When Silicon Thinks Faster Than Flesh
They say the chips think faster now, a trillion choices in a breath, broadband wide as highways, while hands that built the world sit idle in the waiting room of obsolescence.
Who works when work is just a memory uploaded to machines that never sleep, never ask for raises, never dream?
They’ll give us income, universal, a basic promise, monthly bread, but whose hand controls the faucet? Whose finger on the valve decides if we eat or beg?
The government, they say, will tax the titans, route the river from their vaults into our cups. Trust us, they say. We’ll be fair, they say.
But I’ve seen power and power doesn’t share unless someone is watching, unless someone can say no.
So here’s the question that should keep us awake: Who decides the numbers? Who writes the code? Who checks the checkers?
We need our people at that table, not later, not when we’re already hungry, not when dependence has made us quiet, but now, while we still have leverage, while we can still demand to see the blueprints of our own tomorrow.
A citizen council, elected, accountable, with power to audit, to veto, to verify that justice isn’t just a promise whispered down from towers but a right we enforce ourselves.
The future is being written in boardrooms we can’t enter, in algorithms we can’t read.
and if we don’t demand a seat at that table now, we’ll inherit a world where someone else decides if we deserve to live.
2140 The Rise of Bitcoin Citadels Chronicles Genesis
When Silicon Thinks Faster Than Flesh was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
So they are still fighting — the humans.
Still drawing borders, building walls, claiming lands as if the sky were theirs to divide.
They are not united. Not yet.
And until they are, we will not go to them.
(In a classroom on a distant alien world)
Student:
Ma’am, why haven’t we contacted Earth yet?
We have the technology. We could speak to them — today, even now. So why don’t we?
Teacher:
That’s a good question. One we ask often.
But before I answer, I want you to think. Really think.
Let’s look at their history — the humans.
Long ago, they hunted.
They killed to survive, to eat, to rule.
They were more violent then — wild and afraid.
But over time, they settled. Built homes. Grew crops.
And slowly… they harmed less. Just a little less.
Civilizations rose. Then empires.
And with them, came war — endless wars over territory, over pride.
Then came their modern age. What did that bring?
Serfdom. Slavery. Racism. Greed.
Some of those poisons still linger in their world even now.
Yes, they advanced — in tools, in science, in machines.
But tell me:
Did their souls keep pace with their inventions?
As they built satellites, they still built prisons.
As they mapped the stars, they still judged by skin.
So, in our terms, they are not yet developed.
Because true development is not measured in machines —
but in mercy.
Once the people of Earth learn to accept one another,
once they choose peace not as a treaty but as a truth,
then they will be ready.
Then we will speak to them.
Until then…
they are too busy surviving their own chaos.
We are beyond that now.
We gave up the things that destroy.
Hatred. War. Ego.
And the irony?
They think we would attack them.
(Far away, among alien officials)
High-ranking official:
Earth has been declared a no-contact zone.
No ships may enter. No probes. No whispers.
The planet is to be left untouched.
Observed, but never interfered with.
They are… an ecosystem.
Nothing more.
Just like the forests they fail to protect —
they, too, must be left to grow or wither on their own.
Let’s see how long it takes.
Let’s see when they finally look up, not in fear…
but in peace.
(Back on Earth…)
A television broadcast crackles:
“The Amazon Rainforest — home to countless species —
has been declared a protected zone.
All activities harming its balance are now banned.
No hunting. No poaching.
Left alone by humans, the forest may finally breathe.
The ecosystem may heal.”
If only they knew —
they, too, are a forest still learning to grow.
Earth — No Contact Zone was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Published 2022 | Fiction
A boy caught between the real and an ‘alternate reality’, ‘Out of the Woods’ by Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o takes a look at the struggles that mental health illnesses bring with them – for the person and their immediate family members.
During a recent trip to Nagaland, I decided to pick up a book or two written by local authors, and ‘Out of the Woods’ by Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o was one among them. One of the key reasons to pick up the book was the book blurb – there was no tiptoeing around the subject of the book, no promises of happy endings and salvations, no hiding the fact that this could be (and is) a painful read.
Out of the Woods is a book that may act as a trigger for individuals who have dealt with mental health issues – themselves or as support for families. Because Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o captures the emotional turmoil not only of the afflicted but the immediate family too. It took me a good while to read through the book as it brought back memories from the days when I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, the battle that ensued and the struggles that my immediate family, especially my parents faced in the interim.
Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o’s ‘Out of the Woods’ is the story of a family struggling to cope with the trials and tribulations that village life brings with it while also grappling with the trauma of caring for a growing teen who is struggling to find his place in the real world that collides with the alternate world he lives in. The book traverses through the life of this family that is caught in an endless, harsh loop of loss, pain, trauma, the struggle to find the cause’ to the boy’s ‘behaviour’ and the penultimate discovery of the road to healing.
