You wake up at the sound of construction drones building a new skyscraper across the street. You're short of breath, you slept with your window open and have been inhaling the smoggy polluted air of the 100M+ population megalopolis you live in. Your Government mandated personal AI companion notices you're awake and bids you good morning.

"Good Morning [name], I noticed your heart rate is increased and you're experiencing shortness of breath. Here is a morning exercise routine to fix that.“

Your screen turns on, overly energetic workout music starts playing and the workout video starts. You reluctantly get out of bed, wash your face and power through the 15 minutes of stretching and jumping jacks. You could have just turned the AI off, but then you wouldn't have gained 10 social credit points. If you pay 1000 of them every month you get a massive reduction in your rent costs. It would be prohibitively expensive for most to afford to live in this city otherwise.

“Its good for my health anyway", you think to yourself.

You get dressed and have a quick breakfast. A flavorful bar of precision engineered carbs, fats and protein, although it seems impossible to distinguish any of the potential constituent ingredients. You stir up some hot water and mix in a bag of powder, containing electrolytes, "energy", and your daily medication and supplementation.

You head out to your local hyperloop station, you swipe your hand over the gate scanner and board. It costs more social credit points than the monorail, and there's too much traffic to drive, and you're running late. Nevertheless, you look forward to work today, since, after all, it’s payday!

You read through your emails. Fortunately you only have to respond to a couple and your AI-enhanced email generates a full draft email response that you only have to edit slightly anyway.

New email comes in. It's a confirmation of your salary. You click the link and are taken aback. It's less than usual. It seems that 13 days ago you were driving 58 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. You were automatically fined 50 credits and they were deducted from your salary. You scroll lower. Your insurance policy rate has increased in price due to your recent internet browsing activity. You have been searching for medication enough to be suspected of being less healthy.

"Fuck…", you mutter to yourself under your breath.

The whole day goes by, you jadedly marched through every human interaction with a fake smile, lying about how you enjoy your work so much.

You rush home, munch on a nutrient bar and put on your HoloLens. Time to distract yourself in the metaverse. You get a notification from a friend inviting you to a private instance. You excitedly join. A heated debate is underway between your friend and some strangers about some recent political news he found on a sketchy website.

The leaders of your country's rival superpower publicly condemned the actions of your government in a nondescript geopolitical conflict and called it a degenerate totalitarian dictatorship for having ordered drone strikes on civilian population. Your friend is being pushed into a corner, failing to persuade the strangers that your government is in the wrong. You feel bad for him getting called a delusional idiot, and despite not usually getting mixed in with stuff like this, you take his side and argue for a neutral standpoint. You claim that you can't trust everything you hear in the news, and how there's a different spin on the same event in each country. Wars have been started over "leaked” deepfakes in the past. You mention an event in the past where it turned out your side had fabricated information to incriminate opposition for the purpose of justifying interventionist policies, and how the rival superpower is probably doing the same now.

The rambunctious strangers eventually dissipate and you end up chatting with your friend. He thanks you for standing up for him and asks you how you're doing. You've had a rough day so you open up and start ranting about all your problems, complaining about your pay cut, and how you think the current system is out of control.

Hours go by in minutes and you wake up the next day. You go through your usual routine and get to the hyperloop station. You swipe your hand, but the doors don't open. A flashing red popup appears on your phone when you check your account.

"A strike has been issued to your account! An anonymous report against you was filed and an investigation discovered evidence of undesirable behavior and spreading of misinformation. Your social credits have been frozen until correctional measures are applied. Please log on to your HoloLens and follow the mandated rehabilitative programming.”

Your heart sinks. You take a deep breath, trod your way back home… and comply. After all, you can't afford to miss more than one day of work, otherwise your social credit score will really go down.

You boot up your machine and try to reach your friend from last night, but he seems offline. You text him to call you as soon as he can. Too afraid to ask him what you're really thinking. You sit down and start the rehabilitative programming. Hours upon hours of talking heads, telling you what you did wrong, and how every citizen must endure sacrifices for the good of the nation. Near the end of the video, you're asked to submit any information you might have about other people not acting in the interest of the nation in exchange for a 5000 social credit reward. Your eyes light up, mouth starts watering, but you stop yourself before you say anything. You turn off the HoloLens, order some Soma, and struggle to not let your thoughts wander to questions you're too afraid to ask yourself.

You spend the night in a daze, spiraling into a deep sleep, for tomorrow you will wake up once more in this brave new world.

How do you feel right now?

Do you feel anxious? Maybe it's a hint of fear. Perhaps existential dread…

This is the taste of the abyss. This is the clutch of the dragon that you're running away from.

If this sounds like science fiction to you, I'd ask you what your favorite Orwell Book is. If it sounds unrealistic, I pity you.

Thank you for reading part 1 of this series, look forward to a continuation soon, where I explore how decentralized Blockchain technology can be used to slay the dragon.