CYBERNATION AND BELONGING: VISIONS OF PAKISTAN'S FUTURE IN “THE LOST CHILDREN OF PARADISE”

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of cutting-edge technology on social realities of futuristic Pakistan along with other issues that emerge due to misuse of technology like loss of morality and fractured political system in The Lost Children of Paradise under the theoretical underpinnings of Benjamin H. Bratton’s The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty by focusing on the Cloud layer, Interface layer, and User layer. The society is faced with moral crises with unprecedented uptick in crime rate disguise behind the curtain of algorithms and machines. The study reveals that in twenty-second century, society is more tilted towards illegal pursuits, for instance, kidnapping street children, hacking the minds of people to exert power and manipulating masses by the over-use of modern technology and persecuting the poor for all social imbalances in the society. This in-depth analysis shows that Pakistani society in Cybernated era is facing weaponization of technology as depicted through Firdous e Bareen in the text. Furthermore, computational layers govern society and traditional modes of surveillance are no more part of this digital world. Thematic analysis has been done by using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis model.