Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S1 Ep38: Episode 38: Social Credit Experiment Horror

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Tonight’s epic feature-length tale is ‘I Participated in a Social Credit System Experiment’, an original story by MTL Stories Paty, kindly shared with me for the express purpose of having me narrate it here for you all (with the author’s permission): https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/882nb7/i_participated_in_a_social_credit_system/

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's vault. Social credit experiments. Make trustworthy people benefit everywhere and untrustworthy people restricted everywhere. But is it really as simple as that? We'll find out in tonight's feature-length tale

by MTL Stories Patty. Now, before we begin, as ever, a word of caution. Tonight's story may contain strong language, as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. The way the world is set up, it wouldn't function without people like me. People stuck in the cycle of poverty. With every high-interest loan the banks provide,

with every lottery company promising a chance to win, with every check-cashing service, the monster continues to be fed. That's the way life has always been for me and the good folks I grew up around. I've worked an assortment of odd jobs to help with my low income. I've done everything from chopping wood for families to driving elderly folks to the doctor to helping others rehearse for job interviews. So, when I went to the internet cafe to check my email,

it wasn't out of the ordinary for me to receive another odd job offer. Dear Porter, we would like to offer you an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime. I am the director of a company called Osiris. We are currently working to assemble a group of other people from all over the world for the experiment of this century. The experiment will last for exactly one year and is of great benefit to the participants. How would you like to live in a tropical paradise island, with a fully furnished new home and a regular salary

and to top it off you would get paid a hefty amount just for your participation if you're interested please contact us immediately so we can get you started on the interview process from everyone at Osiris we hope to hear from you soon sincerely

Dr Pleitess PhD director Well, I didn't have to think twice about it. I immediately called to find out how much exactly was a hefty amount of money. As it turned out, the amount was more than I could ever have imagined. Two hundred and fifty thousand big ones. This really was the chance of a lifetime for me. It was a chance for a different, a better life.

In retrospect, I should have known that there was a life. something amiss but poverty only offers advice in retrospect i was ecstatic when after three full days of interviews i was contacted by the oziah's team to let me know i'd been chosen as one of the participants as i prepared myself for the adventure of a lifetime i had no idea what awaited me in that tropical island. Now, before I get into my experience in the simulation, let me ask you a few questions. How would you like to live in a world where you got what you deserve? Imagine a place, a society where everything you say and do is not just evaluated, but also rated by your government. In this world, everything you purchase.

every movie you watch every song you listen to every friend you choose every food you eat every good deed every bad deed everything is subject to the rating system if your actions are deemed to be good then you get access to the best of everything it doesn't matter if you were born rich or poor what matters is how you react to the world around you this is the simulation and before I knew it I was sitting on a chair under palm trees in front of a stage that had a beautiful pristine beach as a backdrop. Oh, is this real life? I wondered. As I enjoyed the light breeze of the ocean, the colours of the sunset and a pina calada in my hand, a woman in a white coat took the stage.

Positive reinforcement. She paused. Positive reinforcement and operative reinforcement. and conditioning. That is why we are here. For a long time, humans believed that the only way to get things done was by scolding, screaming, fighting war. But after thousands of years of evolution, we have found that, in fact, the opposite is true. Rewarding has proven to be far more successful in societies than punishment. Today you join us to prove that this can be done with society as a whole. Let me introduce you to my co-worker, my friend and my apprentice, Dr.

Plaites. He will explain to you a little more about the world we have created here at the simulation. A round of applause welcomed a rather attractive man in his mid-forties, with thick black rim glasses, also sporting a white coat. Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here with us today. Without you, there would be no simulation. So, on behalf of everyone at Osiris, I thank you. First and foremost, I would like to explain to you in layman's terms what the simulation encompasses. The governments of eight countries have funded this experimental simulation. They want to know how beneficial it will be to implement a similar system into their societies in the human future.

Over the next year, you will participate in a simulation of a social credit system. Every action you take will be monitored by Osiris, our highly advanced computer system, and then rate it. Based on the rate of each action, your citizen credit score will either go up or down, or in some cases stay the same. In the simulation, good behavior is rewarded, something that rarely makes a difference. in the real world. As an incentive, your good behavior will unlock more opportunities, more amenities, more access to the best we have to offer here on the island. We want to reward

you for being a good standing member of society. The risk devices we have given you will help us to better monitor your habits as well as allow you to keep count of your citizen credit score. Oh, I would also like to introduce you to you to a group of women and men who will be helping out Osiris to keep order in the simulation. They are the official Osiris Security Guard, or OSG. A group of guards dressed in black entered the stage in formation. We clapped, not ever knowing what these men were really there for. They here to not only enforce the laws of the simulation, but also to protect all the resident

participations of Osiris. Think of them as your very own police force, a friendly police force. They are also here to enforce one of our most important rules. While you are a participant in the simulation, you cannot speak about your real life outside of the simulation.

