by NANCY GONGLIKWANYEOHEEEEEEEH, Alternate Reality News Service Technology Writer
William Gibson once wrote that the street finds its own uses for technology. As with so much else in his writing, this has proven to be wrong. Current smart street technologies interface with other technologies – particularly smart vehicles – in wholly predictable ways. In fact, it couldn't be otherwise, not if drivers ever actually wanted to get anywhere.
This may be an eccentric interpretation of what Gibson was trying to say, but it does lead to an important point: the introduction of new technologies often does lead to unexpected consequences. Yet, oddly enough, it is just these consequential unexpected consequences that are so rarely expected by the initial critics of the technologies. We expect.
Take the Alternate Reality News Service's Home Universe GeneratorTM. Thyoir Hinderdjill, writing in the New New Republic, argued that it would be a boon to criminals. "Say you want to steal millions of dollars from your local bank before it files for Chapter 11. All you would have to do is conduct a Google Multiverse search using terms like 'perfect robbery' or 'perfect crime,' sort through the results and...and...uhh, excuse me for a moment..."
According to Ned Feeblish, ARNS Vice President of Public Relations and Rotating Other Duties (Rhyming and Not So Much), it isn't that simple. "Conditions are never exactly the same from one universe to the next," he explained. "The combination of the safe may be one digit off, the bank manager could have a cold that day and be unavailable to be a hostage, a black cat could get underfoot as you're trying to make your way out of the vault, one of the tellers might be allergic to falafel. You just never know."
Feeblish added that there wasn't a single documented case of anybody using a Home Universe GeneratorTM to plan a perfect crime, proving that the expected effect didn't happen.
"Of course there isn't!" bellowed Gil Guinness, who took over writing the New New Republic article after Thyoir Hinderdjill's mysterious disappearance. "How would we know they had happened? The crimes are perfect!"
Around the same time, an article appeared in Yegg's Quarterly by somebody who asked to be identified only as "Rocco." Rocco complained that many of his "friends and professional acquaintances" had been busted after looking for the perfect crime using the Home Universe GeneratorTM.
Jackie "Little...Fingers" Gilhoohickey, for instance, was caught trying to smuggle herring into Montana when the horn on his pickup truck started blaring. After a couple of hours in the hot sun trying to explain to police officers why his horn wouldn't stop, his cargo, labeled "office equipment," began to give off a most unoffice equipmenty odor.
Then, there was the case of Jackson "Lean of Leg, Flat in Trunk" Wackston, who attempted to rob a bank with a herring. He would have made it, too, if a little kid's balloon hadn't burst, causing all of the tellers to give their attention to him after he started to cry (the kid, not Wackston – that came later). Wackston was fortunate that he lived in a state without concealed herring laws, or he would have faced a lot more jail time.
Rocco also told the story of Kentucky "Fats but Trying to Lose 30 Pounds" Hidalgo, who tried to steal an obscure Andy Warhol canvas called "Elizabeth Taylor /w Herring" while it was on loan to the Palmerston Public Library. The story was so ridiculous that we would be embarrassing to repeat it here, so we won't. Suffice to say that it doesn't end well.
Leaving aside the possibility of a herring bias in the Google Multiverse search engine, Rocco sniffed, "The perfect crime, my arse! That's false advertising, that is!"
"My god, you think we would advertise that the Home Universe GeneratorTM could be used in the commission of a felony?" Feeblish groaned. "The Transdimensional Authority (TA) would shut us down faster than ten gabillion volts of electricity shuts down a nervous system!" He added that the fact that crooks were complaining that the Home Universe GeneratorTM had landed them in jail was proof that it couldn't be used to find the perfect crime.
"Not necessarily," Thyoir Hinderdjill wrote in a postcard from the Cayman Islands. "They could just be too stupid to use it properly. Peggy sends her love. Having a wonderful time. Glad you're not here."
Where are the criticisms of the unexpected consequences of Home Universe GeneratorTM technology? We're waiting for the next postcard from Thyoir Hinderdjill to point out that our entire premise is wrong because any criticism of a consequence would make it expected, and to tease us about the great weather we're missing.