Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2014 12:06:44 -0700 (PDT) From: drake angel Subject: Exodus Whiskey Chapter Seven - Praxa Exodus Whiskey This is a fictional story set in the not too distant future. No intended parallels have been drawn or inferred between characters in this story and any one living or dead. The story deals with such situations as love between two young boys, sexual arousal and some sexually explicit content. Read at your discretion; follow the rules of your country and locality. Please do send me feedback if you like this story, or if you have any comments you would like to make. My email id is drakeangel1719@yahoo.com Chapter Seven : Praxa "Esteemed guests, I am honored to address such a gathering of fine minds on this warm August evening. My name is Edward Price, and I am the architect, if you will allow me to use such a word, of Praxa. Now, being as it is that we have yet to reveal what Praxa is, in what shape or form, or indeed if it a person or an entity, I am grateful for your attendance in this meeting with preface in the invitation. However, I must tell you that you have been chosen to attend this meeting, based on several parameters that dictate your presence here today. This is not a meeting of random individuals, and each and every one of you present here today, was invited for a reason, which I will make clear shortly. So, what is Praxa?" Click of a button, a slide shows up on a presentation board. A scene of devastation, caused by the hands of man, an urban center burnt and cindered people with limbs blown off, children crying, police and fire staff everywhere. "Is this a familiar picture? It should be, I picked it off the internet from a thousand other such pictures. This is the result of action from a group of twisted, psychotic individuals who believe nothing more than gaining a voice in the international arena through violence and destruction. This could be anywhere. It could be New York City, London, Mumbai, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Baghdad, Damascus, Nairobi, anywhere. What makes people cause such destruction and justify it to themselves as righteous? Who are the psychotic individuals who can see the fear and pain in a child's eyes and feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction?" Click of a button, and a picture of a generic man appears, ageless, of almost any race, laughing with his friends in a café. Cough from the back row. "This could be anyone, it could be me, it could be you, anyone. As children we are born into this world with love, kindness and the infinite wisdom of God. As we grow older we choose one of several paths, and the company we keep, the people we idolize and the events we see around us shape who we are and what we do in the future. " The speaker hesitates as he looks through his material. He closes his file folder and looks up in earnest to his audience. "Ok, so I was asked to give a lengthy intro to ease you into the ideas and technologies which we will be presenting today, but I think this is just pure drivel. You are all individuals of great intellectual capacity, from families with good moral backgrounds and traditions, captains of culture, industry and politics in your countries. I feel this material in front of me might be patronizing, so let me save all of us some time so that we can enjoy the lovely champagne after the event and discuss what I have to say in details." Cough again from the back row. "You want a lozenge back there, buddy?" The crowd giggles. "My throat's dry" Giggles again. "We'll soon see to that. Praxa is a revolutionary electronics system that has been developed by a group of the best minds from various backgrounds. It is, in essence, a front end software, a graphic user interface, if you will, to the core system, which exists under your very feet at this very moment." Glances to the floor. "Below this meeting room, in a large room is housed the one system that will change the course of the world for ever. Ladies and gentlemen. What if I were to give you, each and every one of you, a tool that could eliminate crime in your respective countries. And I mean eliminate, completely eradicate crime, of any nature, form and function." A murmur through the crowd. "Praxa promises exactly that. Once connected to the internet, Praxa will become omnipresent and omniscient. It will find a place for itself in every worldwide network, telephony, internet, power every network with a computer at it's helm. It will find a place in every server, every website, every forum, every chatroom, every desktop, every facebook page, every twitter handle, every youtube channel, every smartphone, every not so smart phone, every smart home appliance, every electronic network in every home of every country in the world. It will ingest information at every instance, anything that passes through it will be processed, catalogued and stored. Every single tweet Joe Nobody sends, every selfie Jill Somebody takes, every little word, every little context that that little word is used in will be evaluated and processed by Praxa. A gross invasion of privacy, you say. Well, it is, only if there are human eyes that can judge the content in front of it. If a machine processes the data, it is merely speculation. But this speculation, built over days, months, years and decades can profile each and every individual who does not live under a rock, on God's green earth. And using the most complex, intelligent, evolving algorithms, adjusted to global and local events and sentiment, Praxa can produce for you, ladies and gentlemen, a list. A list of names of individuals, who can cause the kind of mayhem you saw in the first picture I showed you. In short, Praxa can predict criminal behavior, long before it infects and destroys lives." A hand goes up in the audience. "How can you write algorithms for what is considered criminal and normal when each country, each culture and individual is unique and different? Where do you get these parameters from?" Ed smiles. "Praxa averages the sentiment of a person over a course of several decades of preprocessed data, given their geographic context, their geopolitical circumstances, and the current sentiment of everyone on earth at any given point of time. It is not so much a question of individual actions, as much as it is of deviation. Deviation from a liberally deduced norm. A norm that changes with the times. What is crime after all, ladies and gentlemen? Is it not a deviation from the norm of the times. Would we consider sexual relations with our siblings a crime? Ofcourse. The ancient civilizations would beg to differ." Another hand goes up. "Yes, but you are talking of changes in culture and society that has occurred over thousands of years. How can you compare that to the modern day where stances and philosophies change in a matter of days, if not hours?" "Madam, you have answered your question yourself. Yes, the modern world as we know evolves faster than the human mind can understand. A single episode of American Idol with a beautiful, intelligent and vivacious lesbian singer can influence the minds of millions of men and women, and perhaps, soften their stance on homosexuality. But this is where Praxa's infinite wisdom comes into play. Till date, we did not have the processing power to sort through the billions and trillions of bits of information generated and shared on the internet. Praxa's intelligent code allows it to process this data in real time. You must understand, if you will excuse my advertising reference, that Praxa's cross section, is the online world in itself. From this complete cross section we are able to draw a conclusion of general sentiment, and judge the deviation each individual displays from this general sentiment." A man stands up. "How dare you, Sir? Do you mean to tell me that you have called us here to experience a system that will judge each individual on this earth, every moment of his life, every decision he makes, every thing he says? No one could stand up to such judgment. God himself, in his infinite wisdom, allows people to repent, confess and mend their ways. Who are you, Sir, to judge people so sternly and with such coldness?" "From your statement, I understand that you are a religious man, Mr. Harwick. And to assuage your fears, I will tell you this. Praxa does not judge. Praxa only observes and reports. By calculating..." "Sir you are a monster, and so is your creation if it does really exist. Are all of you going to listen to this guy?" "Can I finish my statement sir?" "Nothing you say will assuage my fears, as you put it" "Sir, Praxa, as I said earlier does not judge. It only projects what exists. The question of selection is your point of contention here. And as I mentioned, the process of selection is interactive and ever changing. We only Red Tag those individuals who have repeated their deviance over a period of time, repeatedly and consistently. We have enough leeway built into Praxa to cater for the element of doubt. This is not a monster, as you put. It is a savior. A savior that will help our children, grandchildren and their children leave their homes for work without having to worry about whether their front door is closed. About whether they have to be scanned at an airport. About whether they need to eavesdrop on conversations from the row behind at a cinema theater. Praxa is the solution to all of the world's woes. It has worked in the field and I would like to show you the results."