013 Only our enemies understand us

All of us boomers who, in our youth, vainly attempted the assault on the heavens, never imagined that the sky and planets would be invaded by the Ecofin AltaSphere with the input of the techbros who provided the technologies needed to bring in the market in grand pomp. Now, the very last survivors – those who were perhaps barely teenagers in '68 – wondered if reality was not even worse than the barbarism they feared and fought against. At that time we couldn't have a full view of the real threats because we weren't aware of the subterranean power of the nekomemetic disease yet, nor of the fact that it would spread thanks to the way Ecofin AltaSphere had rising to the helm. What destabilized us most in the fragility of old age was the mutual misunderstanding with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We couldn't make peace with their apparent acceptance, or resignation, to capitalism. Exchanging precariousness for an imagined freedom?  Competitiveness and meritocracy as absolute values? And the thousands of other rules that the AltaSphere had for decades managed to pass off as having "no alternative" in the larger tradition of flexibility and apparent laisser faire. A woodworm was working in their somewhat rusty brains: how to get them to understand that these rules hadn't always existed and that the young people might experience emotions a little stronger than the insignificant disobediences they were allowed? Above all, it was impossible to make our skeptical grandchildren believe that there had been a time when le fond de l'air était rouge and an incredible communal energy had propelled us into forcing capital to retreat and entrench. We realized that, like puppies, one learns mostly from one's  own experiences.

We feared that the subsumption of biohypermedia, operated by techno-tycoons by sterilizing the future, was memetically irreversible. This disturbed us. Indeed, for the first time we sensed the importance of memetic flows manipulated by the megaplatforms of techno-tycoons. This was only the first step on the road to discovering an incorporeal pandemic that had roots far deeper than capitalism.

Meanwhile, down on the planet, no one worried too much about a or converted or defeated generation that disappeared with the rise of new pandemics. These viruses, conveniently coincidental, lightened the social burden that diminished overall competitiveness.

There was one exception. A country whose local political power still badly needed these elderly activists. They occasionally organized raids to gather them in safe places like prisons. Perhaps because this country was among the demographically oldest in the world and also among the most perverted - not that the two qualities were necessarily related - the government of this endless decaying PoSt/ate pretended to believe that venerable failed revolutionaries could still corrupt a youth so indifferent and well-trained to obey of their own volition.

But deep down it was gratitude. This came mostly from that part of the political, judicial and media class that had made a fortune and thrived on the now distant vanquishing of their rebellious peers. So much so that even the successors enthusiastically adopted this golden goose for decades, and now that they were coming to the end of their time on Earth, had matured like fine wine.

It must also be acknowledged that deeper psychological motives also subsisted, free of any rawness, in the older members of that caste. They, too, surely remembered having lived through that era, which for many of their peers had been exhilarating, and feeling excluded insofar as they were loyal to the norms and the regime, had also suffered. But now, in later life, they were delighted with the opportunity to reconnect (power) relations with the  other side. And it wasn't much different from catching up with old friends, who had gone far away and been forced back in, and then reminiscing about the good times in the mainstream media. In short, there weren't many communication difficulties among peers involved in the same distant affairs. We certainly understood each other, and this was very nice and rewarding for some, a little less for others.

END OF PART I