New Scientist - USA (2021-12-11)

34 | New Scientist | 11 December 2021

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The sci-fi column

“YOU’VE exceeded everyone’s

expectations.” These are words

that Tanta, the hero of Louise

Carey’s InScape series, hears

often from her boss. The resulting

dopamine rush is strong enough

to make her knees tremble and

to reinforce her total devotion

to her employer, InTech.

InTech isn’t just any tech

company. It is also the local

government, a role it assumed

in the wake of a global disaster

that obliterated nation states.

Civil rights have been replaced

by end-user licence agreements,

and violations of community

guidelines get you executed.

Tanta, like most of her

coworker-citizens, has

internalised her company’s values

so completely that the worst thing

you can say about someone is that

they are “not being very corporate”.

In Outcast, the second book in

the series, Tanta has been assigned

the task of finding the deeply

uncorporate mole who is selling

company secrets. But there is a

twist: first, she needs to rid her

mind of the phrases used by the

corporate autocracy to command

loyalty in its citizen-employees.

This is the point at which

the series pivots to deft satire,

skewering the cult-like employee

culture that exists not only in

Carey’s dystopian future but

in our present, too. From Mark

Zuckerberg’s exhortation to

“move fast and break things”

to Disney’s insistence that all

its employees, down to the

janitorial staff, identify as “cast

members”, corporations already

use certain phrases to get inside

employees’ heads. Carey has a

degree in psychology, which

clearly informs her send-up

of the way companies do this.

In Battle of the Linguist Mages,

Scotto Moore takes the idea of

weaponised linguistics to the

next level. In this world, human

language began as an embedded

sentient alien mind virus that

The power of language Two visions of a dystopian future examine how

words can be used to get inside our heads and to command loyalty to causes

that definitely don’t deserve it, finds Sally Adee

“ In Outcast, your

employer determines

whether you live or die

and you think that is

good and fair”

colonised humanity back in the

mists of time, shaping the way we

communicated ideas. Then one

human finds a way to weaponise

these mind viruses into “power

morphemes”, sounds that can

bypass logic and motor control

to evoke a particular feeling,

action or belief.

This book won’t be for everyone.

It veers wildly from one style to

the next: one minute it reads as a

snackable version of Ready Player

One, the next it channels the loopy

extravagance of Douglas Adams,

then it abruptly skids into the style

of a dense Wikipedia entry. In

between the main plot, driven

by a glitter-caked, disco-themed

multiplayer game where bad guys

are killed with a kaleidoscopic

beam, Moore plunges into

discursive ravines where he

explores concepts like memetics

and the weaponised persuasion

tactics of the advertising industry.

These are very different books

by very different authors, but the

thread running through both is

the unstoppable evolution of

persuasion techniques. Using

words as weapons is as old as

advertising and politics, of course.

The question is where the

iterations will end. In Outcast, the

endpoint is that your employer

determines whether you live or

die, and you think that is good and

fair. In Battle of the Linguist Mages,

others can use words to control

your ability to think.

What’s scary is that if language

as a form of mind control is even

theoretically possible, you can be

sure some executive has assigned

a working group to it. This is the

world we live in now. But at least

we get to laugh at it through the

medium of science fiction. ❚

SV

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I/S

HU

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Are we really just puppets

being controlled by the

words of those in charge?

Books

Outcast

Louise Carey

Gollancz

20 January

Battle of the

Linguist Mages

Scotto Moore

Tordotcom

11 January

Sally also

recommends...

Book

How to run a city

like Amazon, and

Other Fables

Edited by Mark Graham,

Rob Kitchin, Shannon

Mattern and Joe Shaw

Meatspace Press

Ever wondered what it

would be like to live in a city

run by one of 38 major tech

companies? Find out in this

academic speculative fiction

vision of the future.

Sally Adee is a technology

and science writer based

in London. Follow her on

Twitter @sally_adee