Yaren slowed with her mouth, "Uhm, no. Mostly just romance virtual reality stories"
Ava answered, "Huh, very typical. I usually play Role-playing games and RTS." Ava continued her phrase, "Let me think, I would play Stellaris, an emulation of it on my computer. Maybe the Mass Effect trilogy and Fallout. I also play Doom."
Yaren, with her eyes wide, "Really. I admit I have been dabbling in VR. Trying to interact with characters, if anything, trying to improve my social skills, but in the end, it's been making me more nervous. Because the actions that I thought were shown to be effective in the game don't usually correlate with the people in the real world. Parasocial stings you like a mocking bug."
Ava then puts on a bland face and makes an observation, "So you are the type to have husbandos or favorite character materials in your house?" The tone was a little brash and condescending, but it was enough to unnerve and make the cogs in Yaren's mind start rotating, making Yaren admit, "I guess" with a sense of demurity holding herself slightly
Yaren confessed, "There are some characters I have a favor for, one was Lucas Graham, Einswell, Eren, 2B, Simon, also Ashley the doll, since I see myself in her a bit."
Ava replied, "I suppose that's understandable; some people like characters for their relatability."
"But again, do you think this is properly conducive to social skill development?"
Yaren answered with eyes confused, "I don't know, I wish I didn't care about socializing, but I am helpless in my craving for acceptance and attention from other people."
Yaren also adds to her confession. "I just want to be someone else, maybe then my gratitude for life would be more appreciative."
Ava nodded with her cybernetic mind. She confessed, "I wish I could understand, but I don't know your circumstances all that well to empathize - I admit I got lost in what you said."
Ava asked with her other eye flickering, "Your relationship with parents? It's not all rainbows and butterflies, right?" Ava continued to inquire more; her curiosity was piqued.
Yaren answered, "Not really, I guess it's just me. I gotta go now, it's time." A vague answer from Yaren
Yaren then walked away. Ava then lifted herself from her chair, eating her food in the cafeteria, watching her fade from the shadows. She then looked at her food on the table and stared at it. She was stunned.
Ava then touched her high-tech collar. She was hoping that the collar did not relay any asinine or mortifying recordings.
"I hope I didn't just embarrass myself. Authorities would kill me, especially my mother. If they find anything suspicious." Ava waved her head before finishing her lunch to return to class.
Soon after Ava finished her synthetic lunch with Egg and Bread, she stood up and made her way out. As she walks, her eyes notice people enjoying themselves or even being simply complacent at the table, and of course, the same obnoxious person who approached her a while back at the dining table, fidgeting with his fingers alone, his eyes seem excited while arrogantly tightening his clothes for his next frivolous endeavor.
Ava simply walked off. She was in a state of tranquility; she just walked into the next lecture. The hallway was featured with lockers and furniture, even with holographic projections of Advertisements.
The neon hologram lights and advertisements, even the boards, are flashing. The AI are civil and polite, even to the point of having prosocial companionship with others. It wasn't as grim as people thought. Right?
Ava continued down the hallway, brimming with technological activity. Before arriving in the lecture hall. She sat in the chair, the topic is about General education and the topic appears to be related to Cybernetics
The lecturer then proceeds with a preliminary to the lecture with "The first pioneer of Cybernetics started with Norbert Wiener. Suggested that cybernetics can be used to treat some issues or malfunctions of species by integrating biology with mechanical or electronic apparatus."
"Insofar as we have made remarkable developments in cybernetics, after the rulers who have left us long ago. We made strides to think like them, to process like them, and to be like them."
"With cybernetics, we can think and function as extrasensory individuals. The better, the stronger your abilities and talents are. So even if you guys already have advanced knowledge, why go to school, you ask? When you have everything at your fingertips, instead, you are here to have a training and to solidify any information or understanding you downloaded from the VR-Stimulated Learning system when you were babies. You are trained to be a superior generalist rather than a complacent one. And of course, get good at what you were supposed to do."
The lecturer then decides to summon a hologram of the importance of Cybernetics in today's generation, and the projections of animals with their broken legs being magically healed after being merged with a mechanical apparatus.
"It's interesting, isn't it?"
The lecturer looked up in the hologram, he scrolled the menu left to right, and even made mentions about how there used to be fear of transhumanism, which was concomitant with slow-progress technological development.
"Many centuries ago, people used to fear technology; now we are ahead of the game and can maintain autonomy. In this age where our extradimensional rulers have disappeared, we will do anything to survive, and to process like them. Greater control equals comfort and stability. This isn't arguable."
The lecturer continued a long-winded speech on cybernetics, "The academia's studies of the moral underpinning within cybernetics have proven to be scarce. Despite this, cybernetics is the thing of the engineers, businessmen, and scientists, and plays many important roles. We have made sure to develop technologies that could tame or at least render anyone with cybernetics as less violent temporarily while in areas of high civilian activity or in important business matters."
"If anything, cybernetics allows us to interface with technology like a second nature, as if it was mere air. The mixing of clay and iron."
