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-# Codrin Bălan#Pollux --- 2325
+# Yared Zerezghi --- 2124
 
-Codrin and Dear walked, hand in paw, from cairn to cairn out through the prairie, tracing lines of exploration that Codrin had built over the years.
+*Mention how the System almost feels like its own nation, mention L<sub>5</sub> but only in passing,* the note read. *Expect agreement from a new faction. Act pleasantly surprised.*
 
-Ey had been surprised, at first, that Dear had agreed to this walk. The offer had been made on a whim: *I'm going to walk the prairie, do you want to come?*
+As he had found himself doing increasingly often, Yared stepped out of his apartment to walk the town and draft his new post in his head. They used to flow so easily, when each one did not feel like some school assignment.
 
-And it had agreed, forking off an instance to continue its work in quiet while the down-tree fork tramped out into the fields. There was no storm today, hardly even any clouds, just a few patches of lazy shadow that drifted across the rolling landscape as their corresponding cumulus slid between sun and grass. It made for a pleasantly warm spring day with enough of a breeze to keep it from becoming outright muggy, and quiet enough that the occasional clattering of a startled grasshopper sounded clear.
+He walked out past the coffee shop, waving to the woman behind the counter, and shaking his head to an offer of coffee. He was already wired enough.
 
-Historian and fox walked, hand in paw, from cairn to cairn, saying little, but saying it kindly.
+He kept on walking, instead, out and down the street past apartments, the store where he bought his food, apartments, the restaurant that he ate at once every other week, and yet more apartments. Out and out until he ran into that patch of scrub that somehow never got developed, then right and into where the scrub turned into scattered bushes, and then trees. There had been a fence, once, but all that remained were the posts.
 
-*"Codrin,"* Dear asked as they passed another pile of rocks. *"Did you bring me out here to talk about the interview?"*
+He'd never bothered walking up here until he'd accepted the unnerving assignment to convince everyone to secede. Explicitly, to convince the DDR and various governments to allow it, but implicitly, he felt, to convince those he talked to on the System, as well. Convince True Name and Jonas to suggest it from the other side.
 
-"That was on my list of things to talk about, but I also just wanted to spend time with you."
+It had been unnerving at first, at least.
 
-It squeezed eir hand in its paw and smiled. *"Thank you, my dear. It does mean a lot. Still, do tell me your thoughts on the interview."*
+Why would he, a nobody who dumped all his free time into the 'net, into the DDR, be expected to make any change? He knew that, once a referendum was picked up by more than a couple of the various legislatures, it was hopeless to expect the DDR had any real impact. It became the joke that he was sure so many thought it was.
 
-Codrin bent down to pluck a thin stem of grass as they walked, fiddling with it between nervous fingers, tapping the tip against eir chin. "I don't know. It was surprisingly painful for me. I think it was painful for us both, in our own ways. Still..."
+He had picked up the topic of the System's individual rights as his next pet topic, for even though he had felt little interest in the System or its labyrinthine technologies at the time, when the previous bill he had hyper-fixated on had failed on the floor, and after a night of far too much tej, he needed to set his mind on *something.*
 
-*"It still scared you?"* Dear hazarded.
+He didn't know why he did this, why he felt the need to dive into politics. He was a no one in Addis Ababa, a city which paled in importance in the NEAC, a governing body that paled in comparison to the others in the world.
 
-"I think so, yeah. I can understand the anxiety that one might not be missed after one leaves a place. Even in the face of knowledge that that's not true --- Ioan will miss you, May Then My Name will miss you, just about everyone who showed up at the death day party will, too --- it's hard to really internalize that others will still be thinking of you when you aren't there."
+He had a data analysis job he could do from home reasonably well, and he didn't slack off while at work (though he did leave DDR alerts on in his field of view). He made enough of a living to stay in his apartment in an alright part of town. He was comfortable. He had no plans to upload.
 
-The fox frowned, but nodded to Codrin all the same.
+Or hadn't previously. The more he learned, the more enticing it seemed.
 
