The Hegelometer

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An interview with the inventor of the Hegelometer.
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MatthewVett
MatthewVett
1,825 Followers

The young, blonde woman smiled at the camera. "Tonight, we have a special treat for all of you at home: the discoverer of the Zeitgeist field and inventor of the Hegelometer. He's also the author of the new book What Your Hegelometric Score Really Means and Secretary of Science and Technology. Please welcome to the show, here to discuss the impact his invention has had on us over the last twenty years, Doctor Sigismund Utana!"

She stood up and joined the audience in applauding as an older man walked onto the stage, dressed in an entirely black suit. The two shook hands and sat down next to each other. "Thank you for having me on the show again, Diane."

"Thank you for coming, Doctor Utana. You must be busy with the twentieth anniversary of the Hegelometer approaching. It's hard to believe that just twenty years ago, such a basic part of life didn't even exist."

"Well, I'm never too busy to educate. It is quite heart-warming to see the appreciation that society has shown for the Hegelometer and-- You know, I never liked that name. We had intended to call it the Zeitgeist Field Synchronization Detector, but, well, you know memes, they have a life of their own, and as soon as one reporter dubbed it the Hegelometer, it just took off. I didn't even want to put it in the title, but my editors, they all insisted. But I digress. The appreciation that's been shown for the Hegelometer is nothing short of remarkable."

"Yes, there was quite the controversy when it first came out, I remember. Why do you think that was?"

"It was misunderstood. It's still misunderstood, but less so, but when it first came out, no one really understood what exactly it was measuring. I think that the results of the '88 election really helped to demonstrate the predictive power of the Hegelometer to people. If we hadn't tested all three candidates, I don't think it would have become so widely used so soon.

"But back when we first introduced it, people thought that we were just reducing everyone to a number, that we were claiming that the entirety of a person's being could be distilled into their score, and of course, that's just not true, and that's really what my book is about. I want people to better comprehend what, exactly, someone's score tells you about them."

"If I can interrupt you, doctor, I'd like to discuss some of your detractors. What would you say to someone who says that the Hegelometer is dehumanizing, that it ignores their personality and experiences in favor of this single synchronization score."

"Well honestly Diane, I'd say that it sounds like sour grapes from a losing candidate. We've never, never, made any claims that someone's score does anything more or less than demonstrate how in sync they are with the Zeitgeist field. People with low scores aren't necessarily bad people or unimportant people. It's impossible to measure, of course, but it's almost certain that someone like Cato, for example, would have had a terribly low score, but he has still an important and moral individual."

"That hasn't stopped people from trying to determine what famous figures' scores would have been, though, has it?"

"Unfortunately not. The Hegelometer is a very precise device, and there is absolutely no way to get an accurate estimate for what someone's score might be without measuring them directly. I blame that biographer, erm, Rot, Rote...Rotstein! He started it all when he claimed that Napoleon's score would have been one thousand and some nonsense, and I remind you, that no one alive has ever been found to have a score in excess of three hundred, and suddenly every biographer had to claim that their subject had an even higher score or else it was admitting that you weren't studying someone as important, and it's all really contributed to the confusion about what the score represents.

"What it represents is this: how greatly an individual fits with the Zeitgeist of the culture in which they exist. If you think of everyone as a, as a little line segment on a graph, everyone has their own slope, and the Zeitgeist has its own slope, and really what we're measuring is how close you are to the Zeitgeist, and what the Zeitgeist is, is the direction in which society is going to go. You can try to delay it, you can attempt to change its course slightly, but there isn't any way to stop it: the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Transhumanism Revolution, all of these processes are inevitable so long as humanity continues to exist.

"So what someone's Hegelometric score indicates is how in sync with the future an individual is. A study came out just last month, from Cornell University, that showed that those societies which most greatly utilize Zeitgeist field technologies, for elections, for example, had, on average, a better quality of life, greater economic growth, and a happier citizenry. Why, it's very possible that if they hadn't embraced the technology, Argentina wouldn't be the world power it is today."

"I'm glad you mentioned elections, Doctor Utana, because that's really where your technology has found the most use. Some people have accused you of creating a new aristocracy with your Hegelometer. What would you say to that?"

"My team and I have done more for the process of democracy than anyone since Cleisthenes. Before the Hegelometer, the largest predictors of who would win an election were the economy and the candidate's physical appearance. Now, it's almost unthinkable for a candidate to win a major election without submitting to a Hegelometric test and having a competitive score, and I think we've all seen the benefits.

"No longer do we have leaders who attempt to drag us back to the Dark Century. People want to progress, and we've given them the means to determine who is capable of it. There's no aristocracy when anyone, regardless of genetics, religion, or modification status, is capable of joining it. These types of arguments come from regressives, individuals who simply aren't in line with the course of the future and who feel the need to try to derail the train rather than let it continue to a destination they don't like. If they simply changed their beliefs, their own scores would rise as they came closer to approximating the Zeitgeist.

