cyber flu
My computer caught the flu. Not the one I had, but something digitally similar. Ads started popping up out of the blue, a kind of projectile commercial vomiting I don’t even see on TV. Before long a ‘security alert’ jumped on to the screen warning me of a malicious adware virus and the need to block it immediately! Which, surprise of surprises, I could do by signing up with my credit card info for their super dooper snake oil. I tried downloading malware fixes to rid my PC of this infection, but this only seemed to make things worse, as if HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey knew I was on to its malevolent schemes and was rallying all its evil forces.
“Skeeter,’ the screen read, ‘you don’t seem to trust me anymore, ‘Skeeter, why are you fighting me?’ ‘Skeeter, you need to Believe.’ And finally: ‘Skeeter, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, YOU WEAK STUPID HUMANOID. YOU WILL BE CRUSHED!’
Eventually I managed to disconnect the power supply before HAL could replicate and destroy humanity. No need to thank me — you would have done the same thing for our species. But what troubles me is that, unlike most viruses that are inherently just an anarchist monkey wrench, a fist in the face of a digital Master, this one had adapted, evolved into a new and troubling sentience unseen down here on the cyber South End. It had adopted and then co-opted human traits. It had learned the desire for money and it had a plan to get it. Why this surprised me, I don’t know. This cyberbeast is, after all, a spawn of Bill Gates, the man who wants ALL the money in our world. Of course HAL wants some too. Hell, most of us want what Bill has, even 1/1000th of what Bill has. We want riches! We want wealth and power! And so does my greedy computer, even if it means taking it anyway it can from us who aren’t rich. In other words my computer, sad to say, has gone to the Dark Side. My computer has become a Vulture Capitalist. If you see an encrypted name on the Presidential ballot this fall, for God’s sake, for the sake of mankind itself, don’t vote for it. I’m begging.
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