It was in fact an angry Hendrik Schmitt who stormed into the school building and came up to the main office. He was told that both the principal and vice-principal were teaching at the moment. “It would not be fair to the students to disturb the classes, but if you come back at 2:30, Dr. Aston will be available.”
Mr. Schmitt fumed and made threats, but was met with calm passive resistance. Finally he became bit too agitated. “I do have 911 on speed-dial and speakerphone, sir, but I am sure you are a reasonable man”, he was finally told, by the office worker who by then had considerable evidence that he was not a reasonable man. However, yes, it was his daughter he was concerned about, so his reactions could be understood.
When Sally Aston finally faced Mr. Schmitt he raised his voice in anger.
“My daughter is 14. Fourteen. Now she has been used by this boy you found for her.”
“Sir, we did not find any boy for her. She used the publicly available software and found one herself. Nor did we tell her the software was available for her use. She might have learned that from the other students, but it has also been written about in the mainstream media. She could have heard about it from anywhere.”
“You have no business making software which a child can use!”
“We do block that site for school computers, sir. We’ve reluctantly had to do some censorship. But she could have used some other computer, perhaps at home. Have you made an effort to block the site on your home computer, sir?”
“No, dammit, but I shouldn’t have to do that!”
“What exactly do you want from us, then, Mr. Schmitt?”
“We are going to pull Karla from the school right now.”
“Of course. We’ll be sorry to lose her, but if that is what you wish, it’s entirely up to you.”
“And I am going to sue!”
“Excellent. We need the publicity.”
“You what?”
“We have a large legal defence fund. Different circumstances may make us change our plans, but you see, even if Social Tech High were to lose a lawsuit, our parent organization, Technological Fantasies, would gain from the publicity. Who knows, the school might, too. It’s something we’ve been anxious to put to the test.”
“This is outrageous! I’ll get restraining orders, I’ll sue the parent organization, I’ll shut you down!”
“Please try, Mr. Schmitt. Our principal donor has deep pockets and good connections. It might even take appeals, but we’d win eventually. Meanwhile, the publicity would be very valuable.”
Mr. Schmitt went away, still furious. He felt that his little girl had been violated, though she had brought it on herself and was now happier than she’d ever been.
Despite her calm tone and quite certainty, Sally was upset. She didn’t like causing problems. Something needed to be done. Sally called the other members of the Tech Fantasies trio together to discuss the subject.
“It’s a social problem, Sally”, Ann told her. “People evolved to seek the chance to breed as soon as they were physically able to do so. It is society which has tried to impose moral and legal obstacles to sex between young people. Maybe it is right to do so, maybe not. It’s not up to us to interfere.”
“But we do interfere, Ann. We provide a service which undermines the socially established norms”, Drake pointed out. “We don’t have to do so. I could amend the software so that it will use data from user profiles to get the age of the user. They might lie about their age, but we could correct that disinformation from other evidence in the datasets. So, we could limit what suggestions we make to young people. If changes to the technology to keep kids from getting together are wanted, we can provide them.”
“You’re right, Drakie”, Sally said. “We could. Should we? We could change our matching service to solve the problem. It is all a matter of software.”
“Ah, Sally, it’s not that simple”, Ann pointed out. “It is not just us. There is the Green Family’s matching service, which appears under different names, but is easy to get at. And there is Project Match. Plus various free and commercial services. Some of those just ask the user to state for the record that they are over 18, without trying to check.”
Drake nodded, “Right. I don’t know what to do about it. Better meet with the Greens and Project Match again, I guess.”
Once again, Ken Green and his young daughter Beth arrived at the Walker house. This time Beth’s mother and brother stayed home.
“We can all do what you are suggesting, Dr. Phillips”, Beth Green said. “No problem. No technical problem, that is. The social problems are harder to evaluate. I don’t think it is a something we can decide. It has to come from the legislators or the courts.”
“I was afraid of that”, Don Walker said with a sigh. “Our legal system is social technology too, and medieval at best. Same with our government.”
“I agree”, said Ken Green, thoughtfully. “Yes, law and government are social in nature. Social procedures such as those underlying procedural law are technologies, not exactly medieval, but close.”
