by Richard Cox
Does the value manual portray you as (choose all that apply): Benevolent? Vindictive? Petty? All-knowing? All-powerful? Jealous? Loving?
Would you like to create an afterlife for the ants?
Is participation in the afterlife dependent upon the ants’ behavior?
Or in BIOLOGY, the sim asks me:
How do the ants reproduce? Asexually or Sexually?
On a scale of 1 – 10, how much do the ants enjoy the reproductive act?
Is the reproductive act (choose all that apply): Vilified? Celebrated? Acceptable under only certain circumstances? Done in view of other ants?
Do the ants derive genetic benefit from reproducing with a variety of different ants?
Does society approve of or frown upon taking a variety of different partners for the reproductive act?
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out this game was designed by people who don’t believe in God, or at least not the way Christians believe in Him. I imagine the developers sitting in the living room of someone’s nasty San Francisco apartment, drinking and smoking pot, laughing at stupid, bovine middle Americans who go to church every Sunday. But to their credit, the game includes hundreds of parameters, and all of them are configurable. Which means I have the option to disagree with the opinions of the developers. We all imagine God in our own way, and it seems the point of the game is to investigate how our personal beliefs might fare when applied to the human race.
Or rather to self-aware ants.
After fifteen minutes or so I set my last parameter and receive this message:
Great! The hard part is over. Now you get to sit back, relax, and watch the ants try to make sense of the world you’ve created for them.
Because of the complex interpretive nature of Ant Farm 2.0, and because of the enormous resources required to compute their behavior, there is no graphical display of the ants in their environment. Instead, you will observe your world from the cockpit chart. The cockpit chart is a collection of graphs and figures that provides a wealth of qualitative and quantitative information about your ants, such as how their needs are being met in categories such as biology, safety, love, esteem, life meaning, aestheticism, and transcendence.
You may view aggregate scores for these categories, or you may drill down to the feelings of individual ants. And finally, because this is a rule-based game, once you begin a simulation you cannot change the rules. The point of this game is to simulate reality according to your initial setup, so altering the rules to suit your needs is not possible.
Are you ready to watch your world unfold? If so, then GO!
GO! is a link. I click it. The message disappears and the Earth-like planet returns. It grows larger on the screen, as if a camera is zooming in on it, and then another message pops up. This one says:
In Ant Farm 2.0, each ant represents a unique self-aware intelligence. The game will begin with a small number of ants that will attempt to secure basic life needs such as food and shelter in the context of the rules and values determined by you. The ants will multiply over time, and if your rules are successful, the world population will grow.
Based on your computer’s processor and memory configuration, we recommend you run the game at a maximum speed of 5,000X real time and a maximum world population of 250,000 ants. You may alter these settings in the configuration menu, but doing so could strain your system resources, and other processes may run slowly or fail altogether. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU RUN THE GAME WITH THE SUGGESTED SETTINGS.
Below this is a link that says CONTINUE. I click that and the message disappears, the camera zooms in further, onto an unrecognizable landmass, zooming closer and closer, resolving regions and then actual topographical features, and finally all the way to the ground, a bare, brown field of dirt.
Music begins to play as the camera pans across the ground. The opening chords are a mixture of strings and horns, discordant and almost ethereal. On the screen, a few weeds and scattered rocks appear, and finally, in the middle of all this emptiness, I see two ants standing on their hind legs, upright like humans, looking at each other. They turn and face the camera, looking more like cartoon ants than real ones. Facial features are drawn on them. Humanlike facial features. I wonder if one of them is going to say something, but then the image freezes and fades into the background, and on top of it appears the cockpit chart.
My world population begins at two. Rises to three. Then five. Nine, twenty-one. Counting gradually up. My ants’ Contentment rating hovers in the upper 90s (max is 100), and Life Meaning is 100. Transcendence, whatever the hell that is, also near 100. Safety occupies a region between 80 and 90. And so on. Did I win the game already? Because these are some happy ants.
The soundtrack music builds as the numbers change. Guitars join the strings and horns, and then a drumbeat march begins. Upward, upward the music rises, as if hope were written into the very code of the game. I notice a block of song information at the bottom left corner of the screen, like in a music video. The band is Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The song is “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.”
While the game runs, I think about Dick, how he fell into that trance today while I was talking to him. I think again about the likelihood that I would talk to him on this particular day, or that he happened to know about Ant Farm. It’s not very probable, is it? If my life were a film or a novel, you’d probably be calling bullshit by now. But I’m telling you, when I walked into that cafeteria today and saw Dick, the urge to sit down and talk to him was overwhelming. To be honest I didn’t feel like I even had a choice in the matter.