If you break those rules, you will be ejected from the simulation without pay. Now, with all this said, You may now turn to your wrist device and I would like to officially welcome you into the Osiris simulation. Be good, be kind and all will be aligned. And with those words, we all began our year in the simulation. You know those Saturday mornings in spring, when you wake up and you can finally feel the warmth of the sun through your window. Those first hints of summer are finally here.

The weekend is just getting started. Your bills are all paid. You've got a little extra cash that you can spend on a good meal and a movie. Life is good. Well, that's what every morning felt like that first month in the simulation. Everything was just perfect. They were right about many things. good behavior was a great incentive.

In the real world, I would never have managed to receive so many promotions in such a short span of time. By the end of the second month, I had gone from working as the manager at the local coffee shop to an assistant at the Osiris Central Office. I managed to do all this solely based on my good behavior. I was very impressed with how the system functioned. I have to say, however, I did find out of it. some oddities in the simulation. For example,

days seemed longer. There were no clocks allowed anywhere. Instead, we kept track of the day using our wrist devices. There was a wake-up alarm. There was an alarm for breakfast. One for work, one for lunch. And, well, you get the drift. So, throughout my time here,

I never really knew what time it was. That being said, days felt very long, not in a bad way. To be honest, in the first couple of weeks, I wanted time to go slow because I was enjoying everything. Life had never been this good to me. Poverty was long gone, and I dreaded the idea of going back to it. Another thing I found different was the food. everything tasted so much better than anything I'd ever had before. After weeks of wonderful surprises in my taste buds, my conclusion was that poverty had not allowed me to taste the better things in life.

Aside from those two small details that only slightly bothered me, life was well. But, as I'm sure you already know by now, perfect doesn't last. forever. One day, while working at the office, a young man came in, looking a bit dishevelled. This was not a common occurrence in a place where everything was as pristine as the water that surrounded it. Hi, uh, welcome to the Oziris Central Office. How may I be of service to you today? I asked the man. I'm here because I feel that the local coffee shop is not providing fresh coffee, he said,

handing me some papers. Here's my official complaint. I was told I had to give an official complaint. Oh, okay. Well, these complaints are normally filed through the clerk's office next door, I said, handing him back his papers. He pushed them away and said, Can you please just take one second to look at my complaint? I examined his face.

He looked worried. in a motion that rarely existed in the simulation. I agreed that a quick look at the papers wouldn't hurt. It was a complaint about the coffee tasting bitter, nothing out of the ordinary. As I flipped through the complaint, a folded piece of paper fell on my desk. I grabbed it and was just about to hand it back to the young man

when a group of OSG burst through my office. hands up participant number five six two hands up one of them screamed the young man looked at the piece of folded paper in my hand looks at me nodded his head once and then made a run for it into another part of our building one of the osg men approached me and asked me to hand him the stack of papers that the young man had given me after i handed over the complaint, the OSG officer evacuated the building as we stood outside, waiting for the OSG to come out with the young man apprehended. We were suddenly met with a horrifying surprise. We watched as the young man jumped from a fifth floor window, landing in a splatter of human chunks and juices in front of us. I'd never seen a human skull crack before. It was the most. It was the most of the

most petrifying sound. I can still hear the thing cracking like a coconut on the pavement. As I stood there in shock and terror, I remembered what was tucked inside my fist. The folded

piece of paper the young man had given me. Out of instinct, I immediately opened it. I felt my heart in my throat as I read the note. In handwritten letters, it said the following. This is not a simulation. You have been here for four years. As much as mankind

seeks a society free from all the pain and suffering that comes from disorder and violence, the seed that leads us to all of this will always be there. So, if one day someone creates an algorithm to weed out only the best that humans have to offer. Do be wary. The seed of disorder and violence will eventually filter in. It will grow and flourish and the algorithm will inevitably fail. It will always end this way. And that's because we are the seed. And there is no escape from the seeds of mankind. Osiris believed that it could fabricate trustworthy, reliable, happy humans, using positive reinforcement and a social credit system. The researchers at Rosiris believed that they could sell this concept

to some of the most advanced nations on earth. But when I saw the young man throw himself from the fifth floor window, I knew the simulation was doomed. I knew other things had filtered into the system. More worrisome to me. If I were to believe what the note said, I had already been kept for a longer period of time than what I'd signed up for. And as much as I love my life inside the simulation,

I couldn't help but feel like I was missing out on the real world outside of the island. It's like being in a dream. As much as you love a good dream, you still want it to end. You still want to wake up. Let me tell you a little more about the simulation. First of all, it is not a virtual reality world. At least, that's not what we were led to believe, nor what we perceived when we first arrived to the island. The simulation consisted of Osiris watching, monitoring, rating and averaging everyone scores using its algorithm, developed by Dr. Plaitis and his colleagues.

