Starting March 2nd, a series of packages containing bombs have been going off in Texas. So far it has killed 2 people and injured several others, the first three bombs being packages delivered to people’s doors, the 4th being a tripwire on the sidewalk, and the 5th one going off in a fedex factory. Since writing this story, however, I’ve seen on the news that the police were able to find a suspect, and on pursuing the suspect (a 23 year old white male), he decided to blow himself up in his car.
Doesn’t this feel like made-for-television news? Its seems like there’s been a lot of that going around these days. I can’t imagine how the people of Austin Texas must have felt scared and worried to simply order something on Amazon or receive a package. It’s easy enough to hold off on ordering a package until the perpetrator is apprehended, but how about employees of companies who have to order packages as part of their business?
Package delivery is a relatively simple idea, but this fits the theme of Cyberpunk by virtue of it being a simple, harmless technology (online delivery) being misused fwith fatal consequences.
It’s not hard to extrapolate this a little further. Imagine if this happened with Amazon’s drone delivery service. Bombs sent flying via drones to your backyard or doorstep. Truly a hellish idea indeed. This reminds me of an episode I saw recently on Black Mirror, called hated by the nation. In it the bees are dying out, so a company creates a network of robot bees to pollinate the flowers artificially and thus avoid a food catastrophe. Needless to say, someone misuses the bees with similarly fatal consequences.
But it seems to me that misusing something’s original purpose in dangerous means might perhaps go back as old as time, when cavemen fought each other using innocent rocks lying on the ground. Is this really any different? Perhaps the thing that alarms us is not feeling in control, and not being used to seeing the postal service being misused in this way. Although we’ve seen Anthrax be used in mail before, so perhaps this isn’t truly so new.
What are your thoughts? Comments always appreciated below.