Words&Dirt

When I give a book a top rating, it is usually because I think that book is perfect, or close to it. I will not make that claim about Daniel Suarez’s Freedom. No, this book has some very significant and undeniable flaws. Even so, it is perhaps the best technothriller I’ve ever read, and beyond that, it explores some critical features of modernity in creative ways that deserve special recognition. Freedom is in every way a worthy successor and conclusion to the story Suarez began with Daemon. 

Suarez picks up pretty much right where he left off:

There is an open-source cybernetic organism called the Daemon that is spreading across the globe. It’s created an encrypted social network called the darknet, based on an online video game. Millions of people are joining that network and using it to reinvent human society. (149)

The Daemon is the creation of a deceased video game designer named Matthew Sobol, who left it scuttling around the Internet as his last gift to humanity before an untimely death. While the Daemon’s initial encounters with human civilization are hostile and morally ambiguous, it has now begun to morph into a machine of loving grace––one that protects and empowers those who pledge their loyalty to it:

The Daemon grew less virulent the more it spread. And…it became more ruthless as it contracted. It was designed like a natural organism to resist its own eradication with lethal force if necessary. It did explain the bloody origins of the Daemon…It was basically a parasite on human society, one trying to achieve symbiosis. A balance between what it took and what it gave. Yes, it drove them toward preserving civilization, but it diminished free will. And did they really want a cybernetic organism designed by a madman hanging over their head? (79-80)

This final question is the heart of Suarez’s inquiry in Freedom: Should humanity be willing to trade freedom in order to pull civilization back from the brink of destruction? Suarez returns to this question time and again as he unfolds the stories of the characters we came to know in Daemon, while also adding a few more key players to the drama. As with the first book, the character development is serviceable, but Suarez’s focus is largely taken up by his ideas about technology and societal structure. There is also plenty of geeked-out action to go around, if you’re into that sort of thing.

There are plenty of fair criticisms that could be leveled at this book, such as Suarez’s penchant for treating sentence fragments as full sentences, but I will just take up the ones that bugged me the most. First, as the story plays out, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that Sobol could have preprogrammed the Daemon to intelligently respond to all of the various situations that arise. History is notoriously unpredictable, and even a genius would be hard-pressed to program behavior for every possible contingency; this is doubly true when your goal is to affect massive changes in the global economy and politics. So even though the Daemon is a terrific idea overall, the further the story progresses, the less believable it becomes. Suarez would perhaps argue that Sobol gave the Daemon the ability to learn and adapt its methods, but if that is his position I would have appreciated more detail on how those learning algorithms would work.

Suarez also plays fast and loose with the capabilities of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scanners––a move that will annoy the hell out of neuroscience professionals and enthusiasts. The Daemon begins implementing a new justice system, one based on using fMRIs to test people to ensure their self-stated motives are authentic. It’s a fun idea that points to something deeply broken in our current justice system, but Suarez goes too far by positing fMRI technology as a foolproof lie detector:

It monitors blood activity in your brain to identify patterns of deception, recognition, and emotion––such as fear or anger. You will be unable to evade my inquiries. So please relax and enjoy your interrogation. (257, emphasis his)

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that fMRI can be used in the way Suarez depicts––at least for now. The most important point here is that measuring blood flow in the brain is not the same as knowing exactly which neurons are firing. In addition, all parts of the brain serve multiple functions, so even if we were able to detect exactly which neurons were firing, it would still be a stretch to assume we could decipher if that activity was trying to mask a lie. Even further, we still can’t reliably link specific neural activity to particular states of consciousness. Put all this together, and using this method to decipher deception with any true rigor becomes a rather preposterous notion. Since Suarez generally seems concerned with accuracy when it comes to his ideas about how technology can reshape society, it’s a shame this one made it past his editors.

The final problem I have with the book isn’t really that big a deal, but is worth mentioning since it concerns the ostensible purpose of the entire Daemon narrative. Peter Sebeck, our protagonist, is charged by Sobol’s darknet ghost with the project of “justifying the freedom of humanity.” If Sebeck can do so, Sobol promises to destroy the Daemon and let humans go their own way. It’s a slick idea, but since the idea of justifying human freedom is as old as thinking, it is unquestionably too lofty to deal with in a book like this. Suarez seems to understand this, because by the end it becomes clear that the real question isn’t about justifying humanity’s freedom in any objective sense, but rather about the practical question of whether the Daemon––which infringes on the freedoms of individuals and groups in order to make civilization fairer and more sustainable––is good for humanity. This question receives an answer that I found quite satisfactory, even though it ultimately abandons the higher-order issue of whether human freedom can be justified. (Fine with me, by the way; since I don’t believe in any kind of free will to begin with, the project of justifying human freedom is akin to justifying the dessert preferences of Santa Claus.)

In this case, I think Suarez unwisely privileged dramatic effect when choosing his language for framing the issue of human freedom. The story could have been just as exciting if he’d stuck with the idea of whether or not the Daemon is good for people, which is the only question to which his story can actually provide a fair response.

So, sure, this book has plenty of faults. But they all pale in comparison to the fact that Freedom is deeply thoughtful, heartfelt, and intellectually stimulating. It’s also one helluva ride––a high-octane gauntlet through an end-of-the-world scenario that manages to be both believable and fresh at the same time.