There were five brackets within the point system. High, 5, equaling 2,000. Medium, 4, equaling 1,500. Neutral, 3, equaling 1,000. Low, 2, equaling 500. Danger zone, 1, equaling 499 and under. Note, anything below a lot. score of zero required an immediate trip to the Osiris Clinic.

When we all started out, we were each given 1,000 points, which made everyone neutral, three. From there, it was up to us to either increase or decrease the average as the scores were rated against each other. This meant that the score to reach a certain bracket was constantly changing. As time went on, all of the scores. of the bracket minimums increased. On a regular day, my points will be distributed like this. Wake up on time, plus 20. Brush my teeth, plus 8.

Eat a healthy breakfast, plus 17. Check the Osiris social media network, plus 10. Not click like on most posts, minus 10. cycle to work plus 11 get to work on time plus 40 attempt to start a conversation with a co-worker at lunch plus 12 eat pizza for lunch

minus 17 cycling home after work plus 11 watching that geo after work plus 5 watching it for three straight hours minus 14 skipping dinner minus 20 brushing my teeth at night plus 12 checking osiris social media network before bed minus 5

liking participant 48's post plus 5 going to sleep not too late plus 10 day 44 total plus 95 as time As time went on, the surveillance, monitoring and rating increased as Osiris' algorithm became more advanced. By the second month inside the simulation, Osiris was rating the amount of brush strokes we made while brushing our teeth. It rated how long you studied a post on its social media network before liking it. It rated the quality of the people you associated with. one particular day, I was shocked when Osiris removed 15 points from me for disliking a participant's

outfit without me having said anything. I thought Oziris had become so advanced that it could now hear our thoughts. After consulting the central office about this disturbing and invasive occurrence, I was told that Osiris' latest algorithm knew how to decipher subtle facial movements. and interpret them as feelings. Thus being able to rate emotions. Some might say that emotions make us human. It seems almost impossible to separate yourself from your emotions.

And yet the simulation consistently encouraged us to be happy, positive, always looking at the bright side of things. If you weren't smiling, the system assumed you were not giving it your best effort to enjoy life. and to also make it pleasant for others. In fact, being depressed would cause your social credit score to drop so low that ejection from the simulation was almost guaranteed. Showing signs of anxiousness would do the same.

These emotions and feelings were not considered to be trustworthy or reliable under the Osiris simulation, which in turn meant that they were not considered helpful in any society. By the end of the second month, almost everyone inside the simulation walked around with a perpetual fake unnerving smile a smile void of humanity of course the ultimate proof of the flaws within a system like this was what happened on the day the man jumped from the window as we all stood in shock and horror looking at his lifeless body on the pavement some of us began to smile

It was a sinister sea. A man crushed against the pavement on the ground, surrounded by people who were smiling. People who didn't know anymore how to react, because all they sought after were higher social credit scores. I didn't know any more if this was a flaw of the simulation, or a seed of violence flourishing in a mutated form. I began my plan to investigate the note by placing a complaint at the clerk's office. My complaint was about disagreeing with the way Osiris rated real human emotions. I explained in writing that I didn't find it particularly helpful to a society as it felt like happiness should be genuine and not something forced onto us.

It seemed okay to portray happiness on social media, but to be actually forced to live in. bit without cause seemed cruel. The clerk took my complaint, read it over, and when she finished, she gave me the biggest smile I had ever seen. I wasn't sure if this was a sign that she agreed with it, or if she was just trying to gain more points on her score. She informed me they would get back to me soon with an answer.

That night, as I counted all my scores from the day, I got my answer. I had lost a whopping 500 points. I guess they didn't like my complaint. It was the most I'd ever lost, and it actually made me fall into a lower bracket. In this lower bracket, I could no longer be allowed to work at the Osiris Central Office.

I was furious. I let my rage flow uncontrollably. It was crazed. It was as if I'd forgotten how to be angry, and by doing so I no longer knew how to control my anger once it came out. I only remember a blur of punches to the walls in my room, and a river of emotions flowing out of me. Eventually, I must have fallen asleep from all of the energy spent. In the morning, I had a message on my Osiris social network inbox. I'd lost some more points, and the sister's.

had witnessed my loss of temper. So it had a new job set up for me where I could practice my compassion. I was assigned to work at the Osiris Clinic as an assistant to the nurse. She was participant 48. I wasn't really sure why working at the clinic as an assistant was in a lower bracket within the system. Well, until I worked my first shift there. I had to clean up vomit. I had to clean up blood. I had to listen to people excessively cry from pain. It seemed I wasn't the only one who had forgotten how to control any emotion

after spending weeks, smiling and being happy. I had to enter information meticulously into the computer so that Osiris could give the nurse the correct instructions for the patients. but the worst part of working at the clinic was taking care of patients who had clearly entered some form of psychosis. They spoke about the things they were seeing, things that couldn't have been real, horrifying things that just couldn't exist. They came in looking disheveled, paranoid and anxious. It made me think of the young man who gave me the note. I wanted to believe that this was an effect.

