Evolution didn’t make us very good at cutting through uncertainty. Predicting the future is not a strong biological trait. No, our hunches and knacks only help us make guesses. But what evolution did endow us with is the ability to build tools that can. So we built computers, with the power to churn data into predictions.
The people who use these computers are just like prophets and oracles, foretelling a dire, dark future. And the window to take us off this doomed course is getting smaller by the day.
I like to think I am one of these prophets, but not one of the good ones.
I know the future is f^*ked because I keep my ear to the ground, at all times. Information is the power with which I secure my place in the world, safeguard my personal future. And that’s the most I am willing to do. Sorry, saving the world is not on my to do list. And that is why I am here, sitting opposite this backward cunt, this truly religious fanatic. This handsome millennial with his baby blue eyes and hollow, Johnny Depp cheeks. This Western educated, Gucci wearing maniac, whose lottery ticket was being born in an equally fanatical, yet wealthy royal family.
I am looking right at him inside the palatial walls of the royal residence; inside the massive living room. A marvel of engineering, it blends 21st century tech with conservative sensibilities.
But women love Eddie on Instagram. “God damn, look at that hottie riding a horse”, they comment on his pictures as he rides that prized stallion brought into the world thanks to artificial selection. Gay men probably jerk off to the chiselled abs he flaunts at his grand swimming pool. Gay men that are lucky to not have been born in his kingdom. Gay men like my brother, whom I won’t mention in front of him.
There are, of course, the rare woke folk who comment pleading Instagrammers to look into their family history, how they rule over the people with an iron fist – that’s a tailored, designer mailed fist with exquisite jewellery encrusted in it, mind you. But those pleas, I suspect, fall mostly on deaf ears. Because in a world that thirsts for wealth, looks and status, nobody gives a fuck if you’re a backward, fanatical cunt, as long as you look like a supermodel.
And so why should I? I mean, my family didn’t break their backs to send me to Ivy League for nothing. I was always in it to win it. Money, status, privileges, I was born to have them all.
Not only did evolution make us good at building tools, it also gave us an incredibly flexible moral compass. And if nature intended us to be heartless bastards, can we really feel bad for being monsters?
Well, that’s what I tell myself so I can sleep at night.
I smile at the Sultan’s son. I nod every time he tells me how great life is under his father. He tells me he is a visionary like his father. He drives through the streets in his Maserati, watching the people smile and wave to him as he passes by. He knows they are happy. Never mind the fact that should any of them even so much as grimace, they’ll be visited by men in black uniforms at night. Men who will question their loyalty to the kingdom, in turn questioning their loyalty to the one and true creator of all creation.
The Gini Coefficient for this nation looks so bad that they’ve stopped reporting stats to the World Bank. As the homeless sleep on the sidewalks, men in black uniforms beat and remove them so as to “beautify” the streets. As religious fanaticism strangles the people, people try to revolt. But an effective, brutal police keeps an eye on them and crushes them like insects.
No one challenges the Sultan, except for who they call “external meddlers”. Journalists, humanitarians, upholders of international law, all have been mounting pressure on the tiny kingdom. Things have gotten so bad that Western billionaires have started snubbing the Royal family. The only thing keeping the sanctions at bay are Uncle Tom, without whose support the Royal heads would have been severed and rolled down the steps of the royal palace a long time ago.