The center of the Daemon/darknet ideology is the “holon”:

Holons are the geographic structure of the darknet. Any darknet community lies at the center of an economic radius of one hundred miles for its key inputs and outputs––food, energy, health care, and building materials. Balancing inputs and outputs within that circle is the goal. A local economy that’s as self-sufficient as possible while still being part of a cultural whole––a holon––thus creating a resilient civilization that has no central points of failure. And which through its very structure promotes democracy. (72)

This is one of the coolest ideas I’ve come across in speculative fiction. Holons leverage the positive outcomes of globalization by using modern technology to re-localize all forms of production, thereby dispensing with wasteful, planet-spanning supply chains. The social and professional groups that make up holons are regulated by reputation scores––transparent rankings based on past interactions that give darknet citizens a quick way to identify potential enemies/allies. The Google Glass-like HUD (heads up display) that allows visual access to the darknet essentially gamifies real life, turning society-altering projects such as sustainable power plants and farms into means of accruing social capital and leveling up in a way that confers special darknet powers and degrees of influence. In practice, the darknet is not much different from how the modern world works these days, with two critical differences: it is entirely transparent and accessible to everyone––everyone who joins the darknet, anyhow.

On his quest, which is structured as a mythology-meets-video-game-mission hybrid, Sebeck acquires a wonky but loveable sidekick named Laney Price. The darknet subsequently leads Sebeck to Riley, the leader of a burgeoning holon in the American southwest. Laney and Riley become Sebeck’s mentors, and his journey morphs into an enlightenment narrative. They teach Sebeck how to use the darknet, which includes the method by which a holon enables citizens to analyze its balance of power:

It took the form of a slender needle on his control bar…Riley had taught him that the extreme right position meant Daemon power was held in very few hands, while all the way to the left meant Daemon power was evenly distributed across virtually everyone. Oddly, she told him the goal was not to have the needle at either extreme. Too much power in too few hands defeated the common good, while too little power in any single person’s hands made it hard to get anything done. Thus, the goal for a darknet community was to try to peg the needle right in the center–– “due north” they called it. (79)

The idea of a holon is utopic in a way that should raise my skeptic alarms, but I sheepishly fell in love with it anyhow. It nails the sweet spot for scientifically-informed liberals with a passion for localism and a keen desire for radical economic change. In other words, sign me up!

I am also very sympathetic to Suarez’s appraisal of modern industrial agriculture. This issue did not arise in Daemon, but plays a crucial role in Freedom:

We basically used oil and aquifer water to temporarily boost the carrying capacity of the land, all for economic growth demanded by Wall Street investors. It’s a crazy system that only makes sense when you foist all the costs onto taxpayers in the form of crop subsidies that benefit agribusiness, and defense spending to secure fossil fuels. We’re basically paying corporations to seize control of the food supply and dictate to us the terms under which we live. (243)

If holons are going to be the next stage in the evolution of civilization, they will need to have reliable food sources that are independent of global supply chains. The Daemon’s solution is to isolate and utilize the helpful components of industrial agriculture, destroy corporate agriculture’s “ownership” of genetically modified crops, and replace centralized agribusiness with distributed, sustainable farms that forgo monocultures in favor of crop diversity and intensive rotation. I’m not sure this model could support the entire planet with its current population, but it seems a perfect food solution for tight-knit regional populations united behind a common cause. It’s basically the back-to-the-land movement, but minus the new age mumbo jumbo and plus the material, technological, and social resources necessary for long-term success.

It’s easy to conclude that the governments and corporations that comprise the established world order would not be very excited about the Daemon’s plans for humanity’s future. Suarez’s depiction of the government/corporate struggle against the Daemon, while occasionally flirting with conspiracy thinking, is basically convincing and more than a little terrifying. The powers that be come to be symbolized by The Major, a rather stilted but ruthless villain whose mission is to protect and expand the influence of vested global interests. As governments turn to the private sector to ramp up increasingly brutal tactics against darknet communities, The Major and his cronies plan a devious takeover of finances and resources that will further consolidate global power in ever-fewer hands. Their philosophy is simple:

People need order, Sergeant. They need to be told what to think, what to do, what to believe, or everything will fall apart. This miracle of modern civilization doesn’t just happen. It requires careful management by professionals willing to do whatever is necessary to keep things running smoothly. (335-6)

The delightful irony here, of course, is that The Major is almost entirely correct! The Daemon makes it very clear that people need structure and direction to function healthily, and also that civilization does require careful management. Happily, Freedom is not a tale that puts forth anarchy as a solution to global problems. The only point of disagreement between our heroes and The Major is the means by which order is maintained. Both systems require an absolute authority to maintain order, but The Major believes that authority should be bestowed upon and exercised by globalized, centralized, extractivist industries whose dominance is guaranteed by superior technology and military might––a model that Laney cleverly refers to as “neofeudalism” (265). The Daemon, however, wields absolute authority in order to promulgate localized, decentralized, democratic, and sustainable communities.

I’m not convinced there isn’t a false dilemma (or several) buried in Suarez’s partition between these two models for world order, but there’s no denying that pitting them against one another makes for terrific storytelling and tasty food for thought. Despite my deeply habitual personality, I side with Sobol: “Don’t be afraid of change. It’s the only thing that can save us” (396).

Which side are you on?

Rating: 10/10