The Sociopaths in Charge

A few years ago, during the Christmas holidays, my wife and I were awakened by our now departed chihuahua losing what was left of her tiny little dog mind in the living room. Thise who have had the joy of owning chihuahua’s will know that losing what is left of their tiny dog minds is nearly a permanent state for said dogs. I mention this not to malign the poor, shivering creatures but to justify my reaction — turn over and attempt to go back to sleep.

My wife, however, is made of sterner, more alert stuff and made me get out of bed and see which of the voices in her tiny little dog mind was causing our beloved throw-pillow with teeth to lose said tiny little dog mind. Following the growling and barking, I tumbled into the living room where I found, sitting, asleep, with his head back, snoring, a young man who did not live in our house. I am not sure if the dog was more injured by his presence or by the fact that he was sleeping through what was, to be fair, an impressive amount of vocal violence, given the dog’s wee little size.

An aside: little dogs are generally more high strung and foul tempered than larger dogs. This is mankind’s fault. Deep in their dark, lightless, doggie souls, little dogs know that they were supposed to be wolves. And they know that we, collectively, turned them into shedding, shivering purse accessories. And they are pissed. I’m not sure I blame them.

After a moment of shock, I roused the young man, whom we shall call “Larry”, and proceeded to inquire as to his plans. Larry, dear soul, was impressively drunk, drunk in a manner that would make most AA coaches weep, and it took some moments of conversation to make him understand that no, in fact, this was not his house, and I didn’t care how tired he was, he could not stay here. After several more moments of reasoned conversation and one spectacularly ill-advised attempt by the blood in Larry’s alcohol to pet the dog attempting to work up the courage to savage him, we got the poor dear bundled up and home.

I bring up this moment because I keep coming back to it as I read this article on a new high tech home security start-up for Silicon Valley elite. The start-up promises that you can turn your home into a military bunker. You can have cameras on every inch of the perimeter, drones that will shine spotlights on intruders who make it over your fence (the article tastefully does not mention if the fences would be barbwire topped or electrified) or, perhaps in a soon to be available upgrade, shoot intruders and AI considers to be especially dangerous. you can have a 3-D map of your residence, all the better to see where the bodies lay, and a private security firm, because the cops aren’t enough, apparently, will be at your beck and terrified call.

What has this to do with a drunk kid (I’m in my fifties. Anyone not enough to have lived through grunge is a kid) stumbling into my home? The mastermind behind this new, personal Green Zone in the California hills was motivated to start his company because “… security system failed to alert him and his wife when an intruder rang their doorbell and tried to enter their home late at night.” Apparently, I should have attempted to started up my own murder drone driven murder firm instead of what I did do: nothing. I bought no gun, I called no police, I put up no barbwire, I got no larger, more frightening looking guard dog. I did, in fact nothing.

Well, not entirely nothing — I did remember to lock that specific out of the way door we suspect poor Larry stumbled through. Usually.

Why? Because while I do not live in San Franciso or Silicon Valley, I do live in a place that shares one relevant, important characteristic: violent crime has been dropping here and there for years. Instead of panicking and inventing a company named after the ultimate evil in the most black and white and influential fantasy ever written. I went about my life, quite happily. Neither Larry, not any of his drunken brethren, have returned in the subsequent holidays.

I was accosted by a squirrel, once, though.

It probably also helps that I am not a sociopath. That is a strong statement, I understand. You don’t know me, not really. As far as you know, I could be a murderous lunatic unconcerned with the well-being of my fellow man. I am, after all, a fan of the White Sox, the Blackhawks, and the Dallas Cowboys. Something is probably wrong with me. But I swear on the souls of the deceased brains cells Larry killed that holiday season, I never heard anything like this and decided to provide the speakers with military style security:

At tech dinner parties after the Great Recession, Hartz said discussion sometimes turned to best practices for fleeing the United States. In a scenario where someone acquired citizenship and a residency in New Zealand and had a pilot fly them there to safety, “people were talking about whether or not you kill the pilot of your plane because the pilot could harm your family,” he said.

Imagine the kind of person who have to be to murder the very person that helped you and your family escape danger. There are no nice names for these kinds of people, but sociopath seems to be the most clinical. Explains the name of the company, though.

We are ruled, to a certain extent, by people who live in world that is a mirrored opposite of most of reality. They look at lowering crime rates and see people coming to kill them. They look at generational societal problems and turn their resources not toward solving those problems but toward saving only themselves. They see people helping them and worry about how they can make sure those people never live to help anyone else.

You will pardon me, I hope, if I am not willing to give this kind of person the benefit of the doubt when they argue that, say, letting them train imitative AIs on all copyrighted works for free is good for all of us. It feels, I must say, more like them shooting the artistic pilot once they have what they need from him.

Life can be scary and annoying. Larry disturbed my sleep and made me briefly worried for my family. And maybe you argue that things could have gone worse. Perhaps —- I have lived in scarier places, and I have bene robbed at gunpoint wo and one-half times and lived to tell the tale. Good people, though, don’t base their reactions on nothing but fear. Larry never deserved to die, and it would be cowardly to argue otherwise.

But, I suppose, that is why I am not a Silicon Valley millionaire.