Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Still Life
Page 52
The Laughter Problem
The Republic of Measured Mirth
In the year 7 A.L. (After Laughter), the Ministry of Emotional Equilibrium issued Directive 88-F. "To prevent emotional inflation and preserve civic decorum, laughter shall be rationed to 3 chuckles per citizen per lunar cycle."
The intent was noble, they claimed; laughter had become dangerously unregulated. People were giggling during funerals, snorting during parliamentary debates, and worst of all; laughing at themselves. The Ministry feared collapse of the seriousness economy.
But in their zeal to quantify joy, they made a grave error. The rationing algorithm, designed by the Department of Algorithmic Sincerity, contained a recursive clause; "Any laughter exceeding the quota shall be retroactively nullified." This clause, when paired with the Ministry's new surveillance tickle drones, created a feedback loop that erased laughter not just from the present, but from memory, history, and even potentiality.
Suddenly comedians became archivists of forgotten absurdities, children were born without the instinct to giggle. Jokes, when