of the stress caused by being constantly watched and monitored, but something told me otherwise. Whenever these types of patients came in, Osiris prescribed a medication called Dumox. Once the patient took the pill, they mostly calmed down and returned to their regular life inside the simulation. Something I did notice was that all the patients suffering from these bizarre and disturbing visions were participants with extremely low scores. After getting accustomed to the flow of things at the clinic, I decided it was time to start back up my investigation

that I'd placed on the backbar. I was in charge of typing down all of the medical history of the patients into Osiris. As I asked the questions, I would add my own questions to the list. Do you ever have a hard time telling what time it is? How long do you believe you've been here for? Does it ever feel like you've been here for longer than you think? Each time I ask these questions, Osiris would deduct points from my social credit score. My SSC was becoming dangerously low, but I couldn't stop,

because many of the answers only fuelled my need to investigate more. I feel like it's been a long time. To be completely honest, I have no idea. idea how long I've been here for. Sometimes I can't even remember my life before this all began. As I spent my days investigating the concept of time within the simulation, other things were occurring that I had completely ignored. Seeds of the sinister kind were filtering it on a much larger scale. We began to receive more and more patients that came in with bruises and wounds. Most of the time the patients didn't want to speak about what had happened to them.

But finally, one day, a patient felt safe enough to confide in us. It was my co-workers. I'm a pretty lazy person when it comes to healthy eating and the sugary and fatty foods here. They're so good I haven't been able to help myself. My score has suffered. So, my co-workers have been shunning me for some time now, and the simulation has been increasing their score. each time they shun me.

Last week, my co-workers started to do weird things. He paused. His hands were shaking. They started to hide my food at lunch. The simulation gave them points for that because they were said to be helping me to lose weight and to be better. But I felt humiliated and horrible.

They did it again this week, so I went to confront one of them. As I told her that it wasn't right what they were doing. One of them punched me in the back. And then another one, and then one more. I could hear their wrist devices going off, earning more points with each punch or kick that they delivered. And they were all smiling.

The system thought they were defending her, so they all earned points. The patient burst into tears. I checked his score, and his score was active. going down as he recounted his horrible experience. Why don't you just leave the simulation? I asked. I've tried, but I don't know how.

This was news to me. I was under the impression that it was easy to leave. It worried me, but I tried not to read too much into it. We felt awful for him and began to treat him immediately. after attending to his wounds Osiris prescribed him Dumox By the time he left the clinic He had a small grin

forming on his face We never saw him again As time went on Participants were becoming more thirsty for points Provoking the system to evolve each time They were becoming violent An upper class of oppressors with large grins on their faces began to emerge.

The simulation was encouraging them and rewarding them with more points, making them more powerful within the system. It started to look like the real world, except it was worse on every level. Everyone was your competition. The day you are rewarded by a society for being cruel, for being an oppressor, for treating others like you own.

That is the day the society is doomed to fate. One day, the seed that always sprouts arrived at our door. Someone had received one thousand points for killing a woman who was planning to secretly leave the simulation. I had to clean her up. This was the second dead body I had come across while at the simulation. I had to smile while doing it. but as I wiped the blood from her nails, I couldn't take it anymore. I walked out of the clinic and ran to the central office.

After they denied me access to speak directly with Dr. Plaitis, I stood there screaming about all the horrible things happening inside the simulation. I could hear my points going down on my wrist device. And then, as my score barely lingered by a thread, I became paralyzed. They say the strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown. I didn't know what I was looking at. The things I saw were not natural.

I knew I had to take whatever was inside Dumox to make it all go away. It is present in the simplest single-celled organism. It is the root of all evolution. It is the reason for our top spot in the hierarchy of species on earth. Without it, humans would have become extinct long ago. It's there when you quickly search for the light switch in a dark room. It was there when you were young and you imagined a stranger's hand coming from under your bed at night. And it waits there, inside your mind, for the next time you need to escape from danger.

Fear. Fear is the true source of the human's drive to survive. Fear of starvation, fear of disease, fear of insanity, fear of death. Fear is the primal force behind our success on this planet. But sometimes fear becomes desensitized, and you no longer recognize the danger around you. Here you are. Feeling safe as you experience my story through the comfort of your electronic device. Everything you need is quite literally at the tip of your fingers.

But as you stare at your screen, know that it is staring back at you. Something inside it is monitoring the things you're looking at. You've made surveillance very easy for them. The next natural step is without a doubt evaluation of the data that is being monitored. And then, one day, full scope surveillance will have become a way of life. Rating humans will be ubiquitous, and you will have thought it was all to keep you in a safe society. You will believe them when they tell you it's for your own good. But hear me out.