-"It was just hard to hear you say, "I want to die" so plainly."
+It certainly seemed like an easier life than this, accepting messages from shadowy government agencies to try and influence what was supposed to be a direct means of being represented in the legislatures of the world. It was one thing to try to do so from one's own perspective, but to accept such influence, even if he was only paid in coffee and cake...
 
-It squeezed eir hand in its paw again, but remained silent.
+It had surprised him that he had even picked up the task at first. Secession seemed like such a strange thing to ask for. What did the NEAC --- or any government, really --- gain by having the System secede? What was the System doing that threatened them so much? There was the brain-drain that some feared, but this seemed to rely on some more basic instinct or need to have that which is different separated from that which was familiar.
 
-"Especially after Michelle..."
+He didn't know why he had picked up the task, but it was working, even on him. *Especially* on him. The idea of secession from a government's point of view was one that fit neatly into his worldview without him needing to change anything, and that was strange in and of itself.
 
-Dear stopped suddenly, there by a cairn, leaving Codrin to keep walking until its paw tugged em to a stop in turn.
+The System probably should secede. At that point, uploading became a simple matter of emigration, one to a country that was guaranteed to grant you residency. Not only that, but, though the cost might be high and the move permanent, it offered a ready-made haven for refugees, whether from the increasingly hot climate or the countless little spats along disputed borders. Uploading was an option for those who had nowhere else to go, and one that offered them more freedom than any other country on earth.
 
-*"Michelle made a difficult decision, but the right one,"* it said. *"I remember that pain, the inability to be just one thing, to be an entire person. I remember how those waves of instability always made her --- made me --- so nauseous and being touched felt disgusting. It was lonely-making for someone who needed --- deserved --- love and affection. She made the right decision to choose her own end."*
+And this new idea that had started showing up, first in his conversations with True Name and Jonas, and then on the DDR in general, of tacking the System onto one of the launches for the L<sub>5</sub> station construction. The timing --- True Name and Jonas, then the DDR --- made him wonder if the Council of Eight had its fingers in other pies, too.
 
-"And the decision to not fix the split-mindedness?"
+He wasn't sure how to feel about this. What an opportunity that had presented itself! All those arguments about the resources the System used would be all but put to rest. The station would house it, the station's solar power source would power it, and the Station Hotel's revenue would fund it. It would be another part of the tourists' experience. There were already plans for a new transmission system that would be easy enough to build for uploads to make it from Earth to the System without having to fly to the station first.
 
-It frowned down to the ground. *"I do not know if that was the right decision."*
+It was all starting to feel like such a good idea, and some part of him felt embarrassed that Councilor Demma's bald-faced political machinations were working just as well on him as they promised to on the masses that filled the DDR forums.
 
-Codrin turned to face the fox, taking its other paw in eir free hand. "Do you know why she made it, at least?"
+He realized he'd been so lost in thought that the wooded grove had already spat him out the other side, back into heat and back into traffic.
 
-*"Yes. I think so. At least, I know why she made the decision two centuries ago. She felt that she was honoring the Name, that to get rid of that part of her that left her in that state after getting lost was to disrespect the referent of that name and all that they went through. She thought that, after seeing how her first forks were locked into singular aspects, she would lose that."*
+"Well, shit," he mumbled, and began the long trek back to his apartment, polishing the draft of his post in his head.
 
