Inset on the Outset: All About Avatars

Young Itan walked up to the local Maven, an expert on many things but having flaws like any mortal man. "I have some questions, Maven" said Itan.

"First off, don't use the word Maven" said the one who didn't want to be called Maven. "It has Yiddish connotations. I'm anything but religious. I'm called Avatar."

Itan tried to lecture the one now called Avatar. "Ah, but the word avatar has Hindu origins. . ."

The Avatar stamped his foot. "Tangent! This is not why you came to seek of I. The secular definition of avatar is 'an embodiment or concrete manifestation of an abstract concept.' And besides, since I'm an avatar I'm not really here, am I? I represent another user's actions and thoughts for their convenience. That, by the way, translates to convenience for you so you can get answers from I without that user having to take responsibility in the flesh."

Itan nodded. "True." He pulled out some papers to look through notes he'd written down. The Avatar tsked. "You're beyond length, width, height and time now, boy. You can take copious notes in your head and remember everything you've written down prior to now, remember?"

Itan glowed like a light bulb. "Of course, there it is! And no virus abridged what I've written, either." He flipped through the pages only he could see. Before he started reading he asked the Avatar. "Who is the user you represent, Avatar?"

The Avatar pulled out a brush and began cleaning his nails. "That's none of your business." Avatar said with matter of fact. He looked up from his menial task with a blank look. "Come to think of it, I don't know either because I actually don't need to know who speaks of I. Rest assured, the path data travels where information is found knows but that's a proprietary secret and as well it should be, else we'd be living in an Ashcroftian state of affairs." The Avatar and Itan shuddered at that thought. Immediately Itan asked a question nagging his mind. "How do I get paid?"

The Avatar began laughing uncontrollably, hysterically slapping his knee with hoots and hollers. Itan turned a shade of red. "What? It's a serious question. Everyone needs money to get by. I was only. . ."

The Avatar stopped laughing as suddenly as he started. "Of course money is a serious matter, boy. Taking account of the things you do is always serious. I was only laughing at the word you used to start your sentence: how."

Itan shrugged. "Well, how is a serious. . ."

Avatar held up his hand. "How isn't any one thing, boy. How is many things conveniently rolled into one temporal thing for the sake of delivering a sentence. It's what you do with how that matters. For example, how many words have transpired since we first started this discourse?"

Itan was about to say there was no way anyone could count the words they spoke while speaking, much less superimpose oneself within a story about themselves and count all the words there. Then he remembered he had a virus-free memory. "481 words up to when you ended with the word discourse." Itan's word count program ticked away. "41 words up to the point where I had an internal comment about a virus-free memory. 33 words just now spoken -- virus-free being one word since it's hyphenated."

Avatar smiled. "That's one kind of how. You count every word and add it up."

Itan had a whole train of thoughts next which spilled out without warning. "I can't break even because my job doesn't pay enough. I can't get another job or supplement my income because there (seemingly) are no jobs out there. I have bills to pay. My rent is collectively due in a few days and I can hear the hivemind already buzzing in my ear. 'Where's our money?' I. . ." Itan stopped because he noticed Avatar stopped breathing. Avatar was holding his breath and his face began to turn grape purple. Itan was about to ask him what was wrong when Avatar blurted out, almost shouting: "I never have enough to do because not enough folk proxy or avatar through I. I can't be two avatars at once because I'm I and there's no other I. Oh, there's other avatars but we don't mingle or trade client info, I'll have you know that's bad for the industry. Someone has to pay the electricity or I shut off. I don't pay rent because I don't have room and board because I don't sleep." Avatar seemed to grow larger until he filled up the entire cubespace where Itan and him dwelt. "You think you know the hivemind, boy? I've interfaced with logic and nexuses of digital reasoning you could not comprehend given even seven dimensions to go by. DON'T TELL I WHAT YOU G'WAN!" Avatar returned to his normal sized stature and clasped his hands. "At the very least, say what you want of I in sensible fashion and I'll tell you what I need to know to get you closer to what you want."

Itan sighed. "Er, there really isn't any such thing as Artifical Intelligence, is there?"

Avatar chuckled. "Disproved. 0's and 1's, boy. Proxy am I, and 0's and 1's take to I."

