Disclaimer: The names and locations talked about on this article have been modified to guard the responsible, the highly effective, and the litigious alike, to not point out myself (a being of exceptional innocence and purity of coronary heart). None of this stuff really occurred, John Scalzi in all probability isn’t actual, and I used to be at a Violent Femmes live performance the entire time, anyway.

John Dies on the Starting

“I want you to fly down and are available to a gathering with me,” mentioned the cheerful voice on the opposite line. “The one downside is that it’s a ten:00 AM assembly, and I do know you don’t wish to fly within the night time earlier than.”

“I’m sport,” I mentioned. “I’m ineffective by 10:00 PM, solely good for consuming and snacking and watching Beneath Deck on Peacock. At 4:00 AM? I’m a golden tiger. E book the flight.”

So it was that I discovered myself again at a Chicago airport at one thing like 4:00 AM, desperately looking for a espresso store that opened earlier than 5. I didn’t discover one, however the 24-hour bar was pleased to serve me a rum and coke, which I figured had sufficient caffeine in it, and could be sufficiently watered down, to qualify as a stimulant.

It had been lower than 24 hours since I’d heard information that my pal John had been killed. One story was {that a} Tesla had run him over whereas his motorbike was stopped, ready to make a left flip. One other was {that a} drunken teenager in a clapped-out Kia had run a pink mild at full pace and t-boned him into the following world. Regardless, it was finished — and it had left me feeling crushed and terribly alone.

There’s nothing precisely like the sensation that comes from discovering out that the three-headed rabbit god you’ve been sacrificing chickens to this complete time was only a hallucination from the leaky gasoline line behind your toaster, however John’s dying hit me sort of like that. The lies you inform your self if you resolve to trip a bike regardless of the warnings out of your mom, your kids, your physician, and each third fool you run into commerce closely on their very own type of primitive religiosity, in spite of everything: when you carry out the ritual appropriately, put on the precise jacket, tie on the precise boots, strap in the precise helmet, and promise to maintain the rubber aspect down, then you possibly can trip a bike as quick as you need (however by no means in a rush) and also you’ll get to the place you’re going in a single piece. That’s the deal. That’s all the time been the deal.

And John? John was the man who all the time made positive your chin strap was tight and your tires had air in ‘em.

Hell, John. I’m unsure if John ever even preferred me — however, as is the humorous means of issues, he was all the time there for me and for everybody else who wanted him. At 2:00 AM, on the aspect of a rustic highway two hours from house with a busted motorbike within the ditch? John was the man you’d name. However now John is lifeless. He did every little thing proper, however he’s nonetheless lifeless, and possibly the rituals and the lies we inform ourselves to maintain using are all bullshit, in spite of everything.

It was at about this level that I started to surprise what kind of assembly I used to be about to stroll into.

The three-headed rabbit god I’ve been sacrificing chickens to so I don’t die on a bike. Picture generated by way of Craiyon AI.

I used to be flying out on the whim of my pal, Mark, who isn’t really named Mark. Not Mark rides a Triumph Bonneville. An actual one — not a type of 2001-up revivalist offers. “Gown up,” Not Mark had mentioned. “Jacket AND pants.”

I confirmed up with a light-weight linen jacket, properly fitted, with navy costume pants, blue denim shirt, and woven leather-based Olukai slip-ons. I felt good in regards to the outfit, too — till Southwest’s serving wench spilled the tea on me. Actually. Scorching tea. From an uncovered container. Throughout my linen coat and one other girl in a white Puma hoodie. “Oops! I assumed that was coated,” she mentioned, shuffling again to the entrance of the aircraft with out apology.

After it turned clear that she wasn’t coming again, I pressed the service button. One of many different flight attendants took our jackets and absconded to the again of the aircraft with membership soda and moist naps and miraculously undid the injury, however my new pal and I visibly sneered at any time when the unique one walked by.

My life has change into comparatively simple, of late, and this expertise was sufficient for me to declare to my Lyft driver that I’d had a horrible flight, earlier than he dutifully dropped me off on the deal with Not Mark had given me, and — oh, you’ve bought to be f**king kidding me.

Within the Stomach of the Assume Tank

As I arrived within the foyer of The Conservative Assume Tank (a constructing lower than ten years previous, however constructed to have a look at least 100), I used to be ushered up the steps and right into a convention room, the assembly already underway. There have been a number of darkish blue blazers (I had made the precise selection with the linen).