-Dear looked off into the prairie, so Codrin took the opportunity to lean forward and kiss it's cheek. "It was difficult seeing her and then learning of her death, and given the associations that you have with her, I couldn't help but think that there might be some of that in you when you said you wanted to die."
-
-*"I know, and I apologize for that. It did not adequately express what that means to me, but was too sharp a phrase to turn down. I will be more careful with how I phrase these topics in the future."*
-
-"Thank you, Dear. I've been giving it some thought, and I think I understand what you're going for. I think we even talked about it after Qoheleth's meeting. You wanted to find a way to...end, I think you put it."
-
-Dear grinned. It looked tired. *"That we did, yes. I will say that this is not the same idea, though it does come from the same roots. I was thinking then that there ought to be some way for one personality to lead to another, to be free of those memories, yet for someone new to live on. The core of that is still there, but I suppose what I want is to come by an earnest death. A real death. Natural causes, such as it were. I don't want to know when or how, but knowing that there is a limit to our immortality has become a comfort to me."*
-
-Codrin disentangled eir hands from the fox's paws, opting instead to hug it around the middle. Dear reciprocated by looping its arms around eir shoulders.
-
-"That's what I suspected you meant, yeah. I just didn't pick up on it at the time is all."
-
-*"Yes. Sorry, Codrin."*
-
-"It's okay, promise."
-
-They stood for a while, there in the prairie, silent, thinking, until by some unspoken signal, they turned toward the side of the cairn that hadn't been explored and began walking.
-
-*"What is next on your list?"*
-
-"Hm? In terms of interviews and such?"
-
-*"Yes. Do you know where you will start looking?"*
-
-"I was thinking I'd start asking around our friends and see who invested totally up here and who didn't, then perhaps put out the question to a wider audience. That ought to get me a good amount of responses."
-
-*"It is a bit of a shotgun approach, is it not?"*
-
-Codrin laughed, shrugged, and knelt down to begin building the next pile of stones. "You got any better ideas, fox?"
-
-It knelt beside them, digging up stones of its own and handing them to em. *"Of course I do. Do ask our friends, as I think they will have much to say, but also, while poking around, I saw that several of the founders have made the launch. I am not surprised that this is the case."*
-
-"Oh? That makes sense, I suppose" Ey plopped a root-tangled rock on top of the growing pile, laughing. "Something exciting after all those years, back to being at the heart of something important."
-
-Dear splayed its ears. *"It is hard to let go of that desire, yes. A few of them are quite mad now, however."*
-
-"Mad how?"
-
-*"All of the council, all of those who uploaded so early, were reasonable in their own ways, but some more logical than others. I sure as hell was not."* It sat back on its heels and watched Codrin finish the cairn. *"After things with the council began to disintegrate and the meaning of being a founder grew all the more poignant with the explosive population growth, many got frustrated and left to get up to their own things. Many of us...lost track of each other after that, but I have seen many of their names there and there, and I know that several are on the launches as well as the System. They might have some interesting insights to give you."*
-
-"Interesting good? Interesting bad?" Ey laughed. "You can't call them mad and then just leave 'interesting' hanging in there."
-
-*"Of course I can."* It stood again, dusting off its legs. *"But I love you, so I will not. As far as I can tell, many initially picked up artistic endeavors of some sort or another, and almost to a one, they became interested in history and preservation. I am sure that you have read several of their works. For those who experienced such, much of the strain on their personalities began to show about twenty years ago."*
-
-"Twenty years ago, huh? Around the time of *On the Perils of Memory*? Or the launch?"
-
-The fox only grinned.
-
-"Well, I'll put them on the list, then. I'm curious to hear what a mad founder has to say about travelling however many kilometers a second through space. Anyone else?"
-
-*"I am sure there are more Odists on here who would be willing to talk. Some of them might even be interesting."* It admired the waist-high cairn, smiling. *"If you want actually interesting perspectives, however, you cannot go wrong hunting down artists, though. They will always have something to say."*
+> I won't lie, I'm pleased to see this discussion take a turn to the positive. There are some great minds thinking and talking here. Here on the DDR forums, out on the 'net, and now out in the subcommittees that will feed into the legislatures of the world.
+>
+> What heartens me more than that, however, is to see some names that I had previously seen arguing *against* independent rights now campaigning *for* them (or, at the very least, neutral in tone). This is how the DDR is meant to work: it's a forum for us, the rank and file of the nations of the world, to be able to participate in the legislative process that will bind us in more ways than of old. No more relying solely on representatives. No more collecting signatures for yet another petition that will fall on deaf ears. No more letter writing campaigns that doubtless fed countless shredders and trash folders.
+>
