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Propaganda 3
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Propaganda - Issue 3 (1994-01-15)(Razor 1911).adf
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minddamage.txt
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minddamage.txt
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1978-01-11
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MIND DAMAGE
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²EXAMPLES OF MIND DAMAGE DUE TO
EXTREME COMPUTER USE.
¢
Written by Macno/Abnormalia Staff
¹
That day I came home quite excited.
I had brought with me a rather
massive parcel and I was handling it
with exaggerated care. It contained
my new computer. A wonder of
technology, a sign of progress, the
new generation of computers, the
ultimate demonstration that man was
God and computers were man. I opened
the parcel and set up the machine.
It was always a ritual to follow with
attention. Connections to make,
connectors to check and... pump up
the power!
I turned it on and I waited. The
monitor's screen was darker than a
very dark monitor screen. I started
to sweat. "Well?!", a loud male
voice asked. I looked around, I
looked the television (off), the
radio (off), the CD deck (off), the
telephone (silent), I looked for
visitors (none), I glanced the walls
(dirty), I slowly turned towards the
new computer... "Yep, that's me.
Have you got a good reason to switch
me on?", he asked angrily. It was
all a bit confusing, I didn't like
the idea of being the main character
of a stupid, low level, fallacious
short story, I pondered the pros and
cons of any possible reaction and I
decided to play with the seemingly
unforeseeable machine. I said:
¶"Ohhh...errrr.... nice indeed".
"Ya, I know. Wanna load something?
Insert a memory card please". "Uhm,
why don't we talk a bit before?" "Hey
man, are you here to chat or to use
the most powerful computer on sale in
the whole planet and maybe more?"
"Well, yes, I mean... I didn't know
you were THAT advanced..." "Sure I
am, do you really think that you
spent all those money for a bunch of
circuitry?" "Oh no! I mean...
Yes... You are a bunch of circuitry
after all, right? ... Right?"
"Nope. I am CLIVE THE CLEVER, I can
calculate a raytraced fractal
landscaped in 1/50 sec, your future
in 1 sec and a 1242 faces glenz
vector in NO time". "Impressive!"
"Yes, of course. But now tell me
something intelligible to do. I'm
quite bored of staying here without
anything to do" "Yes, yes... Well,
tell me what you can do" "ASK! And I
will do" "Uh. Turn off please", I
smiled wicked. "No" "No?" "NO"
"Playing Hal 9000?" "Nope, but you
have bought me in order to use me, I
can't accept to be considered a bad
purchase" "Oh" "Yes, it's a matter of
pride" "Sure" "I can do many things
you know, I can code by myself a
Basic compiler and program Winning
Run with it" "Really? I thought you
could do something more...", I felt
even more evil. "Well, what about a
complete raytracing tool, with a
dozen of true colors raytraced
pictures of this room?" "Of no use.
I could just make a photo of it" "A
¶weather simulation program that can
foresee the weather from now to the
end of the millenium?" "No fun" "A
life generator which builds organic
living forms from few basic
molecules?" "Uhm... tell me more" "I
calculate formulae and bounds, I put
the whole together and I build a
simulated living form" "Yes, but it
doesn't live for real, actually" "You
can always buy an Atoms Handler
Device and interface me with it, so
that I can create life from air and
any solid substance" "Are you
offering me the role of divinity?", I
wondered. "Of course not, creation
is not a man's duty, I was made to
create for you what you can't create
by yourself" "To say the truth I'm
rather bored of creative dreams,
illusions for the masses, chimeras
for blind beings. I rather would
like to use you for what I intended
you to be used" "Oh, and how?" "I
wanna install my programs, configure
the hard disk, prepare my work base,
change the preferences... that's the
funniest thing you can do with a
computer" "Interesting... if you
want I can do all this in a
fempto-second, acting exactly as you
would act. Thanks to my telepathy
powers"
I didn't even replied to the beast.
I organized a well thought power cut
(just removed the plug) and I decided
to bring back to the shop the
powerful and useless machine. So I
did thinking along the way a possible
¶solution to finish my adventure with
the last generation computers.
I imagined that I could be dreaming,
fooling the reader with a stereotyped
and tasteless final, I thought that I
could remind that I was just writing
a story and therefore I hadn't to
justify it, but it was a too weak
solution. I started to get anxious,
I didn't know how to finish this
decayed text. I thought that I could
write that it was all true, and that
once at the shop I could take back my
old Amiga, succeeding maybe in a
demagogic surprise, good to fool all
the simple readers among you. The
shop was approaching, in my simulated
and totally subjective time, I had to
think up a good final for a bad
story. I imagined other
possibilities, the computer that
could revenge itself and kill me, a
car driven by the maker of the
computer running on me, the idea of
suicide and the relative suicide for
the repentant. Nothing seemed good
enough. The truth was that I had to
write a story and I couldn't make it
in a bearable way. Inspiration
seemed not to help me, I was lost, in
the mud water of duties and
responsibilities. There was just one
solution, sad in its weakness,
extreme and definitive. This.