Social credit systems will end the humanity that exists within us. Fear this. So that you may survive it. As much as any government of the world would love to have you believe a lot. otherwise. All social credit systems will work with fear because humans respond to it. It's embedded in our genes. In the simulation, we quickly learn to have many, many fears. Fear of not being considered trustworthy. Fear of not being viewed as a reliable person. Fear of associating with the wrong crowd. Fear of not being able to dine at the best restaurants.

and for those who fear of these things wasn't enough for those who fell below the acceptable social credit score blaze figures the embodiment of fear itself blaze figures fabricate a world of distress that is so unique that it's almost fascinating almost blaze figures are diabolical entities

that were created to force you into being better within the simulation These entities were shaped like men, but lacked all other features. Instead, their bodies burned with a constant fire, as if they were humanoid torches. The heat their bodies emitted was strong enough to saturate all the sensory receptors of your skin with painful burns, even from a distance. And if the burning pain wasn't enough, a black oval-shaped hole opened where their face should be, and from that hole came blood-curdling howls that echoed in the most unearthly panic-inducing tones. But the scariest part was their ability to enter your mind, your thoughts.

You start to wonder at one point if it's you thinking or if it's them thinking. Their visions dip you into a world of hysteria and psychosis. The afternoon I decided to confront. front the people at Asiris by going on a tirade in front of the central office was the beginning of the end for me. When I first saw the blaze figure, I wanted to run from it. But when I heard it speaking inside my mind, I knew there was no running away. I knew that I had to take the DUMOCs if I ever wanted to be myself again. I vaguely remember making my way back to the clinic in a panic, barely able to catch my breath, barely

holding on to my last bit of sanity that I had left. Upon taking the Dumox, all my thoughts came tumbling down into a mellow, relaxed state. This state lasted for a long while. I don't remember a lot from that period in my life. I became the soulless corpse, walking around, listening to and doing everything the simulation asked from me, including hurting others. But, Soon enough, it wore off, and I regained my consciousness. It was only then that I was able to remember taking the Dumox and realizing it tasted like a more intense flavor of the food that they fed us. But, at this point, I was too afraid to confront anyone to desire us about it. I decided I would slowly figure out how to leave the simulation entirely.

I'd lost my job at the clinic, and instead being given a job at the last. local ice cream parlor, which is where I met her. Participant 999. She'd come in for an ice cream coat. She was allowed to purchase anything she desired due to her very high social credit score. She was even allowed to have the ice cream Sunday that had the eatable gold dust. But that's not what I admired most about her. Every single time she came in, she had a doubt. She had a doubt. genuine smile on her face. Oh, I missed those so much. Her smile made me feel real again. One day, on a whim, I asked her if we could hang out, and to my surprise, she agreed, in spite of my low level two score. Look, I'm willing to talk about this place with you. I mean, you can lose

points here and there by discussing the defects of the simulation as long as you make up for it in big numbers. And there's a lot you can do to regain those big numbers. It's fairly easy, she explained on our first day hanging out together. So you hurt people, I asked, because that's the only thing I can see happening right now in this place. I mean, you're not really hurting them per se. Yeah, maybe you're emotionally or, in some cases, physically hurting them, but it's only to help them out. A little push, a little fear can help them become better members of society. And, well, it's all about survival, she explained. I must have looked at her with disgust, because she seemed shocked at my reaction.

What? She scuffed. Don't be naive. Outside of this. fucked up place exists another fucked up place. The world is exactly the same out there. The only difference is that here you get rewarded for making people listen to the government. What do you think bad credit is in the real world? Why do you think some people have access to better education than others? What do you think being a certain colour of skin is in the real world? What do you think prison is? In the real world, we're all constantly rating. did at work at school on the sidewalks.

Here, we're just putting a number to it and rewarding it. And soon, the same will happen out there in the real world. It's only natural. She explained with a fiery passion. So, what are you saying? I asked. Look, I'm not stupid. I've been investigating this place from the second I got here. I don't like people screwing me over.

So I had to be sure that I wasn't getting kidnapped by a messed up cult. She laughed. But no, this place is the real deal. Without going into too much detail because, well, I can't lose too many points, this system will be successful in the real world because it pushes society to be better through public shaming. And, more importantly, the system can easily be enforced because of a constantly evolving algorithm.

Isiris is in its early stages, but soon it'll do much more than just pick up on words and facial expressions. Soon? Well, I don't know if you've been paying any attention around here, but it's obvious that Osiris' algorithm is becoming more advanced. I'm assuming the purpose for it is to be able to decipher the meaning of every single human word, human expression, human action, human interaction, and to use all of that to form a nation of good, reliable, zombie-like humans, that will follow the government's every rule. And for those that don't, she sliced her throat with her finger. Oh, shit, I said.

