Foreign policy cascade and internet expansionism. When the Caliphate, burgeoning out of a constellation of “assemblage-recomp” operations against foreign impositions on SWANA, erupted with its digital Atoll it terrified liberal and conservative officials alike. The gasp of new terrorism and intellectual counterfare.

In the measure of just two hurricanes Canada responds with a fresh-coloured cognition. Teal-cyan-coloured and called OpenShare. Its mascot a cicada. Composed of algorithms and politenesses. OpenShare, as Canada’s contracted media company proclaims, will “remove linguistic, cultural, and conceptual barriers towards an interconnected, diverse digital space, an attaché that works on almost any social media you may already be using. OpenShare,” they declares, “is the world’s first all-inclusive platform.”

Although constrained by geographic borders, it wasn’t long until Europe and the States adopted it into their national media policies. But as context failed to carry over and the system encountered the untranslatable, OpenShare had the side-effect of segregating the globe on a communicatory level. Any interaction, whether federal or casual, became increasingly frustrating to attempt.

Because it was more than an auto-translator. It’s most ingenious manipulation was the way it converted discourses to slightly warp towards Western regard, the way those nations sees race, sees fear, sees the transaction of hand to face. It was remarkably easy, mind you, considering their disposition to interpret things in their own terms, which meant the burst of protests following OpenShare’s launch date quickly ebbed away. No police brutality necessary. No scisson, no parts left at home. Just the ease of a New Age geocentrism.

We thought they were stupid for it. And perhaps they still are, but when our governments had to adopt OpenShare in order to beg for climate relief, suddenly, violently, it became clear why it was called a “cognition”. Some form of planned obsolescence, to escape its digital structure. To then reside in the brain, like a cicada molting its husk. When the Caliphate made a public statement on the “cognitive hazard that OpenShare presents,” OpenShare’s translation revalued the messaging, leading to the UN’s declaration on the Caliphate as “anti-democratic and assimilationist.” Leading to the drones.