Qualityland

HOW TO UNDO THE PAST

Night has fallen. John and Aisha are the only ones still slogging away at the election headquarters. During earlier campaigns, it was always important to Aisha to be the first at work in the mornings and the last to leave at night. But even with the best will in the world, there’s no way she can keep up with John. He works around the clock. Aisha’s head slips from her hand and slumps downward.

“Here,” says John, handing her a cup of coffee. A full cup of coffee.

Aisha looks up in exhaustion. It takes her a full five seconds to realize what’s just happened. Then she cries out in amazement: “Good God, you did it! You didn’t spill anything! Have you been training at night?”

“The training was futile,” says John. “It was just a mental block I needed to free myself from.”

“And how did you get rid of it?”

“I located it and deleted it.”

Aisha takes a sip of coffee. “Have you noticed Tony’s absence?” she asks.

“Of course.”

“Your vice has been absent a lot recently.”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Lack of confidence.”

“The rats are fleeing the sinking ship, John. The party is starting to leave us in the lurch. And I have to say, I don’t blame the bastards. The leaked recordings may have given us a small increase in popularity, but that won’t be enough. We should have approached this election campaign from a completely different angle. You know, I’ve never worked for a candidate who says such smart things as you do. And I’ve also never worked for one who has such catastrophic popularity ratings.”

“Perhaps the two are causatively linked,” says John with a smile.

“I’m afraid that might be the case.”

“We still have a chance.”

“In order to have a chance, we would have to undo the past.”

“In a certain sense, I could do that.”

“It’s too late, John. Too late,” says Aisha. “The comments are written, the videos are online. If people want to find out about you on What I Need, most of them will find that the first three to five search results are negative. That’s a catastrophe!”

Her voice starts to tremble.

“Aisha…” says John.

“Behind those there are some positive reports,” says Aisha, “but most idiots only look at the first result. Only 6.4 percent of all voters have ever looked at an entry or read an article that wasn’t shown in the top five results.”

“Aisha…” says John, trying once more to interject.

“Most people don’t read a single article! They simply ask their digital assistant who they should vote for.”

Her eyes moisten.

“Aisha…”

“God, I’m on the brink of tears. Can you believe that? And I haven’t cried since the first time I saw Bambi’s mother get shot. I’m sorry, John. It’s all my fault. Yours too, of course. But mainly mine. Cook, that right-wing arsehole, is going to win the election. And I don’t have any energy left, John. It’s best you find yourself another election campaign manager, and I’ll crawl off into some hole. I…”

Suddenly, she hears music coming from somewhere. Aisha stops talking. John has stood up and is beginning to dance. He sings, “Aïcha, Aïcha, écoute-moi! Aïcha, Aïcha, t’en va pas!”

Aisha laughs and sobs simultaneously. She wipes her eyes dry with her sleeve.

“Aïcha, Aïcha, regarde-moi!” sings John. “Aïcha, Aïcha, réponds-moi!”

He proffers his hand.

“Unfortunately I can’t dance to save my life,” she says.

“That doesn’t matter. Just make up a dance. You lead, I’ll follow.”

Aisha stands up and begins to move to the music. John registers each of her movements and makes complementary steps. The song has reached the second verse.

“What’s he singing, by the way?” asks Aisha.

“Aïcha, Aïcha, listen to me!” sings John. “Aïcha, Aïcha, don’t leave!”

Aisha smiles. She lets go of John and spins around. John spins too, with such precision that they come to face one another again simultaneously.

“So then what should we do?” asks Aisha.

“I could talk to the algorithms.”

Aisha laughs bitterly.

“Yes, exactly. That’ll do it. It’s good that you can still joke. My sense of humor has abandoned me.”

“It wasn’t a joke,” says John. “I could talk to the algorithms.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I understand them, and they understand me.”

Aisha kicks her left leg into the air, John simultaneously his right.

“And what do you plan to talk to them about?”

“I could perhaps convince them that the first five search results about me should always be positive.”

“Do you know what you’ve just suggested?”

“Nothing illegal,” says John. “What I Need is a private business and not bound to objectivity. One could even go further and claim that it’s naïve to believe the results could be in any way objective. They certainly aren’t now.”

“But it doesn’t fucking matter,” says Aisha. “That’s not the point!” She flings her arms in the air, and John imitates her.

“I understand what you’re getting at,” he says. “But given that everyone gets different results anyway because of the search personalization, it’s practically impossible that the manipulation will be found out. Especially as no one besides me really understands how the algorithms work.”

Aisha opens her mouth to say something, but John gets there first.

“I could also ask the algorithms to always list a more negative report about me in the fourth or fifth position. There’s this study by Swedish academics showing that a single diverging result is enough to ensure people don’t doubt their integrity, even with those who are aware of the possibility of the rankings having been manipulated.”

“John…”

“I could even convince the algorithms to omit the manipulation with known Cook supporters who would be impossible to turn.”

“John, nothing of what you’ve just said answers the question that really interests me.”

She lets her upper body fall backward; John catches her skillfully.

“And what question is that?”

“Why in God’s name are you only telling me this now?” cries Aisha. “We could have saved ourselves the whole election campaign!”

“Well, it might not be illegal, but it’s not exactly fair.”

“Fair?” cries Aisha, and stops dancing. “Fair? Cook’s team doesn’t play fair either! They promise one thing to this voter and another thing to the other in their personalized adverts, not giving a crap that the promises contradict one another! But it’s a really laborious task to prove that, because each person only sees their own personalized results. Fair!” Aisha is completely worked up now. “This isn’t a ping-pong game with your friends, John! This is a goddamn election campaign for the presidency of fucking QualityLand! Fair isn’t even a relevant category here!”

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ve got another suggestion.”

“I’m all ears.”

“In the past, experiments were often made on Everybody to send ‘Go Vote!’ messages to specified users on election day. Out of those who received this message, a significantly higher number went to vote than from the control group who didn’t receive the message. I could ask the algorithms to only send the prompt to people who are more likely to vote for me.”

“The timing is perfect, John! Everyone will put the opinion shift—”

“—down to the leak from the fundraising dinner,” completes John.

Aisha smiles. “The damn rats will wish they’d stayed on board.”

“But,” says John, “it won’t do the ship any harm to get shot of the damn rats.”