What about time? Have you noticed that time is different here? Yes, I have. Have you ever tried counting time in this place? try for one day he'll be in for a surprise but I don't mind life is good to me

I'm assuming they're trying to stretch out time in order to fine tune Osiris anyway I think that's enough loss of points for me for one day I've got to go because I've got to bully people into being better she jokingly said

smiling with another one of her genuine smiles I spent a lot of time learning from participant 999. She was very knowledgeable about the system and very fun to be around. We would go to the park, to the movies, to restaurants. It was hard because she was level 5 and I was level 2, so we could only go to the low-level places that I was accepted to. But she didn't seem to mind. During our time together, we never cared about the points.

we were just ourselves and it was amazing. The simulation was starting to feel like not such a bad place after all. But like I've mentioned before, good seams seemed to never last very long. One day, as I was walking triple nine home, something happened. There was a man screaming at something invisible on the sidewalk, something we couldn't see. The hairs on my skin stood up As I realized that I knew what he was looking at It was them

The blaze figures We need to help him I said to Triple Nine But we can't I can't I don't mean to be rude but I've lost many points today for being with you She smiled

This time sporting a fake smile That showed sorrow Okay, go home. I'll do it. I replied quickly. No, if you help him, you will go below the danger zone in seconds, and a second time with the visions is deadly. How do you know? I just do, she answered, finally losing her smile. You deserve to get out of here. Anyway, I know how to get my points back if I help him.

Are you going to kill someone? I asked, worried. She shook her head and said, No, just trust me, leave this to me. I pretended to trust her. I pretended to walk away, but I hid in a tree and watched her from far away. She grabbed the tortured man and walked him to the clinic

as he howed in pain and in fear. She tried to smile, but could barely keep the mum. of her mouth from falling into a frown. I saw the lingering bit of humanity she still had inside her. I saw her walk into the clinic with him, holding his hand. After ten minutes, she came back out. She sighed, looking up at the sky.

And then, a large smile spread across her face, almost as if she'd purposefully rebooted her mind into getting ready for something else. I followed her home, as I wanted to stop her from doing something she would regret someday. But before I realized what her true plan had been, she stopped on the sidewalk and said out loud for everyone around her to hear. I am participant 999. I fully believe in the social credit system, and I have committed a crime by helping out a dissident of the system. Therefore, I need to learn to be better. This is for the system.

And with that, she pulled a scalpel out from her pocket that she must have taken from the clinic. She violently stabbed her arm one time, and then another time, and then stabbed her leg, and then sliced her hand. And she fell to the ground, blood pouring from all her self-inflicted wounds.

everyone around her smiled. Some even clapped for her dedication to the social credit system. I'm certain she believed she would survive her wounds. I'm certain she believed that stabbing her limbs, as opposed to stabbing her torso, was less dangerous. I'm certain she wasn't suicidal. But when you're exposed to large amounts of violence, you forget that violence is real,

and that it can kill. She couldn't have known that she tore through her brachial artery as she stabbed her arm over and over again. She couldn't have known any of this because she had been completely brainwashed. She had become a robot of the system. I immediately called the OSG for help through my wrist device and then ran to her.

I grabbed her in my arms as she said her last words. Be good, be kind, and all will be. The reason a social credit system is functional for a government is because it creates an organic surveillance by brainwashing its citizens to act as the system. And the thing is, all social credit systems are sadistic. They enjoy rating and punishing humans. And if humans become employees of the system,

they become the same, sadistic, and in some cases, masochistic slaves of a government who rates its citizens. They say fear is what helped us evolve into the superior species we are today. They say fear is essential for survival. I understand all of this. But you must also know that fear can play tricks with your mind. It can distort your memory. it can alter your perception of reality. It can physically damage your brain,

thereby causing you to do horrible, terrible, terrible, unforgivable things. And governments, they know this. They know that they can use the power of fear in such a subtle way that you'll believe that everything you do is your choice. And then, one day, you'll be standing over a dead body

and believe that you chose to kill and that you chose to lose your humanity. But hear me well. Humanity is a danger to governments and they know it and we must save it at all costs. A company called SenseTime has recently raised $600 million in fundraising. The reason being that this company fabricates

a very particular tool that is increasingly becoming important in our societies. Facial recognition software. This company already has ties to larger corporations, where this software can be easily used to monitor customers. More importantly, if you've been to China in recent times, and you've been photographed using a phone, you're most likely already embedded into SenseTime's library of faces.

Of course, the biggest fuel to an AI of this, magnitude is what is to come next. A social credit system. Privacy is a thing of the past. Surveillance is now the present. Despotism is the future. Welcome back to Osiris. The day after she killed herself,

I decided it was time for me to finally eject myself from the simulation. Woke up late, minus ten. Visibly angry or upset. Minus seven. A cake for breakfast. Minus 17. Eight four more cupcakes. Minus 68.

