Hope.
Free will.
These are the things that hold us back.
That nagging sense of individualism is certainly a problem.
And, many people still labor under the mistaken belief that they crave such abstracts as “truth” and “freedom.”
Ladies, gentlemen, members of The Board, I have a solution. I call it Unity.
Back in the early twenty-first century scientists deduced that what we call, for lack of a better word, hope, was an evolutionary adaptation. Hope is what allows us to endure the deaths of loved ones, it is what keeps us getting up in the morning, it is what drives us to strive for bigger and better... profits.
Yes, its value to us as movers and shakers in this big old expanding world is probably incalculable. But, to the laborers? To the poor that still squat on our island making excuses for their presence, blaming us for their own lack of fore sight?
Well, hope leads to exercises – regrettable exercises – of free will. Really, on a practical level, its all just a fascinating soup of bio-chemistry. Hope for this, choices for that, will to change... They live too long and have the temerity to expect some kind of support after they can no longer contribute to the greater good; they become burdens to us and each other. Human Resources are – for now - an unfortunate necessity. Even in this golden day and age. But, what to do, you ask, in the mean time?
Unity. Unity deadens hope and suppresses free will. By itself, it leads to a malaise so pervasive that some of our test subjects literally starved themselves to death. Most though, when presented with the option work at nearly any repetitive task until they pass out form exhaustion. Coupled with our extensive media network?
We've experimented with covert subliminals for decades now to various degrees of success. We've tried overt propaganda, but individual rabble rousers are always asking inconvenient questions. Its tedious and requires constant maintenance. In a word, it's expensive. Both in terms of money and the talent of our creatives.
We can do better. Unity is the solution. People with out hope of their own, want to believe. People bereft of the desire to make decisions for themselves, want to be told what to believe. Subliminals have proven to be one-hundred percent more effective in the least successful of our test subjects. Propaganda that the most dead eyed citizen has been rolling their eyes at for a generation? Now, like new again.
Side effects?
Does it matter?
Well, there is the lethargy, but its rates are directly proportional to the age of the test subjects. Older subjects are more likely to cease day to day activity, or in extreme cases commit suicide. And, memory loss. There is a great deal of short term memory loss. However, being more amenable to repetitive tasks, test subjects experiencing memory loss are more than willing to do a task over and over again until it becomes rote and muscle memory. In some cases dry mouth, thirst, and diarrhea were reported. All of which are really of no concern to us. Hell, if we distribute it in the water, the latter problems are a boon!
Unity, ladies and gentlemen, is their future. And, ours.