I focus on the game again and notice my numbers have begun to drop. Safety falls first, into the 80s, then the 70s. Life Meaning drops even farther, into the 50s. The music changes, becoming spooky and insistent and somehow desperate, violins stretching out the same few notes of suspense. Something is wrong, and not only do I not know what it is, I have no idea how to fix it.
Am I supposed to believe this is what God did? That our world is as pointless to Him as these ants are to me?
Clearly that’s what Dick believes…if he believes anything. But I feel very differently. Don’t I?
The music grows steadily spookier, violins screeching. The band is the same but the song is now called “Gathering Storm.” The drums return, marching much faster now, and I get the feeling something is going to happen. The numbers on the screen flip quickly, population growing, indicators dropping.
I wait.
Just as the song reaches its maximum intensity, a box appears on the screen. Black text on a translucent white background.
A title in the top left corner of the box says:
Prayer from Brett Paulson Ant
Sex: Male
Age 24
And below that, in the middle of the box, I read the first sentence.
Please help me.
ELEVEN
That tickly, nervous feeling runs down my neck again, into my arms, along my spine. The feeling of being watched has never been as strong as it is at this moment.
I turn slowly around, looking behind me again, toward the open door. No one is there, and for the first time I wonder if maybe I’m looking in the wrong direction. Maybe I can’t look anywhere because what I’m looking for can’t be seen.
Please help me.
Each ant is meant to be a unique, self-aware intelligence, I realize that, but let’s be realistic. Even if this is a very advanced game, that doesn’t change the essential nature of the situation. My PC is not a supercomputer, and I downloaded this application free off the Internet.
Here is the rest of the message:
My father is dying. There was a terrible storm and many homes were washed away. I found him among the ruins of our village, lying in a puddle of water. He could barely breathe.
I managed to move him to a dry place, but he doesn’t seem to be improving. I’m afraid he might die. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose my father. He means the wor
ld to me. I’ve spent my life trying to prove myself to him, and I want him to see me succeed in life before he dies. Can you help him, please? Can you save him? His name is Robert Paulson.
Now, I know (like everyone should know) this prayer was written by the developers so it could be deployed in a specific situation during the game. What I am being asked to believe, instead, is there are self-aware electronic creatures living in my computer. Multiplying in there and dying in there.
And praying in there. To me.
Say for a moment it were true. What are the ants like? Do they realize they are inside a computer? Or do they believe their world to be real? Perhaps the illusion is so compelling that it doesn’t seem to be an illusion.
I think again about who might be watching me and I wonder where they really are.
A new text box appears, set inside the current box. This text is red. It says:
Save Robert Paulson Ant? Yes - No
Where have I heard that name before? It sounds familiar. And in any case, why wouldn’t I save him? What sort of horrible god would I be if I let the poor man—I mean, ant—die?
I click on Yes.
The game resumes for a split second, only to stop again with another text box.
Prayer from Kathy Robinson Ant
Sex: Female
Age 31
Please. I don’t know what to do. The water came out of nowhere, some kind of freak storm, and it tore my home completely apart. All three of my children were washed away. I can’t find my husband. Please give me some reason to live, because right now I don’t want to. The pain is too much.
Please give me something. Anything.
-Kathy R.
Whoever designed this game is a sadist. Especially because there is no option to help Kathy Robinson Ant. Everyone important to her died and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Then I receive this little gem:
Prayer from Christine Coulter Ant
Sex: Female
Age 16
Help! My boyfriend wants to have sex and I don’t. He’s obsessed by it! But I don’t feel any desire at all! I love him and everything, but I’d rather spend time being close to him and talking and kissing.
My boyfriend says I would do it if I loved him, and I’m afraid he’ll leave me if I don’t give in soon. What should I do?
Love,
Christy
P.S. Can you help me pass my trig exam? If I don’t pass I’ll be taken off the cheerleading squad right before the playoffs. I just got moved up to varsity! I should never have let my advisor convince me to take such a hard class. I’ve never failed a class in my life! If you help me pass, I promise I will work much harder in the next six weeks to make up for it. Thank you!!!
Another one of those red, inlaid text boxes appears and says:
Christine Coulter trigonometry exam: Pass - Fail
I click Pass. Why the hell would I let her fail? She’s a cheerleader taking trig, for Christ’s sake.
Now another box appears on the screen, what seems to be an alert. All the text in this one is red. It says:
Kathy Robinson Ant has committed suicide.
Now come on. As much as I know the ant farm is only a game, this is bullshit. I would never create a world where the ants would want to kill themselves, and I certainly should be able to intercede before they do.
