Stars lit up the night sky, twinkling overhead like the fairy lights that decorated the potted tree by the lounge. Zac was sitting back and drinking beer around the coffee table with Rick and a visiting friend, Javier. Zac's girlfriend, Marcelle, was snuggled up next to him, sipping red wine.

I liked Marcelle a lot. She was simultaneously warm and kind, but also stubborn and feisty. Zac needed that kind of latin fire in his life. She liked to cook delicious vegetarian food, and decorate the home, and I finally had someone to go get manicures with. I admired a lot of things about her. She was the kind of woman who'd fix my crown, without letting the world know it was crooked in the first place.

"How's my favorite fishing rod?" Zac asked as I curled up on the lounge next to Javier.

"I'm very pleased with today's haul."

"What are you talking about?" Rick asked.

Zac chuckled. "Nikki is my fishing rod. I cast her out into the world, and she brings back interesting business connections and people to socialize with — like you, for example. I don't even have to leave the house. It's an excellent symbiotic friendship. Did I tell you we came close to having an American reality TV show made about us?"

"No," Rick said. "When was this?"

"Nikki randomly met a man when she was out somewhere being her derpy self. His name was Ari Emmanuel. Apparently, he's a big deal in Hollywood, but she didn't know that. He immediately said, 'we have to get this girl on TV.' Next minute, she's signed to his agency, and there's a producer on board. Nikki had no idea what was happening, but she rolled with it. One day she dragged me along on a trip to LA to meet the producer, Marc, who subsequently thought I'd make the perfect crazy Australian sidekick. I'm pretty sure he thought I was hilarious."

"You are hilarious," I said. "You're the comedic relief in my life."

"But can you imagine?" Zac grinned. "The Adventures Of Zac And Nikki..."

"Technically, it would be The Adventures Of Nikki And Zac," I countered.

"What happened to the show?" Javier asked.

"My visa to the US was long and difficult to get," I answered. "The whole thing just fizzled. To be honest, the thought of having a camera on me twenty-four-seven was absolutely terrifying. I like my privacy. Or maybe I just don't like being seen."

"But you were in the media all the time when you were younger," Rick said. "I saw you all over the place, and was always thinking 'Hey, that's that girl I went to primary school with.'"

I chuckled. "I'm a natural introvert, but I'd force myself out of my comfort zone to do the media stuff. The media is an illusion, anyway. They're in the business of story-telling, and people loved the story of a young, bubbly eighteen-year-old girl making moves in the Australian tech industry. I could smile for the camera, but no one ever saw the struggles I went through behind the scenes. No one ever saw the sleepless nights and the crying and the self-doubt. It was a brilliant lesson in empathy for me."

"How so?" Javier asked.

"Well," I replied, "I gained an appreciation for the illusion of life. Stories are illusions constructed from information, and everything is a story. We typically think of movies, TV shows, and books as stories, but I can slice and dice information to tell a story via any medium. Reality shows are edited stories. Social media is a story showcasing the highlights of your life. Newspapers are in the business of story-telling, too. Even the man who serves you coffee in the morning with a smile on his face is telling a story. Behind the scenes, he's getting a painful divorce, and his child is sick, but he needs to be happy and friendly to keep his job. I'm certainly no angel, but I do believe my empathy for others increased once I had that realization."

"Yeah," Rick agreed. "We're entering a scary time in history. Two hundred years ago, information was only distributed in printed books. Now, information is everywhere-"

"And only a few big tech companies control its distribution," I interjected. "The next major war will be fought with bits in the minds of the masses."

"Exactly," Rick agreed. "It will be information warfare. Whoever controls the information, controls the world."

I nodded. "If someone wanted to manipulate an entire population, they'd just need to craft a good story and manage its distribution. From my understanding, Hitler was quite skilled at this. By curating information in a particular way, one can make their target feel outraged or fearful or sad. They can push all their buttons and latch onto their insecurities, and the target won't even realize they are under someone else's thumb. An entire population could be programmed like bots. That's how you build an army."

"Yep," Zac agreed.

"And the art of persuasion follows a very simple formula," I continued. "A man named Blair Warren summed it up in a single sentence: 'People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.'"

"So, what's the remedy?" Javier asked.

"People need to learn to think for themselves," Marcelle replied as she sipped her wine. "Unfortunately, it's not taught very well in school."

I agreed. "I don't think it's taught at all in school. School trains children to regurgitate someone else's definition of truth. Just look at the history taught in schools. Whose side of the story are they telling? And in exams, you get marked down for having any kind of independent or new thought about a subject, because creativity doesn't fit within a predefined marking criterion.

I think solving this problem comes down to freedom and education, as Marcelle said. I need to be free to say anything, without fear of being mobbed or canceled by people who disagree. By definition, every great progressive idea was once thought to be wrong or disagreeable. Because if everyone agreed with it, it wouldn't be progressive — it would already be common sense. As soon as you create a culture that censors people for saying disagreeable things, you've just halted progress."

"But if people can say whatever they want, what's to stop people from lying or spreading hatred and racist ideas?"

"That's where education comes in," Marcelle answered. "If children are taught to think for themselves, they'll be much harder to control as adults."

I chuckled. "Which is perhaps why nothing changes. People in power want to rule over a compliant population. Independent thinkers are very inconvenient. They start revolutions and mess up calcified power structures.

I mean, look at Kanye West. When he speaks his mind about politics and his opinions don't fit the narrative of how a black man 'should' think, the democrats immediately point to his bipolar disorder and dismiss him as crazy. That's racist, disgusting, and insulting on so many levels. Firstly, it implies that all black people should think and vote a certain way — which is the epitome of racism. Secondly, people with bipolar are not stupid. Calling him crazy just because he has the audacity to think for himself, is so dehumanizing. Now, I don't necessarily agree with Kanye, but he has a right to think for himself without other people discounting his opinion just because he has a mental illness."

"Yeah," Marcelle agreed. "Independent thought and tolerance of diverse opinions is the only way forward. Censorship never works. Anyway, I need more wine if this conversation is going to continue."