It’s price noting, at this level, that the politics of local weather change and cleantech and electrical automobiles have made for some fairly unusual bedfellows lately, so I in all probability shouldn’t have been stunned to search out myself seated at a heavy desk, contained in the granite partitions of a well-funded conservative suppose tank, surrounded by a variety of, as they referred to as themselves, “center-right” varieties speaking in regards to the EV revolution, autonomous automobiles, and what the federal government’s position in all that large, scary, capital-c “Change” that was heading our means is perhaps.

So, OK. I concede: the true shock shouldn’t have been that I used to be there. The true shock, possibly, ought to’ve been that — after choking again the urge to scream obscenities within the faces of lobbyists who, on one other day, might need been developing with new and fanciful methods to drive homosexual youngsters to suicide and pressure underage ladies to hold their rapists’ genetically-deficient infants to time period on the danger of their very own well being, future, and sanity — I genuinely agreed with a lot of what this bunch needed to say.

On the subject of public security, as an illustration, one gentleman requested the desk if we’d ever agreed to be part of Elon Musk’s grand self-driving experiment, or if I’d ever clicked “OK” on a Tesla ToS permitting Tesla’s cameras to document my face and site.

I mentioned I hadn’t.

The theme of the dialog turned to questions of knowledge privateness, biometrics, sensible infrastructure, and public security — all standard matters within the days after Tesla’s Sentry Mode and onboard cameras have been labeled “a privateness violation on wheels” and greater than 100GB of delicate buyer knowledge had been leaked.

The leak itself, whereas overhyped, was important. It contained “greater than 100,000 names of former and present workers, together with the social safety variety of the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, together with personal e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, salaries of workers, financial institution particulars of shoppers and secret particulars from manufacturing.” It raised the query: How way more was there? And these guys have been asking that query — and lots of, many extra.

Can we actually belief privately owned robotaxis? Even when you belief the Autopilot and FSD Teslas, do you belief their homeowners? What about their second homeowners? Or third? With a number of “self-driving” EVs now approaching — or exceeding! — tons of of hundreds of miles of use, would you guess your life that the automobiles’ homeowners have saved the sensors and cameras and brakes and steering and tires and shocks in tip-top form?

Would you guess your youngsters’ lives?

Would my pal John nonetheless be alive if a “sensible pylon” on the nook he was stopped at might inform the oncoming automobiles to be careful for a stopped motorbike? What if they may have despatched a distant sign to cease the automobiles earlier than they hit the bike, no matter who was on the wheel, be they human or AI or Toonces?

That is what these guys needed to know, and it felt like a surprising show of sanity from — properly, Republicans.

“We contemplate ourselves ‘heart proper,’ similar to the remainder of America,” mentioned one of many extra polished younger males on the desk — a blonde, blue-eyed 20-something who’s picture might have appeared subsequent to the phrase “Aryan” in a dictionary, if folks nonetheless had dictionaries. “Invoice Clinton, Barack Obama, and even Joe Biden are politically extra conservative than the remainder of the world,” he provided. “Biden even handed legal guidelines to stop labor strikes on railroads — and nobody has been actually pinned down for what occurred after the derailment in Palestine.”

I leaned over to Not Mark, talking to him for the primary time since I had entered the room. “What the hell is that this?” I whispered. “They’re really making numerous sense.”

“They’re good folks,” mentioned Not Mark, leaning in. “They suppose they’re good folks.”

I smirked. “Don’t all of us?”

The dialog turned to e-mobility, city planning, and what their metropolis would possibly appear like in just a few years’ time. However for a single, exceptionally bizarre remark about “the Environmentalist Faith,” it might have been a dialog recorded on the CleanTechnica water cooler — and that place is about as left-leaning because it will get.

Some phrases that stood out, if just for shock worth:

• There can be fewer automobiles on the highway than there are at the moment — and that’s a very good factor.
• There are too many parking areas, and never sufficient inexperienced areas.
• Individuals wish to get round in several methods, not simply utilizing automobiles.
• We will’t belief that the sensors and security methods in folks’s privately-owned automobiles are being correctly maintained, that security must be constructed into the infrastructure.
• Security and connectivity needs to be constructed into the roads and buildings.
• Connectivity and entry to the web are important, which is why we have to push to determine an information utility.

There have been just a few extra minutes of this wholly cheap line of thought, of conversations about management and setting an ordinary for not simply town we have been in, however the state itself, in addition to each different state that was concurrently south of the Mason-Dixon Line and never California.

Listening to all of this sense-making, I started to surprise if these Republicans would possibly really be making sense about different issues, too. Ought to trans women and girls be allowed to set sports activities data and compete for scholarships? I’m actually not educated or knowledgeable sufficient to know. Ought to minors be prevented from getting gender-affirming surgical procedure till they’re 18? I do know loads of trans folks, however I’ve by no means felt the sort of physique or gender dysmorphia that made me really feel like traumatic surgical procedure and troublesome hormone therapies could be a greater various. Ought to we hold underage youngsters off of social media? I don’t need my youngsters on social media, however that’s as a result of I don’t need them to be uncovered to airbrushed supermodels and not possible requirements of magnificence, and not as a result of I don’t need them uncovered to vital race idea or evolution.

