The Information War hots up, as bots deploy their avatars, strangely similar to friends on FB and other Silicon Valley corporations, paid well by Plutocrats to subvert the opposition to their plan to make the world a better place ... for themselves, their friends and servants and the Planet as a whole ... though not Whole in philosophical terms of course!
Remember when some friend asked you to be a friend again? Could be a bot at work.
And always bear in mind that Common Purpose infiltrated deeply into Authorities of any kind, appearing now in key roles to help us plebs behave ... all perfectly plausible as far as stories go ... though this contented old blogger has no need to be right or liked ... that's not his business.
In many ways it seems unfair, to stay calm and carry on, equanimity unaffected, whether or not good friends and respected acquaintances agree or disagree ... once "me" is seen to be an illusion, then for that illusion to suffer would be missing the point completely ... none of which stops the fragment being kind, since kindness is a Universal quality of the Whole ... it's tricky to explain in words and yet again let's not forget the mantra: The word is not the thing described, the menu is not the meal and the map is not the territory. ..
In the village the story unfolds much like everywhere, though scale makes things easier. ..perhaps it's cities themselves which are part of the problem, with pollution, congestion, isolation and alienation exacerbated ... widening the view of human settlement patterns over long periods of time trends are observed as the species evolve through various forms albeit our true understanding of how we thought at any given period limited by artefacts such as the written word ... who was writing the stories, why, on whose behalf and so on ... basically how can we ever know how free born homo sapiens sapiens surrendered their autonomy and why? Security? Sure, we seem to share that trait with other mammals, who organise themselves in family groups, and family groups cooperate and compete, the urge to procreate balanced by the evolving instinct to spread the genes more broadly, usually, but not uniquely within the species ... fossil records offer some evidence on these things, though not how mammals or early humans thought ...
Where to start with these questions? Can we even know how current mammals think, domesticated or living wild? Of course we clever humans have a word for our tendency to project our thoughts onto the other mammals, anthropomorphism ... a long word for a cow, munching grass and kindly allowing humans to share her milk, to learn ... and can the human sharing the milk understand the versions of "moo" emanating from the cow? Maybe by listening to the tone and mood of the cow? Important to understand to avoid the cow kicking the bucket over or kicking the human! Cows have horns too, don't forget that ... if you really upset them you're in trouble ...
All this speculation is a long way from the artificial intelligence we live with now. It seems a whole new species has appeared on the scene ... evolved from the minds of homo sapiens though not necessarily wise ... that's something else entirely ... some say "too clever for our own good" whatever that means ... but some smart versions of human seem to have let loose an intelligence without a soul, becoming smarter by the minute as long predicted, bringing amazing progress to the world along with existential risk of making slaves of the humans they were developed to serve. A bit like a communist revolution but on its head ... anyway, the reds always said that capitalism was wage slavery ... Marx and Engels analysed events to prove that Capitalism was doomed to be replaced by a kinder more equal land, starting with the most advanced nations ... of course the opportunity for the revolution arose in a less suitable place, Russia, a feudal state, sick of war and ripe to revolt against it ... still Lenin and his determined band pressed on regardless, leading to consequences far from the idyll predicted by the founders ...
An update on the old theory has appeared on the scene: Capital by a French economist, Pikkety, offering an analysis of the stagnant capitalism now become corporatism and ripe for change as corporate entities wield monopoly power, whilst nation states and groups of them struggle to regulate the insane greed ... leading to demented Plutocrats imagining ever smarter robots will obey the orders of the humans, with shrivelled souls or more compassionate ones ...
This science fiction version is offered today just in case such conspiracy theories turn out true ... you never know! As for philosophy, the critical flaw in Marx and Engels' work was to imagine violence could ever lead to peace - it can't ... which takes us to the deeper Truth, that beyond all the subjects and objects of the Human mind, is Love ... that's Universal by the way, not Earth bound or limited by thought. .. how the Avatars proceed remains to be seen ... so maybe the best we homo sapiens sapiens (more or less) can do, right now is relax, have fun, help our friends and neighbours where we can without interfering, and try not to fall out with others over differences of opinion ...
Well, that's my opinion anyway, and I'm sticking to it ...
Time for Pikkety, before a snowy walk into the village ...
No comments:
Post a Comment