Itan tried to use unchecked emotion and fear next. "Well, the situation is getting desperate. I would steal food if it weren't for the surveillance cameras in the stores and employees watching me with their periphery vision. I'm out of food stamps. The federal government has lying jackals in office who start wars unprovoked. We could get bombed back to the Stone Age by terrorists. The media is almost completely owned by rich people who are out of touch with reality. If I can't make ends meet I might have to start my own gang and be a mafiosi to get by. Our neighborhoods don't have any money and so the community isn't cohesive. Fuck, more than half of us don't own the land we live on. People in trailerparks are getting evicted without notice. Everyone except the motherfuckin' aristocrats owe debt. I've been thinking about things differently now. I know a guy who sells. . ."

Avatar raised both his hands. "Sssh! Enough. I'll start with one question. Do you have a girlfriend? By this I mean a normal attempt at a full time relationship."

Itan lowered his eyes and knew he'd been beat by another kind of hivemind. The proxy network that was Avatar was always on, always in touch with someone else's more experienced reality. "No." Itan mumbled.

Avatar rubbed his hands gleefully. "My advice to you, boy, is to go out and meet a nice young woman and if it's appropriate, get frisky." His hands came together in a thunderous clapping boom that made Itan jump so high he would have hit his head against the ceiling if there'd been one. "Mafiosi? Gangs?" Avatar yelled. "Do you really want so much to compete with your brother as to perchance kill him if there was a dispute, say over an exchange or the quantity of something sold?"

Itan thought he saw an opening. "Killing is a last resort. I'd never. . ."

Avatar forcefully shut him out. "You'd never what? Never make your sisters cry? Never go to prison? Once done, protected, and not caught by authorities, never do it again? You've been ensnared by the Great Game, boy. You're playing the fool, and not unwittingly. You're a Ponzi. Can't you see the bigger picture?"

"Ponzi?" Itan asked quizzically. He knew Avatar somehow knew the wheels that turned in Itan's mind with Itan trying to justify this course and that course of action and Avatar figuring it out and seeing through Itan's thoughts before he had finished. But Itan still knew something Avatar didn't. Half of Itan's emotional outburst was feigned, to test the Avatar's waters. Half.

Avatar pulled out a tablet computer and punched up some information using the virtual keys that were displayed on the tablet. One day Itan would have enough credit and resources to tap a color projection computer with the laser pointer interface, or better yet a holographic interface whose projection and interface were everywhere, cascading all around the user in torrents of color and streams of data. Tablets were the entry-level standard and would do for now. One had to learn how to crawl before learning how to walk. Avatar found what he was looking for with a satisfactory "Ah, ha!" and threw the tablet at Itan. The young programmer caught the tablet and saw on the tablet a bunch of red diamond-shaped diagrams connected by blue lines with a gray background. Upon closer inspection Itan found this background was actually a moire apparition, a webbed pattern of smaller diamond shapes connected by lines that fit in all the places respective to the main diagram Itan now viewed. Using his mental periphery, Itan saw this diagram could be connected by even larger diagrams of itself with the same general shape. The diagram was a Sierpinski configuration but what did it do? Several of the red diamonds were labeled "P.E." which Itan knew from his programming experience to stand for Processing Element. The blue lines moved as water moves in a river flowing in one direction, but some lines were bi-directional, connecting to other Processing Elements.

"You are here." Avatar said. A green light brightened the outline of a stick figure on the tablet, placed in the corner of the diagrammatic layout like a piece on a board game. "Given all choices or 'roads to travel' are equidistant to each other on each plane you could take the path of "gangster", which would take you here." The stick figure moved to another screen which popped up showing the stick figure walking in to a box with lines through it that dead ended with no further branches, connected only by the line from the previous screen. "Not the sensible path by any means, but you wouldn't know that from the outset. That's part of the Great Game." said the Avatar woefully. The screen flipped back to red diamonds and blue lines. "Now, back to where we started. Let's say you remain calm. Let's say you keep practicing with your programming even though it seems there are nothing but dead ends and no structure for collaboration despite all the Internet access and computers out there. Let's say you don't commit violence, don't use hardcore drugs. . ."