Ava listened deeply and remarked, "If that's the case, then I must be a slave." Her eyes narrowed with slight reproach at the teacher's words
The lecturer then proceeded to say, "To tame the use of cybernetics, every augmentation or unique cybernetic enhancement is to be prized dearly, one at a high cost or in auction."
"There are many tiers of cybernetics that are being built, one for specific roles as blue-collar jobs or operators of the kind. We couldn't afford to be democratic with cybernetics that will cause a rift in the social balance."
Sebastian then raises his hand up with a perfunctory comment, "Wouldn't the example of a conventional role of cybernetic be like those food-workers in the cafeteria in our school?" while his hand descends on the table, relaxing himself with a sense of ease.
The teacher then pointed at him with a stick and said, "Yes, that is one of the many examples of how cybernetics runs our world."
The teacher then decided to continue on with his long-winded lecture about cybernetics, transhumanism of sorts. Even mentioning Heidegger, a philosopher of the 20th century briefly mentioned in this.
[The question concerning technology]
Ava then thinks about cybernetics for a minute. The lecturer, whose black hair is long and scuffed, appears to be quite lean but with a nice, polished suit. He wears sunglasses of a sort. Appearing to be the nonchalant 'devil may care' teacher with a very dialectic way of speaking.
Ava was paused in thought for a second before regaining her focus on the present, soon the lecturer presented himself flawlessly with insights and cross-referencing, "After all, we are supposed to connect and heighten the information that we have downloaded since our young days, the education today is different. We do need to learn to appreciate or achieve a level of depth for those stored information that lies in our cortex's, we can't be superficial"
As Ava wanders her eyes into the lecturer whose hair is shown to be disheveled with a sunglasses-like visor with indifference. Ava pulled out her hand and looked at it; her mind was already in a state of brief analysis.
Ava stares at it for a while before her eyes are focused on the lecturer. Ava raised her hand and asked with elite student vibes, palms shown, "Sir Walden, I have a question. What are your thoughts about emotions and their impact on society?"
Ava stared at the Lecturer with an impassive voice.
The lecturer's head looked at his back, facing Ava with surprised eyes, and commented, "You are a feisty one. But I suppose you may be similar to some of your classmates. Fine, I will indulge your inquiry."
The lecturer then looked at the students with his sunglasses and observed with nonchalance, "Okay, how do I say this. Emotions, well, let's say every human has a unique development, some sort of process. When it comes to ourselves and our part in society, we often tend to judge our own image and identity through the lens of others."
The lecturer lazily with swag then walked around the floor with the holograms and proceeded to do a devil's advocate, "You know our own image of our own identity is malleable. It changes through experiences, relationships, philosophy or whatever you make of it. Could your Moi properly interface with the social world you are in?"
"Do you have the correct development to navigate the social bubble with your relatability or how experienced you are with others?"
"It can be said that you may observe unpredictability with other people alongside their clique or circles, and it may be obvious that those people within the circle may only know each other or interact due to propinquity amongst peers, especially the ones they discovered."
"But then it begs the questions… Is socializing a skill that can be developed, or is it innate? It could probably be based on one's own nature or character. At the end of the day, if you find relatability with others and can improvise, even listen to whatever others are feeling, which would be Empathy. I think you will be fine."
Sir Walden slowed down his line of speech, reaching the end of his dialogue before signifying to Ava that he won't expand his answer to her anymore; here he is seen reeling back to his chair with almost dead fish eyes staring at the ceiling.
Before looking at the students and asking in a quiet, tired voice, "Now, where were we? Of course, back to general studies," rudely standing up from his chair as he resumed teaching
The lecturer continued a long-winded discussion about our life and the advancements we made in this one wonderful, complacent technological earth whose colonies and terraforming abilities are advanced, even the history of aliens in this world.
Sir Walden then continued on his long-winded sentence about general stuff.
-Blah blah blah blah-
Sir Walden puts out his sunglasses, his eyes focused on the audience, and he is now weary. Sir Walden looks at the students and announces, "Class is about to be dismissed; you may leave your seats and walk off" in a dismissive, nonchalant manner.
Sir Walden kept writing in his old paper. Yes indeed, an old-fashioned paper. Sir Walden continued to write in his paper as he settled down. On deep thought, his sunglasses were on the table as he then looked at papers with an acrid and solemn paint on his face.
Sir Walden closes his weary eyes as he studies the paper his two hands are holding. Everyone has left, except Ava, briefly, who left with her classmates, noticing Sir Walden's unusual nature; the guy looks like he smoked a lot of cigarettes back in his place.
Sir Walden muttered to himself with growing anguish in his eyes while looking at the papers and the holographically projected images, "These people, they have no idea… what kind of system they are in. Oh well, it's not like I care anyway."
Ava stared at Sir Walden, who was at the table in the lecture room, staring at the papers like a madman. She certainly does feel edified, but at the same time, she is honest with herself that her nerves were stung by Sir Walden's attitude.
"Of course, he knows something and acts like he's better than everyone, what else should I suppose. That no-care attitude ticks me off" she said to herself as she glances towards him before leaving