You are going to learn to read, whether you like it or not! I will drag you into literacy kicking and screaming if I have to! -- Anon Guest
"Whyyyy..." whined Rin. "Everything's audio or video. Nobody reads." The last word said with a sneer. As if literacy was a disfiguring and unwelcome disease.
"People still read," said Van. "Let me tell you about the people who read, they're the people who have to read, because they're the ones who write the laws and contracts by which you live. You do not get laws in audio format. You do not get Fidbits of contracts. You have to read, and understand, before you approve of that nonsense. Once you put your name on something you think you understand, once you put your vote behind it - you can't back out of it."
"That's paranoid," Rin dismissed. "That's tinfoil hat stuff."
Van pulled up something on their datareader vambrace. "You auto-tick the end user agreements, right? You have the popular game Traitor Seek installed?"
"Yeah? So?"
Van downloaded the game and highlighted some key elements in the agreement, feeding them into text-to-speech. They then raised their eyebrows as the automatic voice intoned, "Text One: The user who has downloaded this program and agreed to these terms is hereafter referred to as the User in this document. Text Two: The User, should they become deceased or need intensive medical care while this program is installed in their device hereby cedes all legal rights to their body and property to Li'ar DeShonquo LLC."
"It does not say that," said Rin.
"Want to read it yourself and find out?" said Van. "The End User License Agreement hid that clause in one of the sub-sub clauses towards the end of the fifty-page document."
Rin's face dropped. "Fifty pages?"
"One hundred and seventy-three if you count the linked documents in there," added Van.
"I've never even read one page," whimpered Rin.
"That's what they're counting on," said Van. "So. Basics is reading. Stage two is comprehension. Epic level is unriddling legalese to find all the traps they left in seemingly innocuous terms."
Rin picked up the book that Van had been offering. Finger tracing the printed word within. "Where. Is. My. Cow? Is. That. My. Cow? It. Goes. Ba-ah..."
"Baa," said Van helpfully. "Two a's mean a long 'ah'. Remember the phonics cheat card I drilled you in?"
"Why do I have to learn the old spelling?"
"Because when there's no context, GalStand reverts to the older spelling for clarity." Van made an apologetic face. "Especially in legal documents."
"I'll never learn this," whimpered Rin.
"Not gonna lie, you've made a late start. The good news is, the more you read, the better at it you get. And I have a lot of books."
Rin read more than ze had ever read in hir lifetime to date. On break, ze considered hir own vambrace. "I'm gonna delete all the apps I've downloaded and start over once I've started to understand those agreements."
"Good plan," said Van.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Vladyslav]
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