Lights on
Cold unnatural light
Dripping from the ceiling
Reaching out
Grabbing the mask
The screen lights before lifeless eyes
Leaving the human world
Virtual land materializes
False perceptions
People wander
Knowing nothing
Incapable of connecting
Some speak
Some silent
All lost
Inhuman
Corruption is, by definition, dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. It mostly occurs in larger corporations and governmental positions. According to the definition of everyday people, corruption is this great evil by which people who see themselves bigger than life do things that negatively impact other people. However, even though I know people can act horribly, I reject the societal definition of corruption. I could even argue that corruption, as we know it (rather than by its true definition), doesn’t exist.
One of the greatest arguments against this would be all these terrible things that people in powerful positions do. People will say that one great example of corruption is how politicians constantly take bribes from companies. I agree that, by definition, this is indeed corruption, but I don’t agree with people’s argument of why politicians do this. There is, in no way, a part of me that can imagine a group of people sitting around trying to figure out the best way to harm other people. We make the choices we make because we believe they are the best choices or because the other choices seem unreasonable or unachievable.
Every person has many moments in their life when they chose to go the easier way or do something that they regret but cannot stop doing it. This is one of humanity's greatest flaws, and no one single person can be blamed for this. People get angry at the President, at government officials, or at CEO’s for making these terrible decisions, but these are simply people who make decisions based on what they believe in and what they know to be true.
In a dim, dark basement far, far away, hidden from the rest of civilization existed a scholar named Waldo, who wanted to make his life and the those around him less burdensome. Secluded from other beings he worked intently for hours at a time toiling over an idea that came to him one morning a few weeks earlier while he was memorizing a new incantation. In frustration, he thought, “I don’t understand why I need to memorize this when there are new voice-activated machines that perform tasks by voice command. This technology alleviates a being from manually doing many routine tasks. Why can’t the machines perform my spells too!” If Waldo invented such a device, he would have more free time to observe the world and create new spells more fitting for the times.
After several weeks working tirelessly on his invention, the machine was finished. Waldo named the machine, SAM, which was an inverted acronym for “Machine Activated Spell.” He programmed the machine to perform a few simple spells that he used daily, like cleaning up his study or mixing potions. Ready to try his first spell Waldo nervously took a deep, long breath and exhaled. “Sam, get my spell book from the study!” Waldo waited for what seemed like an eternity. He walked to the study to see if his spell book moved. Nothing happened. Waldo repeated his command in a louder voice. “Sam, get my spell book from the study!” as he watched the spell book from the doorway. Nothing. Waldo checked his work on SAM over the next week, but he could not find why his verbal commands to Sam would not work. He was confused and disheartened. If only he could find an error in the code to cast the spells!
Waldo decided to take a break and went outside for a walk. As he strolled around the house, he tried to clear his frazzled brain. The sun streamed through the trees, and he felt the warmth of its rays on his face. He closed his eyes listening to the birds singing their melodic songs. Waldo suddenly opened his eyes and quickly returned to his house. SAM should be able to easily understand the vocal commands. The auto-generated voice perfectly pronounced the words for each spell. Waldo compared the auto-generated voice to his vocal commands when he cast a spell and realized he vocalized different tones and inflections in his voice commands. SAM was not able to generate the spells because of the required variety of tones and inflections. Machines are unable to recreate the underlying meanings of words and sentences based on the intonation of human speech. This is an ability that only living creatures possess. Waldo’s goal of creating voice generation technology to cast spells seemed to become a daunting task. He realized that casting spells needed the artistic flair of a living wizard that could not be reproduced by a machine.