Skip my shower, minus 13. Skipped work. Minus 100. Let the rage flow out from me. Screaming at the top of my lungs, minus 250. Calm down. Sat down. and wrote out a letter on my laptop which I posted on the Osiris social media network

detailing all of the terrifying things that I'd witnessed inside the simulation. Minus 10,000. Within less than a minute, there was a knock at my door. I didn't get up to open it, so they burst through instead. What took you, fuckers, so long? I don't know if you've been keeping up with the news recently. I normally tried to stay away, but I saw it in a lifestyle magazine at my local coffee shop some weeks ago. The terror got to me.

I stood up trembling, spilling my coffee all over the table, barely able to control my own bowel movements. The title of the article was, China has started ranking citizens with a very creepy social credit system. Here's what you can do wrong. and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you. I know all about the punishments. I know about the shunning and shaming of citizens. I know about all of this, but most importantly,

I know that during my time inside the simulation of the social credit system, there were eight countries sponsoring the experiment. I can confirm to you that China was one of them, and I know that there are seven others. Participant 777 Four of the OSG members stood in formation in my living room Participant 777 you are being charged with dissidents Which is part 10.8 in the legal contract you signed

This results in complete ejection without pay You need to come with us I smiled It took me to a laboratory There they sat me down and showed me a strange, futuristic-looking outfit. The outfit had all sorts of wires on it, and they were supposed to attach to my skin. You ever read Harry Potter? One of the employees in a white coat asked me.

No? So, I guess you've never heard of the invisibility cloak. No. Well, think of it this way. since you refuse to actively and positively participate in the simulation and since you seem to absolutely love to spread negativity you are being ejected instead you can now spread your negativity in another way he smiled how i asked trembling under my clothes well listen i detect some worry in your facial experience but don't don't Don't worry. Now that you've been ejected, you can talk about anything you want. You can scream all you want about the system. You can chase people around telling them how horrible the system is. All you have to do is wear this outfit here. He smiled, pointing at the strange suit.

Most of them won't be able to see you, but some of them will. You'll know immediately if they can see you. and the best part. Not only can you spread all the negativity you want, but you will inadvertently help to bring them back to a higher score and to be a better member of society. It's truly a win-win situation we've concocted here. I don't understand, I mumbled. Well, let's see here.

He looked through his notes. It says here that you've seen them before. Or? Seen who? The blaze figures, he grinned. You are now part of the system. It ended. It all ended, and I still don't know how.

I only remember slowly and reluctantly getting into the suit with all the wires, and then everything went dark. Even today, I still don't know if I did participate as a blaze figure inside the simulation or not. I have no recollection of it, but perhaps that was the point. When I woke up again, I'd been handcuffed to the arm of a seat. Looking around me, I came to realize I was on an airplane in the air. There was no one around me. I was alone.

Hello? I asked out loud to see if anyone would come out from somewhere. But no, I was completely alone. I panicked the whole time we were flying, as I had no idea where the plane was headed, nor who was flying it. When the plane finally landed, only one pilot came out. From everyone at the Desiris, I thank you for your service. May you have an eventful life. Be good, be kind, and all will be aligned.

She said, as she motioned for me to exit through the door, As I walked into the airport, dazed and confused. I learned that I was at LAX. I felt something in my pocket and reached down to see what was tucked inside of it. Inside I found a brand new wallet with some cash, my ID, a bank card and an envelope with participant 777 type of it. I immediately opened the envelope and found a typewritten letter with an Aziris logo at the top. It read as follows. Dear Porter, we would like to take the time to thank you for your time within the Osiris

simulation. We understand that your stay with us was not the easiest. However, you must rest assured that your participation helped out the simulation in a grandiose way. Understandably, you must be quite confused about certain things that transpired during your stay on the island. We would like to take the time to shed some light on those events for you now. It has always been our ultimate goal to have 100% participation from everyone inside the simulation. However, we knew going in that this would never happen due to natural human behavior. We figured that in the real world, the same would be true, and thus we decided to introduce chaos into the social credit system,

to simulate dissidents so that we could better understand how to tackle it once it presents itself in the real world version. It was of the utmost importance for us to test out all the possible outcomes from our social credit system algorithm. With all this being said, we would like you to know that you were chosen to participate inside the simulation as a point of chaos. We wanted to know how a person with success inside a social credit system would react when the success began to break apart. The success was broken apart by introducing a major life event, followed by a mental person. perturbation, which could lead to a mental illness. In your case, the note you received from participant 562 at the beginning of the simulation

was planted by us. In fact, many of the things you lived were meant to be there, to test the algorithm and to test human response to it. Perhaps it will help in knowing that you were not the only point of chaos. There were others as well. Overall, we learn more from our chaos participants, as we like to call them, than from the regular participants. Perfect things just stay perfect and never seem to change, and those are not helpful in growth and understanding. We needed to know real-life reactions to our social credit system algorithm, so by contrast you were a very constructive piece of the puzzle.

