The Circle

watchers that she would take
     into account their input, too, if they were quick enough. The voting, Sharma suggested,
     shouldn’t take longer than sixty seconds.
    And then the Demoxie logo appeared on the screen, and the first question arrived below
     it.
    1. Should the Circle offer more veggie options at lunch?
    The crowd in the Great Hall laughed. Sharma’s team had chosen to start with the question
     they’d been testing. Mae checked her wrist, seeing that a few hundred watchers had
     sent smiles, and so she chose that option and pushed “send.” She looked up to the
     screen, watching Circlers vote, and within eleven seconds the whole campus had done
     so, and the results were tabulated. Eighty-eight percent of the campus wanted more
     veggie options at lunch.
    A zing came through from Bailey:
It shall be done
.
    The Great Hall shook with applause.
    The next question appeared:
2. Should Take Your Daughter to Work Day happen twice a year, instead of just once?
    The answer was known within 12 seconds. Forty-five percent said yes. Bailey zinged:
Looks like once is enough for now
.
    The demonstration so far was a clear success, and Mae was basking in the congratulations
     of Circlers in the room, and on her wrist, and from watchers worldwide. The third
     question appeared, and the room broke up with laughter.
    3. John or Paul or … Ringo?
    The answer, which took 16 seconds, provoked a riot of surprisedcheers: Ringo had won, with 64 percent of the vote. John and Paul were nearly tied,
     at 20 and 16.
    The fourth question was preceded by a sober instruction:
Imagine the White House wanted the unfiltered opinion of its constituents. And imagine
     you had the direct and immediate ability to influence U.S. foreign policy. Take your
     time on this one. There might come a day—there should come a day—when all Americans
     are heard in such matters
.
    The instructions disappeared, and the question arrived:
    4. Intelligence agencies have located terrorist mastermind Mohammed Khalil al-Hamed
     in a lightly populated area of rural Pakistan. Should we send a drone to kill him,
     considering the likelihood of moderate collateral damage?
    Mae caught her breath. She knew this was a demonstration only, but the power felt
     real. And it felt right. Why wouldn’t the wisdom of three hundred million Americans
     be taken into account when making a decision that affected them all? Mae paused, thinking,
     weighing the pros and cons. The Circlers in the room seemed to be taking the responsibility
     as seriously as Mae. How many lives would be saved by killing al-Hamed? It could be
     thousands, and the world would be rid of an evil man. The risk seemed worth it. She
     voted yes. The full tally arrived after one minute, eleven seconds: 71 percent of
     Circlers favored a drone strike. A hush fell over the room.
    Then the last question appeared:
    5. Is Mae Holland awesome or what?
    Mae laughed, and the room laughed, and Mae blushed, thinking this was all a bit much.
     She decided she couldn’t vote on this one, given how absurd it would be to cast a
     vote either way, and she simply watched her wrist, which, she soon realized, had been
     frozen. Soon thequestion on her wristscreen was blinking urgently.
All Circlers must vote
, the screen said, and she remembered that the survey couldn’t be complete until every
     Circler had registered their opinion. Because she felt silly calling herself awesome,
     she pushed “frown,” guessing it would be the only one, and would get a laugh.
    But when the votes were tallied, seconds later, she was not the only one to have sent
     a frown. The vote was 97 percent to 3, smiles to frowns, indicating that overwhelmingly,
     her fellow Circlers found her awesome. When the numbers appeared, the Great Room erupted
     in whoops, and she was patted on the back as everyone filed out, feeling the experiment
     a monumental success. And Mae felt this way, too. She knew Demoxie was working, and
     its potential unlimited. And she knew she should feel good about 97 percent of the
     campus finding her awesome. But as she left the hall, and made her way across campus,
     she could only think of the 3 percent who did not find her awesome. She did the math.
     If there were now 12,318 Circlers—they’d just subsumed a Philadelphia startup specializing
     in the gamification of affordable housing—and every one of them had voted, that meant
     that 369 people had frowned at her, thought she was something other