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  William Haloupek

  Copyright 2013 William Haloupek

  If you like this ebook, please check out the other works by the same author. Nice comments are very much appreciated!

  Some of these works are also available at other major ebook sellers. Questions and comments are welcome at

  https://haloupek.com

  The cover photo is cropped from “Indian audience at the flag ceremony; Wagah Border, Punjab, India” by Daniel Hauptstein.

  This is a dystopian short story about a future in which machines do all the work.

  It’s not easy being funny when the stakes are so high. Ironically, comedy is a serious business. The pathetic human condition is sure to provoke the laughter of the gods.

  Of course, Dion would be entertaining. The crowds would adore him. They always did. Usually. Standing up before a billion people and acting like he knew them each personally had become routine. He knew their sense of humor. He was just like them. All of them. But it wasn’t really the billions who paid the bills. It was the billionaires.

  Acting natural was an art form, in itself. Most people couldn’t act natural, as soon as they knew it was important to act natural. Actors and comedians could do it. They had to do it. A bird has to fly, or it isn’t a bird, much longer.

  The trick was not thinking about all the billions of minds experiencing his every word and gesture. That could make you crazy! Dion was able to put himself in his own comfort zone, where he was aware of his audience, but not thinking about it.

  Biologists define communication as behavior by one individual that alters the probability of behavior of another. An entertainer, like Dion, had to be proficient in one-way communication. His behavior caused multitudes to laugh and enjoy themselves, but they didn’t influence him in the slightest, whether they were sitting in front of him or on the other side of the planet. His routine was always exactly as he had practiced it. And yet he interacted with the audience, like they were old friends.

  The monologue went well. The carefully chosen studio audience of about 500 laughed and applauded on cue. They expected him to be entertaining. They expected to laugh their heads off. They probably would have laughed at anything, at least once. But of course, the masses could be fickle, and their favor could be lost with one tasteless or unfunny comment. Dion had worked many years to reach this status, as host of Stars at Night, the most popular celebrity talk show in history.

  The first guest was Vax, an athlete, who had made a fortune in weightless kick boxing, one of the most popular sports of 2170. Now retired, she used her enormous wealth to promote sports programs for children. Vax was a great fan favorite, beautiful and imposing, known for her wicked sense of humor.

  “Vax, my dear. You look gorgeous, as always!”

  “I bet you say that to all the women who could kick your ass!” The crowd liked that. They were off to a good start.

  “I’d be afraid to get in the cube with you, I’ll tell you that!”

  The kickboxing matches took place in a transparent, 10-meter cube, on a space station, in zero gravity. Live broadcasts went out to all corners of civilization, which included the Sol system, and an expanding bubble of space stations and starships, some on their way to other stars.

  “My days in the cube are over, but sometimes I think I’ve still got one good kick left in me. Just one, and then I’m done!” She tilted her head back, as if knocked out. The crowd loved that.

  “So, tell me about the WDQ program.”

  “Yeah, we’re helping so many kids! It’s all based on the motto, ‘winners don’t quit, and quitters don’t win.’ We try to give kids everywhere a chance to be winners.”

  “That’s a great idea. Is it working?” Rhetorical question.

  “So far, so good. In two years, we’ve enrolled 12 million kids on Mars, and the program is expanding to the asteroids. I just try to share my work ethic. I never settle for second place. It’s just unacceptable. That made me work harder than everyone else. I would not accept losing. The world doesn’t need losers. You know?”

  Wild applause. Standing ovation. Dion wanted to say that if everyone had that ethic, then only one person in each sport was entitled to any happiness. The vast majority would be consigned to misery and self-loathing, being less than the best. But that would not have been the right thing to say, and he knew it.

  “That’s great! There’s nothing like athletic competition to build character. You’re a great role model!” He got the obligatory applause that politically correct pronouncements always got.

  “You know, you can do anything you set your mind to. The only limits are the ones you impose on yourself.” Vax was a great athlete, but her thinking was laced with clichés. Did she really believe that she could do absolutely anything?

  The next guest was Tano, a movie star. Tano’s last movie, Que Sera Sera, was a big money maker, and he was in great demand by production companies. Screams of near ecstasy erupted from the crowd when he walked onto the set and sat down between Vax and Dion. Only four years earlier, Tano couldn’t get a date with a pretty girl to save his life, and now he was named “Hunkiest Man Alive” by Fame Game magazine.

  One the stage were three of the hundred or so wealthiest people in existence. Each had billions of times the wealth of an ordinary person. New money. Entertainment and the lottery were the only routes to wealth, in a world of machines, which had no real use for human beings. All labor was done by robots, and the overwhelming majority of people lived on welfare. The welfare payments came once a month, and they were barely enough to live on. Those who didn’t plan well ran out of money before the month was over, and starved. The world had plenty of resources to go around, but still, starvation was a fact of life.

  Computers gave medical advice, and performed all medical procedures. Even engineers were eventually replaced, as computers came up with better ideas. Computers programmed other computers. They sent robots out to fix other robots. The technosphere had itself become self-replicating. Machines were starting to encroach on the entertainment professions, too. Computers were making pretty good music, and they were starting to replace human musicians. Battling robots were becoming as popular as any sporting events.

  Every human activity had been taken over by computers, except consumption. People could still consume goods and services. They extracted value, but didn’t produce any. There was still the stock market, where small fortunes could be made into large ones, and vice versa, but you needed money to make money, and most people had none to spare. Besides, the world could have gotten along just fine without day traders.