A lot of my indicators are dropping further. Safety is down to 31, Life Meaning is 25, Transcendence is 19. Aestheticism, on the other hand, is 86, and Love isn’t exactly low at 72.
I don’t even know what aestheticism is. I would look it up on Wikipedia, but the game takes up my entire screen, and I’m not sure what will happen if I navigate away from it.
More prayers and messages pop up. Many ants need money. Their parents are failing them. Their spouses are cheating on them.
Cheating on them.
I think about Gloria, sitting in her office, working on her computer. The colors of my imagination are faded, the contrast turned up, like I’m watching an edgy independent film. And here comes Jack, in his expensive handmade suit. Gloria looks up and smiles…that look of warm surprise her face used to make when I would say something especially romantic, or when she picked me up from the airport after I’d been away on business. I can’t remember the last time I saw that look, and now I’m afraid Jack is the one who gets to see it. He asks for some data on a certain product, and she obliges. He makes a joke and she giggles a bit. Gloria feels flush…she always feels flush when Jack talks to her in private, when he smiles at her, when he sits on her desk and leans across it, peering at her monitor.
My husband has always been good to me. I can’t imagine a better father. But I just found out that he has slept with two other women since we were married. Should I leave him?
My mother picks on me every day after school. She’s crazy. What did I ever do to deserve this? I’m just a kid!
This cancer has been eating away at me for nine months now. It hurts so much, I’m in so much pain, and I’m afraid to live anymore. But I’m even more afraid to die.
The problem here is, in the context of the game, none of the above prayers make any sense. The ants know they won’t go to Heaven if they violate the rules I specified when I set up the game, so there isn’t any logical reason why they would commit these “sins.” And the ant with cancer shouldn’t be at all afraid to die…if anything he should be looking forward to it. Ant Heaven would clearly be better than suffering through cancer, right?
Ultimately, though, since I designed the game, it’s my fault the ants are acting this way. I must have them completely confused. They are tempted by their desires but not allowed to act upon them. And if they really are self-aware, they must wonder what sort of creator would do such a thing.
But the conflict runs even deeper. Based on the parameters I set up, and on the initial configuration given to each ant, it’s already decided when the ant is born whether he will end up in Heaven or Hell. His daily existence amounts to nothing more than pointless tests that he cannot choose to pass or fail, eighty years of trying to live the right way to earn an eternity of bliss.
What I want to know, again, is why Dick recommended this game to me. Maybe to you it seems obvious—he wanted me to realize my religious beliefs have no basis in reality. But see, I don’t think Dick really recommended anything. I think he was manipulated into doing so by someone else. Perhaps something else. Whatever force that has been guiding my life since the incident at church yesterday is also responsible for me playing this game. Dick is just a pawn.
And maybe I am just a pawn.
But who is moving the pieces?
TWELVE
I find myself in the kitchen, staring at the liquor cabinet. I’m hesitant to make a drink because lately I’ve been trying to cut back. It’s not really a problem, I don’t think, but as my mind has deteriorated over the past few months, I’ve been using booze as sort of a crutch. Like in addition to Happy Hour Friday and Drunk Night Saturday, I’ve added It’s Almost Friday Thursday. And during football season (which happens to be now) I’ll have a drink or four during the game on Sunday and sometimes on Monday night. If you’re counting, that’s five days on and two days off, which is not a good ratio. I totally realize that. But when you feel your mind slipping away from you, it’s difficult not to self-medicate. Especially a day like today. If there were any day I ever needed a drink, today is it.
I pull a tall glass from the cabinet and fill it with ice. Pour some rum over it and a splash of diet soda. The first swallow tastes like liquid gold. My spine glows warm with euphoria. Today begins to make more sense.
In the other room there is a colony of several thousand ants who are apparently as self-aware as we humans are. But no matter how intelligent they may be, they are still just bits and bytes, right? Which makes them far different than us humans, because we are built out of actual matter.
Right?
On top of that, I own a soul and the ants do not, which is the diffe
rence between humans and everything else alive in this world. We are God’s children and we go to Heaven, whereas dogs and cats and simulated ants do not.
What I don’t want to admit is exactly the point of the game in the first place—I can’t say with any certainty that my God and my Heaven are any more real than theirs. My faith tells me God is real, but as far as that goes, the ants’ faith tells them the same thing.
I suck down what’s left of my first drink and make another one.
Outside I hear cars going by. What seems like a lot of cars. But that’s impossible because mine is a quiet, curvy street cut into the side of a hill. We don’t get traffic around here.
Still, cars are going by. A lot of cars. Maybe even a tractor-trailer.