Another point we would like to clarify is the concept of time. Time within the simulation was always the same. However, for you, it might have seemed slightly different. But this was all an illusion, a successful one. This is because we kept you safely medicated using a drug that changed your biological clock, among other things. Rest assured that this medication is 100% safe, and it has no side of after you discontinue its use. And most importantly, please, rest assured that the duration of your stay never exceeded the 12 months you had initially agreed to. At this point, you might

be confused. You might be wondering why all of this has happened to you. However, it is my job to remind you that you did sign a contract with us, where we explain all the possibilities of what the simulation could result in. Please understand that we stand. We stand. by our contract and that if you read it over carefully you will agree that no rules were ever broken with all of this said and explained we would like to congratulate you on reaching the finish line you've done a fantastic job in helping out our experiment as well as the future societies where the real world social credit systems will provide a utopia like you've never seen before inside your wallet you will find a bank debit card with a promised 250 000

plus $1,000 in cash. The pin code for the debit card is your participant number. We wish you the absolute best in the years that remain to be lived by you. We hope that, in spite of your hurdles, you were able to enjoy your stay in our tropical island and in our simulation. But, most importantly, we hope to see you soon in one of our future, state-of-the-art, real-world social credit rating systems.

Until then, be good, be kind, and all will be aligned. Regards the Osiris team. I walked out of the airport and never looked back. It's now been nearly four years since I exited LAX. In the years since all of this occurred, I've used the money to leave the United States and begin a new life in a small town, in the land down under. and while I would prefer to keep my location private,

I do want to share a detail about my choice of town. While inside the simulation, I had many different accents and never made any connections, but since leaving, it's occurred to me that they were always the same eight accents. This number coincides with the number that we were given as the amount of countries sponsoring the social credit system simulation. One of the accents was Asian.

I know now that it must have been a Mandarin accent or perhaps Cantonese. Among all the accents I heard, I never heard an Australian accent, which is why I chose to move down here, to stay safely away from any nation that might be thinking of introducing a similar system in the imminent future. The other accents that I believe I heard are the following. A British accent, a South African accent, French accent, a Latin American accent. I'm sorry that I can't be more certain of which Latin American country that it might have come from. A Russian accent, although there is a slight chance it might be from one of the neighbouring countries as well.

An Arabic accent, once again, I'm sorry for my uncertainty of the country of origin, and an American accent. That's all the information I currently have. I've tried to find out more about Osiris, but nothing seems to ever come up anywhere. I even hired a private investigator at one point. I tried to find the source of the money in my bank account. I tried to find the location of the tropical island. I tried to find anyone who might have participated without drawing too much attention to myself, but everything I tried was met with fail.

I even searched for my friend, participant 999. My only hope is that she was also part of the planted chaos, and that she is alive and well somewhere. I hate to think anything otherwise. There was no proof that any of this happened to me. It really got to me that as much as I searched I couldn't find anything on it. I was even starting to believe at one point that maybe this was still all part of the simulation, that I was still there, this was all an illusion of some sorts. It wasn't until I saw that article in the magazine that I snapped back to reality.

I know that the simulation was real. I can still feel the warmth of the island on my skin. I can see the faint wrinkles of my laugh line from all the sun. smiling and I still have some of the money left over in a savings account but my biggest proof China you know how people always ask where do you see yourself in 10 years how about in 20 how about when you're old sitting in a rocking chair reminiscing about the good old days well i have all the answers for you life will not be good.

Now, as you finish my tale of horror, and place your electronic device down, I suggest that you take some time to ponder and meditate about your life and the things that you cherish the most in it. Perhaps it's your family. Perhaps it's love. Perhaps it's your health. But also think about the things you take for granted. Your level of freedom. Your ability to think without being read by any one.

the fact that your thoughts are obscured and not judged the power of feeling and emotion and expressing it the fact that whatever privacy you have left it is still yours to own think about those truths think about how much we take them for granted even if they are limited for some of us and now once again as you put your device down imagine a world where you are older a world that has changed in this world everything you do and everything you say and everything you think is monitored and eventually rated you will become a number

will you feel safe loving the things that you love today will you feel like yourself if your taste must change to meet the expectations of a point system will you feel real? Will you even be real? And now the question begs. Why are there no riots?

Why are there no protests? Are we really not seeing the height of the precipice from which humanity is about to take a leap from? In the face of evil, in the face of an authoritarian evil, there is no individuality. there are no good guys I implore you

to find an escape to save humanity but also to save yourself from becoming something that you can never take back and so once again we reach the end of tonight's podcast my thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories

and to you for taking the time to listen now I'd ask one small favour of you wherever you get podcast from please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast That's it for this week, but I'll be back again same time same place and I do so hope you'll join me once more Until next time sweet dreams and bye bye