The Politics and Technology Behind Intentional Consequences
- Charles Harris

- Aug 12, 2019
- 3 min read
I set out to make Intentional Consequences fun, pointed and provocative, regardless of your political point of view. Overall, this is a “purple” book that’s intended to offend and invigorate both sides of the American political spectrum—and especially each party’s so-called base. If you don’t like one character’s politics, stand by for the next one. If a character’s comments make you smile or frown, that’s good. You’ve taken the bait and you’re engaged.
This story is fiction, but the underlying issues are real. Many of them are affecting and endangering the future of American democracy. Beyond entertaining you with an interesting, timely and fast-paced story, I hope this book will encourage you to join in the good faith debate we need to confront these issues and enhance democracy in America.
The book is set in the early days of the 2020 presidential election cycle, in a world of fake news, geopolitical hacking, privacy issues, social media manipulation and a loss of trust in our traditional socio-political institutions. The time frame begins on March 9, 2019 and runs through most of June. During that time period, you'll recognize a number of the politicians who provide the contemporary backdrop for the book's characters and actions. Many are Democratic presidential candidates for the 2020 election--people like Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, among a host of others. President Trump is also around. Unlike traditional historical fiction, which tries to imagine what these people might have said, Intentional Consequences uses these real-world people to frame the background where the events take place and the characters play out their lives. It suggests how these real people and their campaign teams might have reacted to events in the book, and how the characters in the book might have reacted to these real people, but it leaves the major roles to the characters.
For a thriller genre novel, Intentional Consequences includes a lot of political debate and commentary. The political arguments and comments have several purposes. They help frame the characters' beliefs. They frame the pros and cons of different points of view, some very partisan and some more objective. They also highlight the political bitterness that is encompassing virtually every aspect of our current American society--a challenge that drives the characters and permeates much of the book. In capturing the political backdrop to the story, I have relied on news reports, articles, editorials, blog posts, tweets and other materials from both traditional media and social media through early August 2019, when this book was first released for publication.
The technology in this book is important because of its current and future impact on our democracy, and on each of us as voters and keepers of the flame. Like the politics in the book, the technology paints a picture of the world where the book's characters live. All the technology in the book exists in one form or another, and the few applications that have been embellished are in research and development or trials somewhere. You'll find artificial intelligence, facial recognition, drones, deepfakes and other altered images and cyber security. I’ve tried to provide enough detail to be interesting to readers who are familiar with these technologies while still being informative to those who are parsing them for the first time. At the same time, I've tried to explain why these technologies pose the challenges they pose to our society and democratic government. In a few situations, I have intentionally withheld details that might be helpful or encouraging to bad actors, domestic or foreign.
Few issues are more important than determining how we are governed and by whom. We can debate the platform planks and nuances of specific legislation. We can argue about the character and demeanor of our candidates and elected officials. But if the pace and misuse of technological change outstrips the capability of our constitutional structure and socio-political stereotypes to protect us against mob rule from the left or the right, none of those things will matter. Whatever the answer, the first step is agreeing that American democracy deserves preserving. The second is admitting and understanding the challenges. Only then, can we move past denial and work together on the solutions.



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