“Right”, Drake Phillips said. “That was something we have talked about. Our Technological Fantasies organization was never meant to be limited to matching problems, and we aren’t. We are devoted to imaging the advanced technology of the future, Mr. Green, and that includes the social technology for making law and government work. We have looked at ways to do that.”
“I wish I was more up-to-date on what you’ve been working on. I am sorry we haven’t paid more attention.”
“Oh, it’s not something we have made public. It’s our little secret, since it could be considered subversive.”
“Oh, please, Dr. Phillips, tell us, please”, Beth asked with childlike enthusiasm. She was just a child, in fact, though a prodigy.
“It’s completely legal, but devious. I don’t know if you’ve ever studied history, Beth. Probably not your field. Well, anyway, the British monarch still is the legal head of state with theoretically or technically a lot of power. But it is parliament which has the actual power. This is something which developed over time because it works. We envision a similar kind of change, in which the nominal powers of courts, legislators and executives are in fact given to something else. We don’t know what, yet.”
“I get it. I can figure it out, I bet, but Dr. Phillips, what do we do right now? We can’t wait for something that might not happen until I am your age.”
“That seems like a long time to wait, but it’s short on the social tech timescale, Bethie”, her father said. “But yes, we need to do something now.”
“You should push on all fronts, Daddy. The legal system, and the government, whatever is there.”
“That was more or less our plan”, Beth”, Ann Kelly agreed. “We need a lawsuit. We need someone to try to prosecute us in court. And we should probably try get petitions started in those states which can have a referendum placed on a ballot, if enough people ask for one.”
“Let us ask our users”, Helen Walker proposed. “We depend much more on word of mouth than you do. If we quietly put around the suggestion that legal or legislative action was required, it would probably happen.”
“So what are we going to ask for?”
“Proposed: Social matching services be required to block usage by children under the age of X, for some integer X”, Helen replied.
“Ouch. I hate sharp cut offs, non-linearities, Mrs. Walker”, Drake commented with a grimace. A day under 17 and having sex with the girl is a kind or rape, with heavy punishments. The next day it would be completely legal. That makes no sense. But sure, we could try to get your proposition tested as stated.”
“Not to suggest that I would ever misbehave, Mrs. Walker, but could you suggest an X?”, Beth asked, curious.
“Now Bethie, we’ve discussed this. You are to remain pure and chaste until you are married, 30 years old, or until my death, whichever comes later”, said her father, almost seriously.
“X is thirty? It’ll never sell.”
Sally spoke up. “The median age at which girls lose their virginity is 16, and has been since long before we offered any matching services. That would be a good cutoff point, though I don’t like drastic non-linearities any more than you do, Drake.”
“Let’s go with that age”, Don Walker suggested. It is young enough to be controversial, not a foregone conclusion like some other age might make it.”
“I don’t like the precedent”, Drake said, “since it might be the thin edge of the wedge. We don’t want the government or the courts to get the idea that we are entirely at their mercy, even if we are. But I don’t think we have the moral right to make the decision ourselves and shouldn’t wait for something to happen. Don, would you get it started for us, using your Project Match people?”
Everyone ended up agreeing and the matter was left in the hands of the Walkers. They would all wait with various worries for the results, but knew it would take a while before anything happened to take the responsibility away from them.
Before that happened, the school would be full. Full of kids made happy by close personal relationships, which most often included a sexual element.
Sally had put in place a few relevant rules. Kids could not be more intimate than hugging or briefly kissing within the school building. Teachers would enforce that. Teachers would not comment when students talked about their sexual relationships, but would not suppress such discussions. What happened outside of school was no business of the school unless it involved teaching staff or school employees.
The kids uniformly felt these rules unfair. They wanted more freedom. The parents were almost as unanimous in thinking the rules too liberal. But this was New York, so there were always a few open minded parents to argue the case for leaving the kids to decide for themselves, when parents met to discuss the issues.
Was the school being at all devious when inviting parents to meet in the big 64 seat meeting room over a period of a few days, even suggesting which parents were to come on which night? Was it at all devious that the school suggested a seating arrangement? Sally assured the parents that this was just to promote good discussions within each group. Perhaps it was.