Humanity Is Consumed by Relentless Transformation. Like a thief in the night, artificial intelligence has inserted itself into our lives. It makes important decisions for us every day. Often, we barely notice. As Joe Allen writes in this groundbreaking book, “Transhumanism is the great merger of humankind with the Machine. At this stage in history, it consists of billions using smartphones. Going forward, we’ll be hardwiring our brains to artificial intelligence systems.” The world-famous robot, Sophia, symbolizes a rising techno-religion. She takes her name from the goddess—or Aeon—whose fall from grace is described in the Gnostic Gospels.
It was obvious to me, as it was to other misfits of my generation. All power structures are, at their root, vehicles of predatory control. The people of earth, from the backwoods to urban centers, are sheep being fed and prodded by mechanical tentacles. You know—churches, governments, and like, corporations, man! If freedom exists at all, it must be somewhere beyond the reach of the electric lights.
Above all, I perceived something sinister in the luminous Cyclops. With only a few channels coming through glass, wires, and a satellite dish on the roof, the TV looked like a space-age mind control device. Its victims were helpless, glued to their couches, their brains programmed by this alien being at the center of the living room. I was nauseated by the viewer’s passivity, that dull expression in the eyes, a total paralysis before the memetic whirlwind onscreen. Every channel surfer was lost in perpetual hypnosis. ABC. CBS. NBC. CNN. Nickelodeon. MTV. Lifetime. ESPN. BET. Cartoons, talking heads, and stylish commercials. Fast food and cigarettes. Brain pills and automobiles. Unattainable levels of beauty and moral excellence juxtaposed with gang rape and mass murder. Thinking back, it’s funny to imagine a teenager freaked out by household appliances. But I was definitely that kid. Looking around today, with boomers buried in smartphones and zoomers lost in video games, I’m not sure I was wrong.
[I]n the summer of 2022, Verve Therapeutics announced that an adult patient in New Zealand was approved for their gene therapy to lower cholesterol. Verve used the CRISPR method to correct defective genes in the man’s liver cells. By changing the protein function, his cholesterol was restored to healthy levels. As noted by MIT Technology Review, these successful trials open the door to “gene editing for the masses,” including “genetic vaccinations.” Those jabs would alter a person’s DNA to confer lifelong immunity to a wide array of illnesses.
It’s worth noting that the lipid nanoparticles used to sneak mRNA “vaccines” into the cell are nearly identical to those used for CRISPR treatments. So that road has been paved across the technium.
When Big Gods die, Big Governments take over. This occurred during the communist (and to some extent the fascist) revolutions of the twentieth century, and it’s happening now in liberal democracies. Wherever faith in the transcendent evaporates, we soon see science, technology, politics, and racial identity fill the void. In America, this mental niche is not occupied by governments so much as the corporations that control government policy, and on the ground, by the gadgets that convey such delusions of grandeur to our minds.
In an insightful, if naively optimistic study on “The Global Smartphone,” anthropologists at University College London describe the device as a “transportal home.” “We have become human snails carrying our home in our pockets,” they write, “a portal from which we can shift from one zone to another.”
If you step out of line and attract the ire of authorities or the digital mob, then your virtual snail shell will get smashed to smithereens. Then salt gets poured on the exposed brain beneath.
Never discuss race, robots, or religion in polite company. Not unless you want to be mobbed and possibly martyred. Especially now, at the supposed end of the world. The fact is, most people want to believe what they want to believe. For cynical leaders, they want the people under them to believe whatever justifies power. Neither takes kindly to having those beliefs challenged. The words “polite” and “politics” derive from the same Greek root—the polis (πολίς), or “city state.” When you combine these concepts, you get toxic political correctness. You also get total disinterest in anything like the truth.
The bulk of humanity has an unshakable herd instinct. Fall on the wrong side of the race debate—any side—and you risk getting condemned, or branded a “race traitor.” Fall on the wrong side of the tech debate, and you’ll be accused of “controlled opposition,” or dismissed as a Luddite, or possibly exiled or imprisoned for blowing the whistle on the Machine’s cruelty (see: Edward Snowden and Julian Assange). Fall on the wrong side of a religious debate, and you’ll get mocked as “superstitious” for being a believer, or burned at the stake for not believing the only “true doctrine.” When the flock gets spooked, the black sheep gets the boot.
As the technium expands, so will the power of those who control it. Their devices will invade every crevice they can be plugged into. Consumer-friendly eugenics, e-learning, digital currency, the Internet of Things, self-driving vehicles, social robots, the Internet of Bodies, telemedicine, wearable brain-computer interfaces, virtual reality, chatbot religiosity, algorithmic voting systems, digital implants, “godlike” artificial general intelligence—some version of each technology is either here already or just over the horizon. Corporations will keep hyping them as if they were miracles. Governments will create the infrastructure and defend the elite with every security tool at their disposal, even as certain national borders are left open. America will pursue their Future™. China will pursue their own knock-off Future™.… Once a critical mass of public enthusiasm or compliant submission has been reached, elites don’t need perfection to stay in power. When you’ve monopolized the tracks and the tickets, people will keep riding. The trains don’t have to run on time.
Human purpose is the question of our age. We are made to build things. We are made to create. We also have a knack for destroying things, but if that’s all you’re good for, you’re basically a walking black hole. The essence of that existence is to suck the life out of everything around you. Eventually, people will start calling you that, or worse, some other kind of hole. Termites might chew through every board in your house, but at least they’re doing it to build a nest. So be a helpful termite, not an empty black hole. War means nothing when the winner is inept at building anything. And from the depths of our souls to the letters inscribed on our genome, human beings are meant to build.
We are meant to love our families and friends, celebrate their victories, and pick them up after defeat. We are meant to make love and build new families. We are meant to do useful work for our neighbors and countrymen. We are meant to be laborers, artists, craftsmen, architects, inventors, mechanics, coders, scientists, soldiers, leaders, and priests. We are meant to protect our families, friends, neighbors, and country. We are meant to commit to binding agreements and forge alliances, and we are meant to be honorable. We are meant to be free, and we are meant to be held accountable when we’ve abused our freedom. We are meant to tremble before our Creator and take part in the Creation. We are meant to pray and meditate. We are meant to be human.
None of that will happen under a technocracy where our lives unfold according to top-down calculation.
I have an addendum, Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development, to this post which will be made tomorrow in Missive #278.
During the prior couple of days I had been feeling tired then in the afternoon of 10 May thought I had a low fever. Started my ibuprofen regimen at that time which may have lessened the symptoms but did not stop another psoriasis flare.
There is certainly a correlation between my heart rate and a flare but is is not a predictor that I can rely on. My sleeping heart rate was 48 vs what I consider normal – in the 39-43 range. I get that information too late to do anything preventive.
The flare symptoms so far have been the red butt, night sweats and a tired feeling, much better than past attacks.