  Medical care had become a fine art, capable of prolonging life well into the 120’s, but it was expensive. Most fortunes were eventually destroyed by catastrophic illness. Health insurance was expensive, and insurance companies dropped clients when they got really sick. Most people died when they could no longer afford the medical treatment that would have kept them alive. Medical care and entertainment were the main drivers of the economy, churning vast wealth to a fortunate few, and taking it away. There was no more old money. In a world of 20 billion souls, the richest 100 held half the wealth, and the richest 1000 held 95%. All of them were entertainers, or children of entertainers. Fortunes almost never lasted more than two generations.

  “Hey Tano! Thanks for coming!” Dion greeted his guest, while Vax looked him over, approvingly. The crowd calmed down, to an excited buzz.

  “Hey hey hey!” Tano stood up just long enough to do a little dance move, form one of his movies. Screams and swoons!

  “Last time you were on the show, you were pregnant!” Uproarious laughter. “No wait, I’m thinking of someone else.”

  “It must be my beer belly.” Tano stood up again, and lifted his shirt, revealing perfectly sculpted,
six-pack abs. To wild and shocked applause!

  “Can I touch?” Vax was playing her part. She touched. Tano gyrated. Dion smiled. Money in the bank!

  “So your movie, Que Sera Sera, is a big hit!” Dion had to mention it, by contract.

  “It was such fun, working with so many great, talented people!” Tano could be expected to say all the right things. Dion hoped that Tano wasn’t going to thank them all.

  “Interesting plot. Boy meets girl, et cetera. That never gets old, especially with a beautiful actress like Ylonda.” Dion got another mention out of the way.

  “Lots of et cetera!” That got a laugh. But Tano wanted to point out that the movie was more than that. “Actually, it’s an interesting story. All about fate. You know, star-crossed lovers. Some things are just meant to be.”

  “That’s so true,” Vax said. The director switched to a wider camera view that showed all three. “Whatever will be will be.”

  “Exactly.” Tano appreciated the support. “Everything happens for a reason.”

  Dion thought about the contrast between this and Vax’s earlier remarks, but he didn’t have time to get into it, so he didn’t mention it. How could you reconcile “whatever will be will be” with “you can do anything you set your mind to”?

  Next, they played beer pong. Three ridiculously rich, famous celebrities, playing a silly game. The audience loved it! They howled with laughter when a ball “accidentally” got caught in Vax’s cleavage. It had to be that or a groin shot.

  Uncounted legions of acolytes studied the show in minute detail, desperate to find a way to create some magic of their own. Something worthwhile. Something people would want to watch. An entire subculture was built around wannabe entertainers, not making a living, living on welfare like everyone else. At least they had a dream. They had a work ethic, and a value system in which they were worth nothing, and the people on the screen were worth everything. It was as bad as anything Dickens ever came up with, and it was real.

  The last guest was a historian named Ham. He always had some funny stories about history. Making fun of past cultures was big business. As a gimmick, he wore glasses on his face, a strange custom that disappeared more than a century earlier. He looked ridiculous, and fans loved it. But behind the clownish act, Ham saw himself as a serious historian, although he knew that his knowledge was nothing compared to great men and women of the past. Of course, the world no longer had any use for historians, or intellectuals of any kind, except as entertainers. In fact, some of Ham’s funniest stories involved the days when children used to go to school. There was no need for education any more, and people found it absurd and amusing. Reading, writing and arithmetic were just hobbies, for those who liked that sort of thing.

  “Ham, my man!” Dion shook his hand, while the other two guests took seats on the couch.

  “Thanks for having me back. A pleasure.”

  “So, what’s happening in history, Ham?”

  “I was thinking about how good they had it, back when people had to work for a living.”

  That got some laughs, but the audience didn’t think it was the punch line. Surely, not working was better than working. Most people now thought that manual labor was beneath them. Of course, they needed the money, so they would have dug a ditch, or cooked a meal, if anyone wanted to pay them for it, but who would pay someone to demean themselves? Like paying someone to lick the floor. It seemed barbaric.

  “Oh yeah, the good old days.” Dion needed this to get funny, or emotional, fast.

  “You know, before the Industrial Revolution, most people were farmers. They worked hard, and when the crops failed, they suffered.”

  “I think they call that the stone age,” Dion interjected. A trickle of laughter.

  “No, this happened in the 19th Century. It was a little later in some places than others. People started working in factories, living in cities. About 300 to 400 years ago. Maybe 12 to 16 generations.”

  Vax added, in a ditzy voice, “My great, great, great, great, ….”

  “Was that before or after they invented the wheel?” Tano was amusing the crowd, acting like he was driving a chariot.

  “Things were a lot different then. Children went to school, so they could learn enough to do useful work. The more useful they were, the more they got paid.” Dead silence. This wasn’t funny.

  “Sounds a lot like slavery to me.” Dion tried, but no laughs. Just an impatient murmur.

  “No, not slavery. In a sense, it was a kind of freedom.” Now he had jumped the shark, and everyone knew it. “Before long, the aristocracy was replaced by an oligarchy of wealthy industrialists. Actually, there were several Industrial Revolutions. When computers came along, an intellectual elite was created. Not only was wealth concentrated in a few people, so was technological expertise, much more than in the past. Upward mobility was possible for the lower classes, and education was the key. Still, it was only a key to the middle or upper-middle classes. Educated people could get good jobs, buy homes, and live comfortably, but they would never be rich. The gap between rich and poor grew exponentially in the 20th and 21st Centuries. At the same time, machines took over jobs that were once done by humans, and there was no use for unskilled workers. The level of training and education needed just to get a job was going through the roof. Now, it has hit the roof. No human being has enough knowledge and skill to be useful. What are we going to do when the machines realize that they can do without us, and stop feeding us?”

  The studio audience was heading for the exits. Luckily, this was not a live broadcast. Ham was edited out, and never appeared again in any of the major media.