff and Agencies. “’My Heart Is Crushed’: US’s Largest Wildfire Levels Beloved California Town.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 Aug. 2021, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/06/dixie-fire-greenville-california-wildfires.
- TodayShow. “The Story behind This Viral Image from Capitol Unrest.” TODAY.com, 8 Jan. 2021, www.today.com/news/story-behind-viral-image-capitol-unrest-t205387.