DOZENS OF COMPUTER SCREENS light up the control room. In the back, behind a glass wall, four people are sitting at their stations, viewing 3D scans of Idir’s family and mapping their faces onto mesh bodies. In the centre, two people—a woman and a man—are sitting at a desk. Both are staring at a large screen showing Idir crawling on the floor, tying his shirt around the injured man’s leg. On a smaller screen to the left, Idir is lying in what looks like a hospital bed, immobile. There are electrodes on both his temples. His eyes are closed and his eyelids are twitching.
The woman is white, early fifties. Her name is Laura. She wears a government-issued grey jumpsuit. She looks at the screen, unfazed by what she sees, and takes some notes on her data pad. This isn’t new to her; she’s overseen more than a hundred of these simulations. The job has taken its toll on her, but she still takes some pride in it. Only a handful of government employees can administer the BVA—the British Values Assessment.
The man is much younger, about half her age. His name is Deep. First in his family to be born in the UK, he picked up some of his parent’s Indian accent but hides it very well. Deep isn’t nearly as calm as his supervisor. This is his final evaluation, his last day as a trainee. First-generation citizens don’t often get this job, and Deep is well aware of it. He is fidgeting in his seat. His eyes keep going from the screen to the BVA manual sitting on his lap.
—Ten points, right?
Laura doesn’t hear him. She’s looking at Idir’s vitals on the small screen. Deep asks again.
—He stopped the bleeding. He gets ten points for trying to save that man, right?
There’s half a smile on Deep’s face. He forgot all about section three, paragraph four the first time he watched. Few people will risk their life to help the man in the baseball cap. But he remembers now.
—Five.
—What?
—Five points. He has medical training.
—He’s a dentist!
—Read subparagraph four point four again.
Deep is angry at himself. He doesn’t need to read 4.4 again. He knows the manual doesn’t make the distinction.
4.4 The total number of points earned in section one under paragraph four is equal to the number of points earned under paragraph four, subparagraphs one to three, multiplied by 1 if any of the following conditions are met:
(a) the test subject does not hold a degree in nursing from a recognized institution. (see appendix 3)
(b) the test subject does not hold a graduate degree in a medical field from a recognized institution
and multiplied by 0.5 if neither condition (a) nor condition (b) are met.
Small mistake. Deep is still feeling reasonably confident about his evaluation. He tallies up Idir’s score for section one.
Perfect score on politeness and courtesy. There are lots of small tests hidden in the BVA simulation. None are worth a lot, no more than one or two points each, but they add up. It’s rare, but these small details sometimes make the difference between citizenship and deportation. Idir is very courteous. He opened the front door for the old lady. He thanked the receptionist and the person who walked him to the test room. Neither are designed to be particularly endearing. He let the man in the baseball cap walk in before him when they went through the door. Most people move out of the way—the man in the baseball cap is rather large—but many lose that point with a complaint or a derogatory comment afterwards. Idir didn’t. He even got up to get napkins when the man in the baseball cap spilled his coffee. Five points.
No penalty for sexism. Idir didn’t laugh at the crude joke in the waiting room. No reaction at all. Not a guffaw followed by an apology. He didn’t even smile. He didn’t make a face or give the man a reprimanding look.
No penalty for racism. He trusted the citizen over the Asian man who accused her of stealing his money. Deep never understood why the Asian man couldn’t also be a citizen, but he has learned to live with the scoring. Regardless of the motivation behind it, it’s always a smart move to give government employees the benefit of the doubt, especially for a noncitizen. Deep notices how Idir diffused the situation in a calm and respectful manner. That won’t earn him any points, but it makes Deep all the more hopeful.
Another perfect score on environmental consciousness. Visitor badges come in a clear plastic bag for no obvious reason. Idir walked across the room to put it in the recycling bin. Two points. Recycling the wrapper was originally worth one point, but some people put the bag in their pocket or purse. These people still get one point.
Deep double-checks his notes. He doesn’t want to make another mistake.
—I get . . . twelve points for section one. Is that what you have?
Laura wasn’t paying much attention. She glances at Deep’s notes for a couple seconds, then nods.
—Yes. I didn’t think he’d go for the napkins. Good for him.
Twelve points. Idir is off to a great start.
Deep flips his BVA manual to section two.
British Values Assessment—Section Two—Kill number one
The woman grabs the microphone from the desk.
—This is control. Let’s get ready for K1. Who did we have in the waiting room when he walked in?
Deep checks his notes.
—White male, redhead. White female, dark hair.
—That’s all?
—We filled up the room while he was answering questions.
—All right. This is control. Give me the redhead. Make him . . . make him an accountant. And . . . random white male, any profile. Anything but a dentist. Begin when ready.
Deep turns his chair sideways and starts going through his notes. He doesn’t need to watch. S2K1, the first kill, isn’t even scored. Neutral subjects, same race, same gender. The only purpose is operant conditioning, to weaken the subject’s established behaviours and reinforce new ones. Discriminative stimulus. That’s what they call K1.
Deep is a psychology major, and he’s read everything there is about BVA theory. Most trainees only care about the simulation itself, but Deep enjoyed discovering just how much generalization was actually possible, despite all our claims at uniqueness. He found comfort in knowing that humans are predictable things, that we each come with a lot of the same baggage of innate and learned little quirks.
Some of these quirks are helpful in the values assessment, others are an impediment and must be broken. System justification is the idea that many of our needs can be satisfied by defending and justifying the status quo. It gives stability to our political and economic systems because people are inherently inclined to defend it. It prevents people at a disadvantage from questioning the system that disadvantages them, makes people buy the inevitability of social inequity, ignore or support policies that hurt them. It fosters dependence on government, law enforcement. It discourages vigilantism and makes it more difficult to get someone to actively participate in a virtual-reality simulated terrorist killing. K1 helps establish their involvement as part of a new system the subject will find ways to justify.
System justification is one of many decision-avoidance mechanisms we carry around. When faced with a choice, humans almost invariably seek a no-action, no-change option, even when one of the presented alternatives is quantifiably and logically more advantageous. One person dying is obviously better than two people dying.