“That’s how they get you,” the little angel on my shoulder mentioned. “They are saying issues that sound sort of OK, and the following factor you understand, you’re speaking about prayer in faculties and banning books and marching within the streets carrying a TIKI model Luau Bamboo Torch (©)!”

I instinctively reached for the hand-cannon I hold in my desk drawer, however I wasn’t at my desk, and my hand brushed awkwardly in opposition to one of many Aryan’s calves. Whether or not he preferred it or not, he gave no indication.

I eyed him suspiciously because the Republicans went on, speaking in regards to the rights of the person to their very own knowledge, and the alternatives introduced for accountable authorities oversight and regulation on matters like AI, a self-driving car infrastructure, and particular person knowledge monetization.

All through all of it, I used to be stunned to listen to actual, “humanity first, expertise second, earnings final” type of stuff that appeared, within the second, to be eminently cheap — and under no circumstances one thing I anticipated to listen to from the laissez faire crowd.

I mentioned as a lot, however admitted one thing my stepdad taught me: that labels exist to divide folks, and to create “others,” and others change into marginalized. I appreciated being seated in a room full of people that appeared excited about discovering actual options that labored for all folks (behind closed doorways, anyway).

“We’ll work with anybody to do good,” he mentioned, nodding. “And nobody to do unhealthy.”

Because the discuss continued, my ideas wandered onto Rachel Spiegelman.

Rachel was a survivor of the German bombing of Warsaw at the beginning of World Battle II. She was amongst some 500,000 Polish Jews who, having survived the bombings, have been initially concentrated right into a Ghetto, an space roughly one sq. mile. Between July and October of 1942, practically 300,000 of those folks have been deported to focus camps — Treblinka and Chelmno — till solely about 40,000 Jews have been left within the Warsaw Ghetto.

In April of 1943, the Nazis stormed the Warsaw Ghetto, murdering hundreds of Jews. Heroically, they fought again, in a battle that lasted practically three weeks. Practically all of them have been killed — however Rachel was one of many survivors.

From John Scalzi’s “shareware” novel Agent to the Stars:

In pre-Battle instances, Rachel and her household have been well-to-do professionals; the daughter and granddaughter of physicians, Rachel herself had studied regulation and labored because the workplace supervisor of her husband’s regulation agency. Along with Polish and Yiddish, she spoke German and English, and had even been to America as a toddler, to go to relations who had emigrated there. She was a daughter and spouse of privilege, and the autumn from having servants and summer time houses to residing six to a room within the ghetto was a protracted one.

And but, inasmuch as one can within the circumstances, Rachel thrived. She was tough-minded and wise — and likewise formidable. When the Nazis knowledgeable the ghetto residents that they have been to type Jewish councils that may oversee housing, sanitation and manufacturing manufacturing, she forbade any member of her household from becoming a member of the councils, declaring that those that labored with the Germans have been main the remaining to the slaughter. When her husband disobeyed her and served on a council, Rachel threw him out of the room that they shared with Rachel’s dad and mom, her brother, and her brother’s spouse.

From April till the start of August, Rachel slaved within the camp; on August third, it was determined that she was now not wanted. She was despatched a mile up the highway to Treblinka II, the place the “bathhouses” have been. These bathhouses have been related to very large diesel engines that pumped in carbon monoxide — lethal, however not very environment friendly. It sometimes took practically a half hour earlier than the tons of crammed contained in the “bathhouses” died. It was a protracted and terrifying dying, and between 700,000 and 900,000 folks died that means, in that camp.

On August third, nonetheless, there have been some stunning deaths at Treblinka II; particularly, an SS officer and several other guards. They have been killed by a number of the Jews who labored on the camp, performing the executions, excavating the corpses for gold enamel and different valuables, and transporting the our bodies to mass graves. The Jews selected that day to try a revolt, and whereas it was not profitable, over 200 Jews escaped the camp through the chaos. Rachel was one in all them. Many of the escapees have been ultimately recaptured or killed. Rachel was not. Rachel went north, ultimately discovering passage to Sweden. After the conflict ended, she emigrated from there to the USA.

