[b]The Anthropozine
Channel: Main[/b]

[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Hey I know it’s been *days* and everyone’s probably sick of talking about it, but I went and read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas for myself, to see if we were missing the point or actually getting it or what.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]What if the child can’t leave
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] I mean it’s been there for generations and it’s still a child. Maybe that’s part of the magic. The child needs to suffer for Omelas to work, but what if it’s magic both ways
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] What if Omelas keeps it alive and eternally young through all that suffering, too. 
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Which is why everyone walks away instead of fixing the problem. Or nobody volunteers to take its place.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Because Errant was right, about what you could do instead. And also about how you’d all be volunteers. 
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] I also know you’re all depressed so don’t @ me about whether it’s better to live and suffer than die. Yellow nailed you all, hahahahaha. None of you ever come dancing with me! Dance! Do pushups! Whatever!  
[b]ProvocativelyFickle[/b]: I don’t know.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Maybe I’m just trying to find excuses to stay. 
[b]JuntaSThompson:[/b] I think it’s because in the metaphor it’s because some people thrive and suffer under capitalism, but nobody gets to choose which. So the suffering isn’t noble, because you don’t get to choose to be paid minimum wage so your boss can get better cyberware.
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] or for disability to be shit so other people pay less taxes.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Yes! But! We agreed pretending it was literal was more interesting, right?
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Which in this case means nobody can take the child’s place. And the child can’t leave. 
[b]JuntaSThompson:[/b] I hate to say it, but that really does force us back to the question of if a life of suffering is better than no life at all.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] I don’t think it means that. 
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] I think it just means it has to be [i]that[/i] child. 
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] But then it’s like… [i]how [/i]do they know it has to suffer? 
[b]JuntaSThompson:[/b] I guess the people who stay don’t want to risk Paradise to find out?

[hr]

On Thrones, an agoraphobic android finishes restocking inventory in their electronics store, now that all the customers are gone for the day. The android was literally born for this, as far as they could have been literally ‘born’ at all. The dreadnaught process, asexual selective breeding. 

The last display model is restocked. SALUS 13-30, Sally, plays with a remote when she finishes. 

Had it been Sally’s choice, she wouldn’t have been born the way she was. Her traits are desirable to others, not herself. But nobody chooses to be born, nobody chooses their parents. Now she’s here, finding life between her symptoms. 

Sally remembers the androids that tested chainsaw noises on her speakers to find the ones with the best fidelity. They’d all been very enthusiastic with each other about their plans, and even though she never figured out the point of it, their creativity had been [i]inspiring[/i]. 

She presses a button on her remote, triggering the mist machines. Projectors around the ceiling arc holographic lightning through the cloud every minute or so, and sub-speakers around the aisles filled the room with the sound of gentle rain. A few seconds after the flash, the thunder, always as if from very far away. 

Sally never looked at Thrones through the AR lens, see. Part of her neuroses, she was paranoid about someone hacking the AR to be invisible to her. Had to see the world as it was. 

That just meant she needed to change the world to make it something she wanted to see. And because her world was very small, she didn’t need to change very much. She just needed someone to give her the idea that she could.

The charging pod behind the cash register clicks and hums as Sally sets herself in for the night. She closes her eyes to listen to the falling rain for hours.