“It’s all about convenience,” Jason says. “All about giving the people the maximum amount of what they want with the minimum amount of effort. Right now in an underground laboratory in Los Alamos teams of scientists are working on complicated computer TVs that will be able to change the channel for you. You won’t have to push even a single button. The TV will analyze your viewing tastes. You’ll take a little interactive personality quiz when you first buy the computer. ‘I always like: alternative music videos, nature documentaries on insects, cartoons suitable for an educated adult audience, girls in bikinis. I occasionally like: the weather, world news reports, well-made commercials. I never like: congressional reports, baseball. I like to watch the average channel for five-ten minutes, with an option to stay in for the whole program. I don’t like seeing the same commercial more than once in a week.’ You’ll answer all these questions and sit back, and the TV will inspect the incoming content and orchestrate it for you in accord with your preferences. Scientists with white coats and goggles and giant color maps of the brain are working on it right now. It’s the new space race. The corporation who gets this TV first controls the world.”
“That’s crap,” Samantha offers, head upside-down.
Jason stops pacing. “No, no,” he says. “It’s an automated crap valve. That’s the whole point.”
“Not the TV,” she says. “The idea that the extra buttons on the remote in some way represent what we want. It’s not about what we want; it’s about what they can sell us. Who asked for all these channels? Who asked for the Surf button? Who asked for TVs that read our minds and change the channel for us? I don’t remember any populist clamor for that stuff.”
“I didn’t actually say that the TV would read our minds. I’m strictly talking tastes and preferences.”
“You know what I mean,” Samantha says. “This stuff is all about novelty. It’s not about what we want or what we can conceivably use. It’s about what the newest possible thing can be. Who do you think uses those TVs where you can split the screen into like nine different frames simultaneously?”
“God?” offers Gregor, who’s still looking at the remote.
“Ted Turner?” suggests Jason.