Ultrasonic Justice
Jeb Fooligan, a far-right activist, was punched in his face during an interview with Alt-Fact VR news at the gala dinner marking the tenth anniversary of the far-right president in the office. The punch came in straight from the air and was pretty potent. “I think I probably did suffer some kind of like a mild concussion or something because my brain feels a little scrambled to be honest,” Fooligan said when a journalist reached him next day via video chat. The hawkish politician looked frightened.
There was a lot of insubstantial debate online about the ethics of punching a nazi. It started as early as the day of the inauguration of the president when the first far-right leader was punched. The debate continued for years. Opponents of the punch tended to say that violence had no place in political debate. Supporters tended to say the punch was funny, and more than a few compared the attacker to famous Nazi punchers from pop culture, like Indiana Jones and Captain America. Public punching of far right activists became a sort of national sports among American liberal intelligentsia. New videos depicting punch scenes emerged on YouTube in dozens each week.
Finally the new law was adopted banning liberals from approaching a far-right leader closer than 30 feet. According to this law liberal activists were obliged to register with a special app that tracked their location and alerted them on the breach of the 30 feet nazi protection zone. Liberals had also to wear in public places a fluorescent yellow letter ‘L’ on their chests.
In the meantime a new technology emerged. “Ultrahaptics is a system for creating haptic feedback in mid-air. Waves of ultrasound displace the air, creating a pressure difference. By causing many waves to arrive at the same point simultaneously, a noticeable pressure difference is created at that point.” A text claimed on a web site of a tiny laboratory, that created the new technology. In normal words the technology made it possible to generate a sense of touch (or a sense of punch) at a particular point remotely. Combined with the distributed computing technology ultrahaptics allowed a group of people to generate with their personal devices a strong enough ultrasound impact to deliver a tangible punch to a target’s jaw.
People even didn’t need a public network to deliver ultrasonic punches. It was enough to use one smartphone as a wi-fi hotspot to synchronise the ultrasonic impacts of many devices. A distributed computing software that could run on a number of devices as on one was the key component of the new system. A public cryptographic key required to activate the system could be only generated by a member of the inner circle of the liberal resistance that used a distributed ledger of domains and their associated public keys to protect the privacy of their network.
An unknown gaming company publicly launched the Punch A Nazi app that enabled people to use their phones to pummel with ultrasound on far right activists from the game’s list if some of them happened to be nearby. The game mimicked Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in terms of its look. To start playing users had to sync the game with their mobile phones to use them as a motion-sensing and geo-location devices for their attacks. The game also used the app designed to protect nazis from liberal activists to identify the closest targets for a potential attack.
One by one the most famous figures of the regime began to avoid public appearances. Faces of the bravest who tried to keep their speaking commitments soon were covered with bruises and bumps. “Scrambled brains!” People shouted and booed when they saw one of them. It was not a victory yet, but something was broken in the regime. People who got to power by promoting hate and violence proved to be very vulnerable to a threat of physical violence in their own respect.
The next app under the name Punch a Hater was connected to a speech understanding AI bot that scanned all verbal and written speech in order to identify hate speech. When by screening Twitter, Facebook, video streams and public chats the AI identified a hater it engaged the devices with the downloaded Punch a Hater app to generate an ultrasonic punch. People didn’t need to locate haters by themselves anymore they’d just authorised the hater locating AI to use their devices. More than 50% of the president’s most odious advisors resigned in a month.
Slap the Liar application worked in the same way as the puncher of haters. Ultrasonic slap wasn’t even close as strong as the ultrasonic punch. A smack in the face served more as a reminder not to lie. An interactive map of slaps was publicly available online with short and clear explanation what was the lie. The map didn’t give out any personal data of the liars but people nearby simply saw a head of somebody jerking back and heard a loud smacking sound.
“These so called liberals are terrorist who hit unarmed people.” The president tweeted. He was so frustrated that he once again used his unprotected Android smartphone to write the tweet. Next moment he felt a heavy smack on his cheek. “How is it possible, here in White House?!” He shouted. “You’d better stop lying and learn tech.” The first tweet in response to his message popped up.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/richard-spencer-punched-attack.html?_r=0
