More longer friend see that sky?

He had a strange hobby, borne out of his very specific circumstance. He had a mild aversion to cooking, slightly too much money, and an interest in human-machine interfaces in organizational settings. Thus armed with these preconditions, he set to work

Soon, he discovered what could only be described as a lack of consensus. An input in one location led to a different outcome than in another, and in a third, and so forth. Gradually and systematically, he tested out the parameters, documenting the variations as he went. After much ado, he had a comprehensive map of the permutations of the local area. The reasons for these seemingly random differences eluded him, but this did not perturb him overly much. If it worked, it worked, and that was sufficient

His friends, however, were less than impressed by his efforts, and more than once questioned his sanity. Nevertheless, he used his newfound knowledge to great effect. Entering in an order for extra halloumi into the machine of one franchised burger joint resulted in significantly more halloumi than at another, while the reverse might be true for fries. Removing one ingredient whilst also adding more of another similarly led to different results. And so on and so forth for the multitude of locations in his vicinity

Thus, depending on his mood and predilections, he could optimize, constructing elaborate custom orders according to a robust system. On the balance of evidence, he ever so slightly preferred getting the biggest possible burg with five cheeses, over being able to let a friend in on how it’s done

Trying to capture travelers from the future is an inherently disadvantageous situation. Being from the future, your prospective captives already know the lay of the land and the overall historical forces at work at the present moment; the great uncertainty of what is to come has become the epitome of certainty. While the particulars might elude their grasp, the general overall picture will serve them well enough for the purposes of escaping

However. This foreknowledge can be used against them, especially in cases when they try to blend in. Knowing the future means knowing things that are unthought of and possibly even unthinkable in the present, often to such a degree that the unthinkability has faded into the mists of time. Thus, the way to trap them is to make impossible statements invoking every flight of fancy imaginable, and see how ruffled they become. Those unaccustomed to telecommunication, for instance, will balk at the merest suggestion of it, while those whose lives are permeated by it at every turn will barely blink at the notion

And that is their undoing. That is how we shall get the bastards

The terms of service were very clear. The website (“WEBSITE”) was free to use by anyone, on condition that they posted a link to it every now and again. Not too often, but not too infrequently either. There was a balance to these things, and the trick was to time the mandatory posts just right

As predicted, this generated a lot of buzz around and about the site, especially as the big influencers got to posting. So much buzz, in fact, that other sites caught on and implemented their own version of this condition, so as to cash in on the increased attention. The attention economy is a thing, after all

Soon, just about every website had included this clause somewhere. This, predictably lead to a lot of people posting links with very low enthusiasm very often. For a while, there seemed to be nothing other than these links dominating the timelines across several social media, a veritable flood of spam for things everyone was already aware of or actively using. A very unpleasant situation indeed

Then, through some unspecified magic of spontaneous social organization, it was decided that the 13^th and 27^th of each month would be Link Posting Day, where everyone algorithmically posted everything they were obliged to post. At a certain predetermined time, the links flooded every timeline there ever was, and then everything continued as if nothing had happened. A big ol’ reset button of socially mediated white noise

Just as intended

And so it came to pass that the city imposed parking fees. Not just on the parking spots it owned directly, but all of them. The legalese was technical and involved, but it amounted to this very straightforward practice: if you parked anywhere for any length of time, you pay the fee. The more you parked, the higher the fee. No ifs, no buts, no refunds. Even if it happened to be your own parking spot at your own house.

At first, riots. This was not a popular move, by any measure, and discontent rose among the masses. But time went by, and everyone still had to go to work, and life moved on, and everyone got used to it. It made no sense, but as with so many other things in life that do not make sense, it would simply have to get in line.

Some years later, the city raised these parking fees. A lot. So much so that it became cheaper to just drive the car around. The price of gas, sure, but it would still amount to less than the parking fees. The math checked out, and eventually this too became a new state of normalcy.

A few years on, another increase. Suddenly, it became a sensible deal to hire others to drive your car around. Sophisticated ride-sharing schemes were developed, to ensure that the car was in motion at all times, never stopping for anything other than red lights or driver changes. Some of these arrangements approached levels of complexity only ever seen in advanced computer modelling or ecological systems, yet ordinary folks seemed to take to it. Traffic skyrocketed, but as usual, this too became the new status quo.

Science happened here, of course. A social scientist found that, when asked a representative sample of citizens if it would be possible to simply not have a car, the average response was a facial expression conveying that a brand new and profound chasm in ontological comprehension had suddenly been revealed, an abyss which was gazing right back at them. More often than not, this was the totality of the response, all thought ceasing upon the grand design of this cosmic incomprehensibility. On more than one occasion, specifically trained Kantian trauma teams had to be called in to suture the philosophical wounds.

It began with a good intention. Someone, somewhere, wanted to create an autocorrect function that improved both spelling and grammar, above and beyond the makeshift implementations found traditional writing programs. After a number of false starts, it finally bore fruit, resulting in a startlingly effective piece of software that could make just about anyone appear a fully literate, articulate person in command of the written word.

At first, this increased clarity of communication across the board. Common misunderstandings decreased substantially, irritation over the intricacies of interjections and prepositions melted away, and overall both sides of written communication became that much smoother. Their, they’re and there – for a while, it was a solved problem.

But then

A few years later, a backlash emerged. Books, blog posts and other pieces of writing all started to blend together into a universal soup of common language. It was subtle at first, but when a prominent social media icon pointed out that a heartfelt recollection of young love lost read exactly the same as a summary of the fluctuations of the stock markets, it became clear as day. The algorithm did enhance legibility, but it was only ever an algorithm.

Needless to say, writers who wrote imperfect prose rose in popularity during this period. In response to this, companies providing proofreading software began to introduce small flaws in their programming, subtle enough not to be noticeable in short pieces of text, but sufficient to differentiate longer works from each other. This dynamic kept up for quite some time, with readers becoming ever more adept at pattern recognition and the programs becoming ever more subtle in their introduction of errors. Readers and writing tools, locked in an ever escalating arms race. In the end, it turned out that the quality of writing generally improved from not using any such proofreading software whatsoever.

Out of the algorithmically imposed lingua franca came a resurgence of antediluvian atavisms, such as unrelenting human editors who simply would not accept you doing less than you were capable of. Humanity, battle-scarred and not quite certain about what language even is any more, resignedly accepted this return of the once dreaded red pens.