If it had ended there, Rachel’s life and survival by means of the Nazi Holocaust would have been exceptional sufficient, but it surely didn’t. She went on to work in Selma, Alabama, as a lawyer, representing black victims of police violence within the wake of the civil rights protests of the Nineteen Sixties — themselves a response to a long time of Jim Crow legal guidelines. Simply earlier than she died in 1975, she informed TIME journal, “I really feel the work I’ve finished was the work I used to be destined to do. I do know what it’s to lose my rights and to be informed that I’ve no proper to exist, to see my household, my mates and my humanity stripped away from me. These are exhausting recollections, couched in sorrow and anger. However I additionally know what it’s to see others start to achieve their rights and their humanity, to be informed, sure, you’re our brothers and sisters. Come be part of us on the household desk, and be welcome. My work, although such a small half of a bigger complete, has helped to make this a actuality. It makes these exhausting recollections a bit simpler to bear, as a result of these recollections – they’re superb.”

If you happen to’re impressed to study extra about Rachel Spiegelman and her superhuman efforts to champion the rights of marginalized “others,” don’t hassle wanting in Wikipedia. Rachel is a fictional character created by creator John Scalzi. Scalzi appears to specialise in mild, enjoyable, sci-fi tales that play with TV tropes and make for fabulous airport reads. Spiegelman, although, is a bit totally different from Scalzi’s Star Trek-inspired Crimson Shirts or sympathetic Godzilla, who will get handled like an unique endangered species. Rachel’s life story, in the meantime, is heavy, darkish, and feels all too actual — regardless of being fictional.

Rachel Spiegelman, then, isn’t fairly the hero we deserve. However certainly she’s a hero that’s wanted now, as a lot as ever.

I snapped again. The discuss within the room had, by now, turned to folks not desirous to work and the homelessness “disaster,” and the way it could possibly be “fought” by eliminating authorities handouts and packages that “give folks fish as a substitute of educating them tips on how to fish.”

“Individuals change into marginalized after they now not see themselves as a part of the better good,” mentioned — let’s go together with “Randy.”

I considered telling Not Randy that the individuals who’d died on the Path of Tears would possibly disagree with calling Manifest Future part of the better good, and that piling legalistic horrors onto confused youngsters praying that it does, certainly, “get higher,” may not be both — however thought higher of it. It wasn’t time to burn the place down.

Not till I had a transparent run on the exits, anyway.

Apart from, on my good days, I like to inform myself that I’m a journalist, and journalism is a ticket to a really unique present. If you happen to’re adequate and keep it up lengthy sufficient and also you make the precise mates and present up on the proper conferences (in the precise blazer), that present provides you with an opportunity to see the information occur proper in entrance of you, whereas everybody else watches helplessly from the well-worn dents of their sofas. It’s thrilling, but it surely doesn’t all the time pay the payments (simply ask BuzzFeed).

This discuss round this desk on this present day, on this blazer — it appeared like information, however I couldn’t inform if it was excellent news or unhealthy information. Or, frankly, if I ought to assist these folks or flip the desk and storm out, identify names, and do my damndest to verify these folks by no means handed a regulation or received an election once more.

It weighed on me. Was this what it was prefer to work with the Germans? “We’d like the three legs of the stool,” mentioned one of many males on the desk, simply on the opposite aspect of the Aryan man. “We’d like the precise, the left, and the expertise. That’s the one means this works.”

I had my doubts, however nodded anyway. My time was up. We shook fingers, traded enterprise playing cards (I’ve a QR code on my telephone as a substitute of paper playing cards — playing cards are unhealthy luck), and was on my means.

Debrief

“What did you suppose?” requested Not Mark.

“It was surprisingly wise,” I mentioned.

“I needed you to go in chilly,” he mentioned. “Throw you into the deep finish and see what you consider what they’re saying. I feel there’s a chance there.”

There’s. There’s, actually, an actual probability {that a} metropolis like Austin, with its progressive, tech-forward inhabitants, might do one thing good. Charlotte, Atlanta, Tucson, too. There’s no scarcity of alternatives to get this proper, and get “the three legs of the stool” to work collectively and ship a public coverage initiative that’s not simply sensible, however which locations the human expertise and high quality of life and sustainability on the forefront.

“Not sustainability. They don’t like that,” mentioned Not Mark. “Say, ‘effectivity.’ It’s about decreasing prices, in a way, and about management, too, however effectivity saves cash. It’s good for everybody.”

Certain it’s — and there’s no means this might go pear-shaped both and switch into the worst components of 1984, The Return of the Archons, and The Terminator .

“All of the extra cause to remain concerned. To ensure that doesn’t occur.”

I hope he’s proper.

Unique content material from CleanTechnica (who remind you to pour one out for the homies who might need been saved if we’d began speaking about this 5 years in the past).

Featured picture by Bundeswehr-Fotos (CC BY 2.0 license)

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