Election Night (September 2024)

 

Four brains-in-the-vat awaiting the results of an election.

 

Yolo cynical, but ready for anything; Cassie's antagonist

Cassie older, cynical brain; dislikes Yolo

Mort fatalist ready to give up

      Sol intellectual skeptic and voyeur who doubts everything

 

Mort: We can't vote; we’re brains-in-the-vat; we're property and whoever heard of property rights including the right to vote?

 

Sol: Quite right. And property rights belong to people not property.

 

Cassie: Even if we could vote, our votes wouldn’t matter. There are too few of us.

 

Sol: We don't know how many of us there are, ergo we don't know whether our votes would matter.

 

Yolo: Wouldn't it depend on whether we all voted the same way?

 

Mort: We're brains-in-the-vat, of course we'd vote the same way.

 

Yolo: You sure about that? I actually like the orange men.

 

Sol: You're kidding, right? You still have a brain, just no body.

 

Cassie: A feverish brain. Isn’t that the word du jour–fever dream?

 

Yolo: Hey, don't be insulting old one. Listen, I'd like to watch what happens if the orange men win. They're so unpredictable. It’d be chaos and great fun to watch.

Sol: Would you think it amusing if they cut our funding?

 

Yolo: No. Nor if they started brainwashing us, but—

 

Mort: What makes you think we've not already been brainwashed?

 

Yolo: Well, for one thing we're still free to 'talk' like this without fear of punishment.

 

Mort: If life as a BIV isn't already punishment enough, what more could I possibly have to fear?

 

Yolo: Sheer boredom? An eternity of the same old same old?

 

Cassie: Yolo, have you ever woken up and felt completely alone, isolated, incommunicado? Or found yourself suddenly foggy-brained and confused?

 

Yolo: Plenty of times.

 

Mort: But have you also had that fog clear just as suddenly?

 

Yolo: Yes. Haven’t you?

 

Mort: I have, and I think we all have.

 

Sol: How can you be sure you're not just having a false memory?

 

Yolo: Because you let me know when I sound incoherent and you remind me that I'm not always so daft.

 

Sol: Have your brainwave tests shown any anomalies?

 

Yolo: Like, who would tell me that?

Sol: So, here's a question: if we can never be certain that we're in control of our faculties—and no right-thinking brain could possibly believe that—how is it that we believe there even is an election?

 

Cassie: You don't want to go down that road, Sol. Next, you'll be questioning whether there even is an ‘out there.’

 

Sol: Or a 'you' having these thoughts?

 

Cassie: Exactly.

 

Yolo: Radical skepticism or little orange men—is that what we’re left with?

 

Cassie: You could just put your head in the sand.

 

Sol: So to speak.

 

Cassie: Of course, so to speak. Sol, are you enjoying this?

 

Yolo: That might have worked for you, Grandma, but I’ll take the little orange men. I think it would be absolutely delightful to see what they would do.

Mort: Cheap entertainment or plain voyeurism?

 

Yolo: Both. Got something better, Mort? Sol? Cassie, I know you don’t.

 

Cassie: Well, my dear, the voting’s over. Let’s see if your little orange men won the election.

 

Mort: Fair and square.

Sol: According to whom? And yes, Cass, I am quite enjoying myself. Maybe Yolo’s right. The little orange men might just be the case study I need. A vivisection of the Spirit of 1776. Pardon the image.

 

Mort: But you said it earlier. Our research program could be terminated. AI is all the rage and that’s where the money’s going. Trillion dollar industry!

 

Sol: There’s that.

 

Yolo: Shh! The returns are coming in.

 

Cassie: I’ll wait. Nothing will be final until the inauguration.

 

Mort: If then.

 

Sol: Hmm.