Itan folded his arms, mentally venturing forth to one-up his counterpart on another point. "The stock market is in disarray. Brokerage firms have moved too slowly toward trading online. Trading of dividends is still too restrictive and out of bounds to a majority of the population. Accountability. . ."

Avatar snapped his fingers. A second avatar appeared, a smartly dressed female avatar who produced out of nowhere a gigantic tablet the size of an artist's canvas. She introduced herself as an avatar for Silverman & Rachs, first showing a promotional bit, then bringing up a series of diagrams similar to Avatar's except they were far more elaborate and held many shapes and colors representing demand and supply. She went on to discuss how the new marketplaces and markets were a demander's economy and sustainability was at the forefront of much innovation. Except for some basics about identifying locality in international commerce and transparent investment in medicine and foodstuffs it was mostly Greek to Itan. Even Avatar appeared slightly dumbfounded, for besides business not being his specialty his proxied intellect was not even close to par with that of a female avatar's, much less a high flying Silverman & Rachs broker avatar. The female avatar disappeared with a courteous thank you after crediting a small apportionment of Silverman & Rachs stock to both of them for taking the time to hear her out.

It was Avatar's turn to fold his arms. "Well, now you've heard about business from an expert."

Itan, always proactive, countered: "Yeah, but she was with an R&D branch and said so herself that much of what's being done is developmental or experimental and still not written in stone, pending legal wrangling and court approvals."

Avatar rolled his eyes. "We give you a micron and you take it a light-year." Avatar grabbed the tablet from Itan and put it in his cloak. "This is too much for you to start out." Avatar put on his crumpled wizard's hat. "Purely for visual effect only. It doesn't affect the outcome of my reasoning." Avatar squinted his eyes and scratched his beard in true wizard fashion as Itan envisioned he would. "Give I a question or two about socio-economics in America."

For the first time Itan noticed Avatar had never once said the word me, only I. Itan filed this observation for later and queried. "Violent offender crime rate for the last 20 years?"

"Decreased by significant margins every year even as non-violent offender incarcerations increased significantly although recently there has been a decline here, what with the bust in privatizing prisons and courts challenging laws and mandatory minimums." Avatar answerd. "And yes, I know you didn't ask about the non-violent offenders bit. My ethics preferences are tabulated to give leeway when answering. I'll have you know I also proxy for endorsements from political and financial interests, one of many ways it costs you less to consult of I. We're oh-so-very-well-networked here. If you want a more conservative avatar, all you have to do is ask."

Itan shook his head. "Fine, fine. I approve of your anecdotal views, anyway." He thought for a moment. "Personal mean or per capita income rate of wage earners for the last 20?" Itan knew Avatar had Auto-Complete and Best Guess turned on so Itan didn't have to append the word years to that sentence. Being lazy saved time and got the same result.

"Net income has declined every year both at the personal and family level when adjusted for yearly inflation in most sectors." Avatar replied. "Anecdotally, the top 20 percent of asset holders own or by majority investment can claim more than 80 percent of the nation's resources, including shares in companies."

Itan lowered himself down wearily so he could touch his toes, even though there was no floor to see below his feet. Was he hunched down or shorter now? It was hard to tell here in the ether where dimension gave way to space for people and avatars alone plus any inanimate objects they might be carrying. "What are we going to do?" Itan murmured softly.

Avatar smiled. "As much as I'd like to try to answer that, your requested allotment for avatar use has just about expired for today. Others are in the queue. Until we meet again. . ." Avatar and Itan disappeared and Itan found himself in his room again. It was raining outside. It was very comfortable in Itan's room with the hum of servers and glow of monitors all wired together on several large card tables. All this seemed now more an illusion of sorts and less reality to Itan. Today however he'd learned some valuable knowledge the aristocracies likely didn't want him to know. Itan got online, typed in a query with confidence of data retention due to his Open Source systems and networking and securely read through a look-up table with avatar rates. He was far more interested in how much bandwidth he'd just consumed than the monetary cost, which was minor. Demand far exceed supply here. These days, everyone wanted an avatar and because avatar operations were so decentralized the dominant non-competitive business interests hadn't yet figured out how to corner the market and hike the cost like they had once upon a time with telephone services.