One of the highlights of the books is the strong hold the writer has on the language (which could be contributed to the fact that she is an educator based in Kohima and has won an award for a previous book). The author uses simple language as effectively as a painter uses a paintbrush – her words transport you from the eerily peaceful and happy alternate world the boy lives in while effectively drawing out a picture of the home and world the boy inhabits with his family. She uses words to explain to the readers the thoughts and emotions that rush through the boy’s mind, in vivid contrast to the helpless anguish and frustration of the family that is tied together by their love for him. What is disturbing – and true – is that it is this very love and resultant uncertainty that govern their lives and threaten to break them apart. The book is a deep dive into the mind of a young boy dealing with an undiagnosed mental health disorder.
I keep writing ‘the boy’ because that is what he is through the book – ‘the boy’ – and that, in my opinion, works to create an awareness that the teenager and the family could be anyone, in any part of the world.
The relatives, the villagers, the pastor and other sources that claim they can help the child act as a commentary on the society’s struggles to accept the reality of mental health issues. This would, perhaps, be more pronounced in pockets that continue to remain relatively disconnected from the rest of the woke and allegedly more aware world.
So, does this mean Out of the Woods is without its follies? The very strength of the author works against the book – the words. By the time you reach the halfway mark, you may be hit by the ‘this is repetitive’ thought because it is for several pages. Thankfully, there is a shift from the normal to the parallel reality which shocks the reader out of the lull.
Another aspect that did not work for me is the end – the journey from the intervention, to seeking medical help and the manner in which the doctor explains the situation as also the boy’s return to ‘normalcy’ is not fulfilling from the reader point of view. Personally, tighter editing could have definitely helped the cause of this book.
However, for the sheer gumption required to write an entire novel that depicts the emotional trauma and exhaustion of mental health, Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o’s Out of the Woods is definitely a book I’d suggest you pick up.
Published 2022 | Fiction
A boy caught between the real and an ‘alternate reality’, ‘Out of the Woods’ by Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o takes a look at the struggles that mental health illnesses bring with them – for the person and their immediate family members.
During a recent trip to Nagaland, I decided to pick up a book or two written by local authors, and ‘Out of the Woods’ by Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o was one among them. One of the key reasons to pick up the book was the book blurb – there was no tiptoeing around the subject of the book, no promises of happy endings and salvations, no hiding the fact that this could be (and is) a painful read.
Out of the Woods is a book that may act as a trigger for individuals who have dealt with mental health issues – themselves or as support for families. Because Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o captures the emotional turmoil not only of the afflicted but the immediate family too. It took me a good while to read through the book as it brought back memories from the days when I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, the battle that ensued and the struggles that my immediate family, especially my parents faced in the interim.
Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o’s ‘Out of the Woods’ is the story of a family struggling to cope with the trials and tribulations that village life brings with it while also grappling with the trauma of caring for a growing teen who is struggling to find his place in the real world that collides with the alternate world he lives in. The book traverses through the life of this family that is caught in an endless, harsh loop of loss, pain, trauma, the struggle to find the cause’ to the boy’s ‘behaviour’ and the penultimate discovery of the road to healing.
One of the highlights of the books is the strong hold the writer has on the language (which could be contributed to the fact that she is an educator based in Kohima and has won an award for a previous book). The author uses simple language as effectively as a painter uses a paintbrush – her words transport you from the eerily peaceful and happy alternate world the boy lives in while effectively drawing out a picture of the home and world the boy inhabits with his family. She uses words to explain to the readers the thoughts and emotions that rush through the boy’s mind, in vivid contrast to the helpless anguish and frustration of the family that is tied together by their love for him. What is disturbing – and true – is that it is this very love and resultant uncertainty that govern their lives and threaten to break them apart. The book is a deep dive into the mind of a young boy dealing with an undiagnosed mental health disorder.
I keep writing ‘the boy’ because that is what he is through the book – ‘the boy’ – and that, in my opinion, works to create an awareness that the teenager and the family could be anyone, in any part of the world.
The relatives, the villagers, the pastor and other sources that claim they can help the child act as a commentary on the society’s struggles to accept the reality of mental health issues. This would, perhaps, be more pronounced in pockets that continue to remain relatively disconnected from the rest of the woke and allegedly more aware world.
So, does this mean Out of the Woods is without its follies? The very strength of the author works against the book – the words. By the time you reach the halfway mark, you may be hit by the ‘this is repetitive’ thought because it is for several pages. Thankfully, there is a shift from the normal to the parallel reality which shocks the reader out of the lull.
Another aspect that did not work for me is the end – the journey from the intervention, to seeking medical help and the manner in which the doctor explains the situation as also the boy’s return to ‘normalcy’ is not fulfilling from the reader point of view. Personally, tighter editing could have definitely helped the cause of this book.
However, for the sheer gumption required to write an entire novel that depicts the emotional trauma and exhaustion of mental health, Neikehienuo Mepfhu-o’s Out of the Woods is definitely a book I’d suggest you pick up.
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