Flygenring 1

Nicholas Flygenring
Professor Altman
English 115
8 December 2016

They Live a Beautiful Lie

People were offended and that was horrible. No one should ever have to hear or see
something that displeased them. It is for this calamity that the Social Justice Warrior Coalition
(SJWC) proposed all citizens should have an Augmented Reality Filter (ARF) implant that
prevents offensive speech from being heard and offensive things from sight. This system was to
be the saving grace for all who felt wronged by the worlds thoughtless rejection of individual
emotional safety. The SJWC brought forth their brightest minds from all of their ivy league safe
spaces and tech institutes to develop a snapchat filter that could be grafted to the sensory center
of the brain. The only issue was the battery life was only six hours on high use. MIT solved this
issue by developing a self-sustaining battery that worked by piggybacking electrical stimulus of
neurons. This groundbreaking achievement was used for the snapchat filter and the problem of
power-loss was solved. In the following months, the number of the filters users skyrocketed and
updates continued to improve the app till its mass appeal consumed the market for individual
specialty goods. Now every citizen that has the ARF is free to live with emotional freedom, and
all non ARF citizens are strictly forbidden from interfering with them.
In the case that a citizens ARF malfunctions there are safe space bunkers in all major
establishments. ARF malfunctions are almost never serious and are usually the result of a citizen
accidentally screenshotting a commonplace item that becomes difficult to censor without

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jeopardizing the citizen, In the case of an emergency the ARF shuts down to prevent serious
mental damage and goes into a backup navigation mode that guides the user to the closest safe
space. These rooms work similarly to gender neutral restrooms as any citizen may enter them,
but are specifically for ARF citizens. Citizens entering the bunker are greeted by a series of
individual cocoons that expand or contract to embrace them. The citizen inside pulls a switch
that turns the pod into a sensory deprivation chamber safe from persecution and can hide from
reality till a repair technician can arrive. This technician is a well-trained first responder that
understands the delicate nature of emotional stability. They work with the great proficiency to
protect and nurture the citizen because to them the ARF transforms them into infants. The citizen
regains the ARF and can exit the bunker safely.
Every citizen can have the ARF programed to their appropriate level of triggers so
anything auditory or visual that matches is immediately disguised to be more pleasant. The
trigger system works off a combination of keywords and optical recognition that function in
conjunction to recognize offensive material, process the best disguise for the stimulus, then
project the modified stimuli through conscious thought of the ARF citizens brain. The modernity
of the trigger system lays in the fine tuning it receives from the user. When a citizen observes a
stimulus that causes discomfort but is not modified by the ARF; the user can screenshot and add
the item to the registry by simply tapping the temporal bone plate associated with the dominant
hand. Triggers can be customized this way or by selecting from a series of word string sets. The
word string sets work by flashing a word or image in front of the users eyes; the ARF then
measures the level of discomfort and moves the word or associated imagery to its corresponding
level of importance. In practice, this works that if the citizen feels the strongest level of
discomfort with the word and image of The Holocaust then it goes at the front of the string and

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is highest priority. Any and all anti-Semitic material is censored and modified first and foremost.
The trigger system is also very crucial because using the ARF vicinity capability when one
citizen screenshots a new trigger it not only adds itself to the citizens personal inventory but also
to the main registry so fellow citizens also become protected from it. Thus a hive of safety is
effectively created and self-maintained by the users themselves.
When the citizen experiences discomfort the ARF receptors connected to neurons register
and mark the disturbance and morph it quickly into a beautiful vision of what it can be and
stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain. This creates a sense of euphoria referred to as the
Glaze preferably because it appears that the citizens eyes glaze over and pupils dilate. The
mix of endorphins and serotonin smooth over the pain of life and create good will in the hearts of
citizens. A good will that had been severely lacking in society.
Citizen with the ARF is no longer subjected to cold harsh reality, but instead perceives a
world free of social injustice. A beautiful shimmering world of possibility that saves everyone
from tragic hopelessness. The immersive mastery of the ARF is gorgeous and its graphics are on
par with real life. Pollution is turned into hazy clouds and trash and litter become serene scenery
that just cannot be moved. The citizen sees slums as developing communities full of potential.
Swastikas appear as street art and self-expression. Riots appear as peaceful civil disobedience.
Pain of loss is also mitigated to mild grief that leaves a happy memory when the neural pathway
is traced.
Another crucial function the ARF is capable of is conflict substitution. If two citizens
disagree with each other, their ARFs wirelessly connect and remodel the conversation so both
citizens are pleased with the responses and conflict is resolved. This works by the ARF

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recognizing discomfort then re-organizing the speech pattern to synthesize agreement between
both parties involved. human beings can accept each other if we never experience difference.
The ARF lets every person experience a safe and nurturing environment free of trauma
and be the enlightened hero of every interaction. The ARF will create micro-aggression
holograms for the citizen to swoop in on and check the privilege of. These holograms include
but are not limited to, an old racist yelling, a police officer using excessive force, a heterosexual
Caucasian male catcalling a fragile woman, and so many more; each hologram codes to the
appropriate triggers of the citizen. The ARF also connects other citizens so they also see the
hologram if associated triggers are matched. Every encounter ends with the hologram conceding
that the citizen is correct and superior. This feature allows the citizen to continue fighting for
social justice even if there isnt a tragedy and gives them a healthy inflated sense of worth.
Some people may argue that never experiencing adversity stunts personal growth, that
politically correct speech regulation does not solve the problem but merely verbally gentrifies
speech to reflect askew expectations of human decency. People that are so fearful that they rather
remain anonymous like the author of the article the Coddling of the American Mind who says
that avoiding trauma does not cure trauma. Robert Shibley wrote in his article Vindictive
Protectiveness on Campus that PTSD the worlds sensitive and emotional souls feel is an
excuse, PTSD... is the perfect vehicle to medicalize the jarring and uncomfortable feelings that
some have when hearing or reading something that makes them deeply uncomfortable. Those
that are diagnosed and struggle with PTSD know that triggers can be unpredictable, and not
always obviously linked to the trauma at issue. Since virtually anything can be a trigger
including sights, sounds, smells, textures, flavors, or ideasthe legitimization of policies aimed
at preventing triggering can easily be used to justify the regulation of virtually anything,

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including speech. It is, in fact, a roadmap for compassionate totalitarianism. This is clearly
made up to excuse his mistreatment of sensitive citizens and he should be reported to the SJWC!
The feelings of individuals matter and voicing different is intolerable.
In Conclusion the ARF is the cutting edge of modern safety that protects the hearts of
those that feel empathy and compassion. Its intricate system of trigger recognition that helps
save citizens from emotional trauma. The well-organized operations of safe spaces that act as a
second line of defense from a cruel world. The cheerful optimism it engenders in society. The
freedom from social injustice it creates by casting illusions of feigned fairness. Its ability to
resolve conflict peacefully and without actual effort needed to rationally debate and persuade.
The ARFs dedication to pleasing the emotional constitutions of its owners by creating fun
situations for social justice. The overall most important thing to remember about the ARF is that
it protects its users from having to grow up.

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Works Cited
Anonymous, "2 - the Coddling of the American Mind." Growth Strategies, 1101 (2015): 2-4.

Turabian / Chicago

Herzogenrath-Amelung, Heidi. "The New Instantaneity: How Social Media Are Helping Us
Privilege the (Politically) Correct over the True." Media, Culture & Society, 38.7 (2016): 10801089.
Morris, Stephen. "Political Correctness." Journal of Political Economy, 109.2 (2001): 231-265.
Shibley, Robert. "Vindictive Protectiveness on Campus." Society, 53.4 (2016): 375-382.