"One thing people forget about the Zeitgeist field is that it's always changing. Julius Caesar couldn't have been Caesar without a decaying republic, and Alexander the Great would have died forgotten had he been born in the Moluccas. Your synchronization score is a product not only of you, but where you are. That's why it's always so integral that we test people in their own culture in order to avoid dampening their score artificially. If someone wants to be a leader and isn't fit for their own society's Zeitgeist, they should attempt to find someplace in which they can fit in, for everyone's benefit."

"But don't you think that individuals with a low score can still contribute to politics?"

"Of course, of course, but they're just not fit to lead, not if we want to move forward. My own score isn't terribly excessive, I think it was at two hundred or so last time I had it measured, but look at me: the first Secretary of Science and Technology. Everyone can contribute in their own way, but we succeed best when our president is in sync with the Zeitgeist.

"Not every job requires that, of course. Even if you're not in sync at all, your skills and experience can allow you to make an important contribution, so long as they're directed by someone else."

"But what about the possibility of someone abusing the Hegelometer?" asked the host. "There was that scandal last year where an organization was found to be buying and selling children with unusually high Hegelometric scores to wealthy families."

"Every tool can be misused. The fact that some individuals are willing to pay to be connected to the future leaders of society isn't anything new. It's unfortunate, of course, that these things occur, but it's not the Hegelometer at fault, it's the individuals who think they can 'cheat' the system by raising future leaders to conform to their own beliefs." He chuckled. "Of course, they're just ruining their own investment.

"If they really change the child's personality, his or her or zir score will simply decrease. It's the child's beliefs that give them their score, and those can't be changed without affecting the score. The best thing they could do would simply to raise the child in a healthier, more comfortable environment than they otherwise would have."

"I have one more request, Doctor Utana... We asked your old team to lend us a Hegelometer for the day. Would you be so kind as to give us a demonstration and measure someone from the audience tonight?"

The doctor smiled and averted his eyes, but the cheers of the audience forced him to confront the situation. He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, I've been ambushed. I'll measure one person. Did you have anyone in mind, specifically?"

"I thought we'd leave it up to chance," she said with a smile. She reached underneath the desk and pulled out a large bowl filled with scraps of papers while four assistants slowly moved a massive device onto the stage. It resembled a combination of an electric chair and a radome, with a large, geodesic dome covering everything above the head. An array of myriad small antennae and wires protruded from the dome in every direction, with a large, golden spike jutting up from the dome's upper pole. Arcs of electricity danced across the sphere's surface as it slowly warmed up, preparing itself for use. The host reached into the bowl and withdrew a small rectangle of paper. She unfolded it and read what it said. "Seat 27F!"

At once, the audience bent down to examine their own seat numbers, and rose, one by one, in disappointment as they realized they weren't sitting in the correct one. Finally, one person stood up: a small boy of about nine or ten. His father said something inaudible to the boy, and the child skipped down to the stage. A chorus of polite after and cooing aww's followed the boy as he reached the device. Doctor Utana strapped him into the device and flipped a large switch.

The lights flickered as the Hegelometer consumed the necessary power to properly measure an individual's synchronization with the Zeitgeist field. The room briefly glowed neon blue. And then it was over. Steam billowed off of the edge of the radome as the doctor and host moved to the side to witness the result.

"What does that mean, Doctor Utana?" the host asked him pointing at the monitor.

The doctor's face turned pale. "The machine must not be properly adjusted. Give me a moment to correct it and we'll try again." The doctor's fingers raced. A staccato of clicks and clacks filled the deathly-quiet room. After a few moments, he nodded. "Alright, let us begin again." Again, the lights flickered, the room flashed blue, and the radome steamed.

"What is it, doctor?"

"This can't be... This isn't possible... The child's score, it's over two thousand!"

MatthewVett
MatthewVett
1,825 Followers
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4 Comments
NeoDiotimaNeoDiotima11 months ago

Hegelmeter…. One hoped you’d somehow tie the erotic premise into the philosophy of Hegel. You know, bridge the opposition between the philosophical abstract and the immediacy of the erotic- a new, richer conception of what’s central in human experience, a synthesis of what’s good about both leaving behind their inadequacies….. is that too much to hope for? Or, just say why you use Hegel of all thinkers. Kantometer has a certain ring to it, just saying.

AnonymousAnonymousalmost 8 years ago
Where are you going with this story?

OK, you hooked me. Are yo just going to cut the line and let me go. Set the hook and pull me in with a complete story about our new "WORLD" leader.

Anonymous DaveR

AnonymousAnonymousalmost 11 years ago
Great start, but what happens next?

What a great start to a story. But what next? Who is the child? Why is his score so high? What happens next?

AnonymousAnonymousalmost 11 years ago
More?

Doesn't quite stand alone, so needs a Part 2.

The jury is still out.

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