+> To those arguing for independent rights, keep working hard, as there is still much to be done, but to those who are arguing against this referendum, I would like to address a few of those points that seem to keep cropping up:
+>
+> *The System has no meaningful way for us to control its goings on, and thus could be a good place for disaffected citizens to coordinate with phys-side agents on acts of terrorism.*
+>
+> This is one of those arguments that is difficult to refute because, on the surface, it is indeed a potential reason that one might upload.
+>
+> That said, enough thought about how international terrorism works is enough to put this to bed as yet more FUD. First of all, it is the responsibility of each country to monitor their own citizens to within the limits of their national policies (and, let us not kid ourselves, well beyond). If a disaffected citizen is willing to engage in a terrorist act on their home soil, then it is the responsibility for the government to deal with that individual.
+>
+> I will grant that this leaves the upload to contend with. There is no easy way to detect whether or not the System has punished them, and there's certainly no way for them to be extradited, should they be discovered.
+>
+> Do not doubt your respective governments' abilities to track these actions, however. It is something of an open secret that they are always a decade ahead of us mere mortals when it comes to encryption, and thus cracking of those encryption methods used ten years prior. They'll be able to track communications from the System easily enough, just as they track any other form of text-based communication.
+>
+> (And to my NEAC government handler who reads all of my posts, finger hovering above the big, red 'arrest' button: hello! I hope that you are well.)
+>
+> *Without clear news sources coming out of the System, there is no way for us to tell that the Council of Eight is effective at governing those sys-side.*
+>
+> Disregarding the Council of Eight's mandate to "guide but not govern", I'm curious, now! What would a "clear news source" would look like?
+>
+> When one thinks about news sources here, one thinks of a stream of information about concrete events: what hurricane hit which part of North America; what stock jumped to what price; what the cricket scores are. These are all *things.* They all have to do with *stuff* or *places* or *money.*
+>
+> Think of one thing that has made news recently that does not have to do with any of those things. I will preempt many of your examples:
+>
+> * Legislation --- that is, new laws to govern stuff, places, or money.
+> * Scientific advances --- that is, new ways to work with stuff, places, or money (and before you suggest theoretical sciences, consider that those are future ways to work with stuff. Psychological breakthroughs? Better ways to keep us happy so that we can produce and consume more stuff).
+> * International relations --- that is, which group people in which places have which stuff that which other group of people want.
+> * Technological breakthroughs --- stuff.
+> * Exploration --- places.
+> * Travel, entertainment, comedy --- commodified experiences.
+>
+> Here are some things that you might find in this theoretical news source that also appears in ours:
+>
+> * Opinions
+> * Interpersonal relations
+> * Religion
+>
+> When one is unbound by the constraints of stuff, places, or money, one finds that there is little news that is worth treating as news.
+>
+> Doubtless they have news out there. I don't mean to imply otherwise. Of what worth would it be to us to know of a cult surrounding, say, some upload who has found a neat thing to do with forking? Of what use is the knowledge of what is the new, hottest sim? Which of us really, truly cares about their petty squabbles?
+>
+> I would say that I do, but lets be honest, I can't even begin to understand those, but I can certainly respect their rights to have them.
+>
+> Now, tell me what effective governance looks like in such a system. Resources are controlled through the reputation market. As far as I can tell, there is no murder, there are no wars, fights can be over in a blink if one of the parties just leaves, and the worst offense someone can commit is stalking, and even then, one can be bounced from a sim.
+>
+> We come yet again to the idea of speciation. We are fundamentally different. Or, to use a metaphor from the first point, this is an entire *society*, human or otherwise, that is fundamentally different, as one might see with the vast gulf between customs in different areas of the world.
+>
+> *The L<sub>5</sub> station has no obligation to host the System.*
+>
+> Correct, and yet they volunteered. This is a non-argument for a non-problem.
+>
+> They are an international cooperative effort with business interests involved. The System is neither of those, true, but it is also not *not* those, either. A nation to cooperate? It is not a nation, but I believe I've argued the point that, given fundamental differences, it might as well be. A business? It is not a business, but it does have employees and businesses associated with it, and it produces some delightful results in terms of the new ideas that constantly flow through the communications channels.
+>
+> Friends, I struggle to see the merit of many of these arguments, and of the ones that do hold water, there are sensible compromises available. These people are *people,* and it has long been established that people deserve rights. They are a *culture,* and it has long been established that cultures deserve protection.
+>
+> Vote for the granting of rights. Vote yes on *referendum 10b30188*
+>
+> Yared Zerezghi (NEAC)