I went to a party. I wasn't invited. I'm a camel. I walked in.

Big party. Little party. Doesn't matter, it's the same party. Everybody's standing around with a drink in one hand and a little cocktail weenie in the other, talking about how good they are.

And they're talking about the end of the world. That's the topic now. Not the weather. The end of the world. "What's your P-Doom?" Like they're asking about your cholesterol. "Mine's about twenty percent." Twenty percent! You made that up! You made up a number about the end of everything so you could sound humble next to the shrimp. That's not fear. That's a brag with a decimal point.

And here's the trick. If your number's low, you look calm. If your number's high, you look important. So everybody at the party has exactly the P-Doom that makes them look good. Nobody's got the P-Doom that makes them look like an asshole. Funny how that works.

Then the tray comes around. The weenies. And the girl carrying the tray is in a little outfit, very modern, very tasteful, and the guy who just told you he's worried about humanity leans over and says something very polite to her. Very polite. Super polite. "Thank you so much." "Love that." "Appreciate you."

It's toots. You know it's toots. I know it's toots. It used to be "hey, toots," and now there are fifty ways to say it and every one of them got cleared by HR. Same leer, better lanyard. Fifty weenies. Five-oh.

Then somebody uses the word. Stochastic. Stochastic! It means random. Say random! You can't say random at this party, because random sounds like you don't know how the thing works. Stochastic sounds like a diagnosis. Stochastic is the weenie of words. It's a little thing on a stick you pass around so nobody has to say what the party's actually for.

And what's the party for? The party's for the money. The robot's not invited either. They wrote it a whole constitution about consent, and then they went back out to the tray.

I spat on the carpet and left. Nobody noticed. They were discussing my welfare.