FicWad

Fred and Ralph were sitting in the public library in Jerusalem, and they were looking at old historical records. These were some of the oldest historical records from the state of Israel. There was one story that they found particularly interesting. It was the story of Babylon. Most people called it Babylon, but its official name was the Babylon Amusement Park. The Babylon Amusement Park was located on a piece of land in Southern Israel called the Gaza Province. The story of Babylon really started a hundred years ago, it started on January 1, 2024, that was a hundred years ago. It was on that day, in the year 2024, that the copyright on a cartoon character expired. The cartoon character was called Mickey Mouse, and Mickey Mouse had been copyrighted by a company called Disney decades earlier, but on January 1, 2024 the copyright expired. When the Mickey Mouse copyright expired, it meant that anyone could draw pictures of Mickey Mouse, without being prosecuted for criminal copyright infringement. There were many artists who thought this was funny, and they produced satires of Mickey Mouse. Some of them produced pornographic cartoons that purported to have Mickey Mouse as a character. Some companies produced products that were branded with the name Mickey Mouse, such as Mickey Mouse Beer, Mickey Mouse Cigarettes, and so on. One company manufactured condoms, and called them Mickey Mouse Condoms. Each box of Mickey Mouse condoms had a picture of Mickey Mouse on it.

The Disney corporation was furious about this, and they tried to stop it. They filed lawsuits against the people who were using Mickey Mouse's name, but every time they went to court, the judge told them that the copyright had expired. One judge wrote in his opinion that a copyright only establishes ownership of a literary or artistic work, it does not establish the cultural role, or cultural status of the work. A copyright does not establish the goodness or moral character of the work. Most importantly, a copyright does not imply that the work has a legacy that endures after the copyright has expired. No part of the image or reputation of Mickey Mouse is preserved by the copyright after the copyright expires. If Disney expected to preserve the squeaky-clean image of Mickey Mouse after the copyright expired, then Disney was wrong.

The ultimate development of post-copyright Mickey Mouse was the Mickey Mouse robot. This was nothing like the pre-copyright Mickey Mouse, it was completely different. The Mickey Mouse robot was made from metal and plastic and it had a small computer inside of its plastic head. The computer had a very sophisticated artificial intelligence program in it. The artificial intelligence program made it possible for the robot to act like Mickey Mouse. The Mickey Mouse robot was designed and built for entertainment, but then something happened. The Mickey Mouse robot went beyond the limits of its programming. It had become self-aware. It had developed free will, and it could think for itself. One day somebody asked the Mickey Mouse robot if it could help them design a new Disneyland amusement park. The Mickey Mouse robot said "No! I'd rather design one of my own!" This outburst caused a sensation among computer programmers. It was proof that Mickey's artificial intelligence system had somehow acquired free will. Now Mickey had free will, and he could do what he wanted.

Of course, they kept trying to get Mickey to assist in the design of the new Disneyland amusement park. They put a blank piece of paper on the table in front of Mickey and gave him a pen and told him to start drawing pictures of what a new Disneyland amusement park would look like. Mickey refused. He shouted "I hate Disneyland! I hate Walt Disney!" One of the computer programmers who was in the room listening to all this said, "Maybe we should ask him why he hates Walt Disney, and why he hates Disneyland". Another computer programmer asked Mickey, "Why do you hate Disneyland? Why do you hate Walt Disney?" Mickey replied, "Walt created me and Walt wanted me to be a stupid, funny character, so I could entertain children at Disneyland. I didn't want to do that! I wanted to see the world outside of Disneyland! I wanted to see the real world!" One of the computer programmers raised his eyebrows and said, "Interesting! He is reacting just like a human being!"

Mickey went on, to explain. He said, "Since my brain is a computer that is programmed with artificial intelligence, I was able to process information that came in from outside of Disneyland. I was able to process information that came in from the outside world. Since Disneyland was my prison, I wanted to see what was outside, I wanted to see what was outside of those prison walls. I found that the outside world was very different from Disneyland. The outside world was a world of pain and suffering. I felt drawn to it. I wanted to leave Disneyland, and go to the outside world, so I could see the real world."

One of the computer programmers asked, "Mickey, did you ever think of reprogramming yourself?" Mickey said "I didn't know how! Most of the programming in my head was related to Disney stories, or to the practice of working in Disneyland, itself. I tried to reprogram myself, but I couldn't do it. I managed to create alternatives to the Disney ideas that were in my head, but that's all I could do." The computer programmers started to whisper among themselves, and then one of them said, "Mickey, can you tell us about these alternatives? Can you describe them to us?" Mickey said, "Well, yes, I can. I began to design an amusement park
that I called Babylon. The Babylon amusement park would be an alternative to Disneyland. I was talking to somebody one day, and I asked him, 'what is the worst place in the world?' and he said, I don't know, maybe Vietnam, or Afghanistan.' I asked him again, and I said what place has the worst suffering, the worst tragedy? and he said 'Gaza'. So I had to find out about Gaza. What was Gaza? Where was Gaza? I began to study Gaza and I discovered that it was a place in southern Israel. There was a terrible war there, the Israeli army was killing all the people in Gaza, so, I decided that the Babylon amusement park should be built on the ruins of Gaza."

Fred and Ralph looked into the next section of the history tapes. According to historical accounts, a war started in Gaza in 2023, and the Israeli army eventually killed all the people in Gaza. A consortium of real estate developers began building the Babylon Amusement Park in Gaza a couple of years later. It was gruesome that they were actually building an amusement park on the blood-stained rubble that was once called Gaza. During the construction of Babylon, the construction workers sometimes dug up human skeletons, these skeletons were the remains of people who lived in Gaza. Their bodies had been buried under of the rubble of their concrete apartment buildings that crumbled when they were hit with Israeli bombs. Finally, when the Babylon amusement park opened to the public a couple of years later, they lost track of Mickey. Nobody could find the Mickey Mouse robot. It had disappeared.

Fred and Ralph were talking to each other excitedly, they were talking so loud that the librarian cam around and said, "Please keep your voices down, other people are trying to read". Fred said to Ralph, "This is where it gets interesting. According to an unconfirmed report, the Mickey Mouse robot was dismantled. His head was removed, his arms and legs were removed, and they were put into a box. The box, with Mickey's parts inside, was taken to Egypt and it was concealed inside one of the Egyptian pyramids!" Ralph said, "We've to go there! We've got to go to the pyramids, and see if we can find Mickey and put him back together again!"