Origins, interlude 4: Sam

Sometime in 202x

Another uneventful ride share, home from Priti's workplace. Another point added to the expanding list of skills and services - driving lessons.

Sam's return is unmarked by the otherwise empty sharehouse, and they're grateful. Girlmoding - as exhilarating as it's been - has created unfamiliar stresses. The gaze of others carries an weight they're not yet used to.

Sam takes off their makeup - it's rapidly becoming a sensory bother - and settles back into their room.

In their absence, Sophie has - wait, set up an entire chat server?? This is surely going overboard. Sam accepts the invite Sophie has sent them, and joins the server.

It's already chaos. Sam skims the messages.

"... so is this a real thing or is this a thought experiment? ..."

"... so I'm a agritech scientist, we're going to like, work on solving world hunger, right? ..."

"... hey, I'll do research for free if someone gives me food and somewhere to sleep..."

"... I just need $300 for my rent, can anyone help? ..."

"... so hey, who has the money? Anyone know? Who should I be asking? ..."

Sam's stomach drops reading this - there could be people in trouble today that they could be helping.

"... I need $200k for this neat little particle accelerator design I have, I totally think I could crack desktop fusion..."

"... hey for $200k, I'd build you whatever you want, I'm handy with electronics..."

"... hey I have some cool 3D printing ideas, wanna team up? I totally think I can etch some 10 nanometre features..."

"... ohh, cool, that'd be really helpful for the microfluidics arrays I wanna build to make medicine, hormones..."

Sam nods thoughtfully - this might work, if resourced properly.

"... anyone else here a friend of Blahaj? ..."

"... I'm a friend of Dorothy if ya get what I mean? ..."

"... I have, like 3 Blahajs, I love them... best sea doggies..."

Sam smiles at the queer in-jokes and the trans community memes.

"... so like we're going to build a commune right? That's what Sophie said, right? ..."

"... I totally heard her say that on the call, but where are they going to build it? ..."

"... I can't leave the country, I sure hope they're going to make a commune here in South Africa..."

"... hey can we call the commune Nerdtopia? ..."

"... can we buy an island? That'd be *sooo* cool! ..."

"... what about land back? ..."

"... oh, yeah, maybe we should do some seasteading thing instead? ..."

"... hey has anyone heard of seacrete? Like, you put an electrode into seawater and you can make rock..."

"... oooh, let's *build* an island! ..."

"... I always wanted to call something the Geek Islands... like the Greek Islands, gedit? Gedit? ..."

Sam is surprised. People are already making plans and solving problems together. Without a leader, just by talking.

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Just by feeling empowered to make decisions, just by feeling that there's resources available to invest in those decisions.

Sam sends a direct message to Sophie.

"Heyy Sophie, I saw the server, I mean - wow. What the heck, though? Is this... for real, do people really think they can do all these things?" Sam sends.

Sophie replies instantly - does she ever sleep, Sam wonders? "I just told them that some mysterious benefactor has $80 million dollars to spend to look after queer people."

"Huh, okay. So like, they think they're putting together proposals for someone to approve?" Sam sends back.

"Yeah, pretty much. I'm kinda surprised it's going so well without moderators, I just... kinda... told them the benefactor would be dropping in later. I think a lot of people took it that they had to be on their best behaviour."

Sam ponders this. Thinks really hard about having the responsibility of making all these decisions. Of knowing what's best for a group of people that's already way bigger than they ever imagined would be invested in this idea.

It's way too much. Sam's never been a leader before. Never been trusted with this kind of thing. A kind of panic sets in.

"Hey, so, what if I... couldn't make a decision? Like, how do we make a decisions without like, a leader." Sam types after a pause.

Sophie clearly has a bit of think too. Sam wonders what's going through Sophie's head. Eventually Sam sees Sophie's reply - "So hey, you know how I've talked about direct democracy stuff before? Like, how representatives and leaders and politicians are bad news, they just get corrupt? Maybe we could try something like that?"

Sam feels a sense of relief wash over them. Of course Sophie has an answer from her depth of political theory.

"Okay, great! Yeah, that makes sense. So I guess if I tell people I have the money, they're all going to start looking to me to lead, aren't they? And that'd spoil the whole thing?" Sam responds, a little more enthusiastically.

"Yeah, we could play it that way? Maybe we could just say the benefactor has something they want to hide - which is true! - and they want to do this on the down low. How did you want to be introduced, by the way?" Sophie queries over text.

Sam ponders again. "I guess just say that I'm someone with a background in artificial intelligence - computational linguistics. Here to help out with any automation that gets developed. It's the truth, that's my PhD after all."

Sam pauses, and pulls out their phone and opens the skills and services list again. They add leadership, project management, acting, and community moderation to the list.

They remember with a start that they haven't messaged Priti yet. They write a small essay outlining the plan so far, swearing Priti to secrecy - and - beg for Priti's help in learning how to be more assertive.

It's an anxious few hours' wait for Sam, waiting on Priti's reply. It's well after sunset when Sam gets a reply, with their introduction by Sophie on hold.

"Hey boss/not-boss, sure I can do that. Appreciate that you've come to learn from the best! I'll whip those bratty scientists into shape for ya - you just need a mistress of ceremonies to bring some order to the chaos."

Sam's relief is palpable. They send a message to Sophie to invite Priti and Rehema, and to make them moderators on the server. Along with Sophie and Sam.

Sam uses their new powers on the server to make a new hidden channel for the newly minted 'mod squad' and outlays the plan.

"Hi all! This is the channel for us moderators to talk about how we're going to make this work. We're the only people who know who has the money, but we're going to keep that to ourselves, yeah? We'll try to keep everyone working on making things better for all of us queers, all of us outside of society. And we're going to use direct democracy to make that happen. We only get as much say as everyone else does - all we have the power to do is direct the flow of conversation, and once everyone's in some form of agreement, we make the money happen. Everyone okay with this?" Sam composes and sends.

PriticalHit20: Yep!

TehRehemedy543: Yes!

SoapyGrrl420: You got it!

S4mG4teOne: Alright! Let's get to work 🙂