Free Official Intelligent Beings: How Our Devices Became Us, And The World Consumed Itself by Josh Greenfield Page A

things once were and why they came to be the way that they are now. Many years ago, long before you were born, humans traveled around the world for both business and pleasure, going from place to place, developing a taste for exotic things. This craving turned into a quickly growing need to eat what was not native to their tongue. It became fashionable to eat foreign delic-acies no matter the cost.”
    “Everyone ate whatever they wanted?”
    “Well, what started with only a few in power quickly became a widespread phenomenon. Within a short span of time, eating exotic foods from all over the world became commonplace in homes. Farmers adapted their practices and figured out how to grow just about anything in any climate through the use of genetically modified crops. The world found a way to have whatever it wanted, when it wanted. All of this was going quite well for some time, but the more people craved what was new to them, the faster their urges came for exotic and unknown foods and Mother Nature just couldn’t keep up with the demand for new modified fruits and vegetables. So the native plants in each part of the world started fighting back, changing and adapting in their own way to survive amongst the foreign species. The harder they fought, the harder the humans worked to keep growing exotic food. They kept modifying the foods, creating chemicals, pesticides, and herb-icides, anything that they could to keep their food growing to supply those who craved them. But eventually the plants couldn’t fight back and so they did the only thing that their inner spirit could think of—they stopped growing, they ceased to exist.
    “What do you mean? There are still plants today. I see them everywhere.”
    “But it is not as you think it is. You see, as the plants began to die off, the farmers went into a complete panic; suddenly all of their specialty foods were going away. It was the exotic stuff that went first, most likely because the plants wanted to bargain with the humans, they wanted to say, in their own way, we will continue to grow, but only what is native to you, we must go back to the way things should be , but it wasn’t enough. The humans couldn’t handle it. They quickly grew bored of their native foods again and kept trying to grow exotic foods and import them from around the world. The harder they fought, the faster the plants died. Eventually, all of the plants died off and the humans were left to ration what little they had left. That was, until I came and showed them the way. Humans, I knew, would never be selfless enough to give up what they wanted. No, they would always seek what was foreign to them. Bringing the fruits and vegetables back was out of the question.”
    “But what about all of the fruits I see around us now?”
    “For me, I can easily grow whatever I’d like. As you see in this garden here, all sorts of worldly fruits of all sizes and variety growing healthy and abundant. But I knew this wasn’t what the humans needed. What they needed was something that could always evolve without actually harming the world. Let the farmers plant the foods necessary to create the nutritional drink that you consume every time you hook yourself up for a meal. Basic things like corn, beans, lentils, tomatoes, avocados, and oranges, depending on what part of the world you inhabit, and design artificially modified plants to keep the appearance of wildlife and to allow for the creation of oxygen, but make plants that would never grow and produce anything edible. Which is why I developed static plants that look like trees and grass, and genetically are in every way, but always stay the same height, always remain the same color, and always provide exactly what they need to provide for humans, something they can’t abuse, air. No more competition, just life.”
    “So then where would one get their hands on some real food if they wanted it?”
    “It is simply not possible, Jagz. All of the food is grown