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Nobody seems to know, from sea to shining sea, what is wrong with our fair Republic. Added to the toxic fumes of disorientation and confusion, we are also witnessing sparks of anger and frustration – and not just in the US, but from London to Paris, from Berlin to Brussels. This is true while at the same time the traditional sources of authority and leadership — from the ideologically gridlocked clown-show in the US Congress to the disaster of Brexit, from the cratering relevance of traditional religions to tenuous vision of NATO, from University cry closets to school districts issuing breathing balls and zenergy chimes — don’t seem to have any answers.
It’s quite clear at this point, under the spell of a worldwide fin de siècle funk, that we are on the precipice of falling into a profoundly different world, a fact which is deeply unsettling to hundreds of millions of people, even if they can’t quite articulate what it is that bothers them.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column piece for the newspaper called “The Great American Freak Out.” In the piece I toyed with an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while — the relatively new phenomenon of American adults losing their marbles in sudden and spectacular fails of self-discipline. I wrote: “If the now ubiquitous American Freak Out is evidence of anything, perhaps it is a symptom of our lives on the new frontier. Maybe it’s happening because we are culturally marooned, neither here nor there just yet, but rather groaning through the death agonies of the old myths that once sustained us, while fighting savagely over the invention and control of the new myths we will eventually live by.”
I was thinking of human beings as free-agents when I wrote that, and I think there is some truth in it, but what I wasn’t considering was the notion that our 18th century ideas about free-will, and human free-agency, are increasingly inadequate to address the realities of 21st century life on earth. What I think I’ve discovered since writing that piece is that many of the people who are involved in these Freak-Out dramas have been hacked. They are no longer free-agents. They actually have no recognizable free-will whatsoever. They are bio-technical zombies.
So it was serendipitous last week when I cracked Yuval Noah Harari’s latest masterpiece, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Readers of my work on this site know that I have referred to Harari at length in the past, and I do that because he is one of the very few historians and philosophers at work today who is demanding we pay attention to the present.
Harari’s principle effort is to force us to pay attention to what is happening TODAY, and to come to our own conclusions about whether the relentless mining of the past is going to work anymore to build a reliable trail into the future. Harari believes, and I think correctly, that we are now experiencing a kind of industrial revolution that is so revolutionary, so game-changing, that our traditional philosophical underpinnings and the institutions they created are woefully unprepared to address what is actually happening. Furthermore, Harari stresses that the individual who doesn’t understand the power of Artificial Intelligence at work in our culture cannot possibly understand what it is that we are looking at, right now, directly in front of us. And if we can’t see the forest for the trees, how can we expect to make intelligent decisions going forward?
A recent string of Congressional hearings — where various Big Data bigshots like Mark Zuckerburg have been hauled in on the carpet to account for data breaches — are most revealing because of the questions that aren’t being asked. And those questions aren’t being asked because Congress, and most every average American, has no real grasp on the power that algorithms and AI are asserting over our daily living and in the direction of modern life. Harari argues that the reason we aren’t asking the right questions is that we are now in that strange arena where we are essentially “philosophically impoverished.” The questions we have always asked, and the institutions we have looked to for answers, are no longer sufficient to the task of providing answers in a world whose decision-making loops are increasingly dominated by Big Data and AI algorithms.
Harari makes extremely powerful and compelling arguments in defense of his thesis, beginning with an explanation of what AI is, versus what it isn’t, who is using it, and how it is being used to capture and hold the attention of billions of people on earth — and then to influence their thinking by subtle suggestion.
Most importantly, Harari wants his readers to understand that our ideas about free-will, and human agency, are under bombardment. Harari argues, and I think convincingly, that the human mind is not-sacrosanct and inviolable. Not anymore. The sad fact is that in the 21st century the human mind can be hacked, and it is in fact now being hacked on a pervasive scale.
Tristan Harris, a former “design ethicist” at Google, and founder of the Center for Humane Tech, who together with Harari is on the forefront of trying to wake the world up to the forces that are helping to create the widespread disorientation and disillusionment in our culture — and in teaching how we might adapt the technologies to our lives in positive ways — told The Wire that by using big data algorithms and supercomputers directed at each and every user, “You (he means AI) can precisely target a lie directly to the people who are most susceptible.”
This is undeniably so, and its effects are everywhere. What concerns Harris and Harari, and should probably be of great concern to all of us, are the individual effects of invisible supercomputers pointed directly at each and every one of us, and then again on the downstream effects that will unavoidably have on the liberal underpinnings of western civilization. If you live downstream from DuPont, don’t wake up surprised when you have cancer caused by the Teflon chemicals coursing through your veins. Western liberalism has thus far proven remarkably elastic in the face of enormous political and economic challenges, but Harari and Harris argue that this newest test may be the most formidable of all. And, worryingly, they are not convinced it will survive.
Harari:
“Democracy assumes that human feelings reflect a mysterious and profound ‘free will,’ that this ‘free will’ is the ultimate source of authority, and that while some people are more intelligent than others, all humans are equally free. Like Einstein and Dawkins, an illiterate maid also has free will, and therefore on election-day her feelings – represented by her vote – count just as much as anybody else’s…This reliance on the heart might prove to be the Achilles’ heel of liberal democracy. For once somebody (whether in Beijing or in San Francisco) gains the technological ability to hack and manipulate the human heart, democratic politics will mutate into an emotional puppet show.”
It would be hard to argue that this isn’t already the case, as the recent “Smirking Boy” incident in front of the Lincoln Memorial, in which a group of Black Nationalist crazies, a busload of smarmy catholic school boys, and a handful of Native American activists kicked off one of the larger and more ridiculous emoti-political media shitstorms in recent memory. And much of that cyclone of stupidity was driven by AI — supercomputers, design engineers, and control rooms — aware of and responding to the emotional and political preferences of 2 billion Facebook accounts, and countless hundreds of millions of newsfeeds and Snapchats and Instagram clients. The Smirking Boy incident created its own weather system and then rained garbage on the entire world for days.
This episode also pulls back the curtain on the pervasive lie that social media and other networks were meant to create interactive communities across the spectrum, and would draw people into conversations that expanded the mind and our ability to connect on the human plane. To an extraordinary degree, the opposite is true. Social and other forms of media, having hacked millions of minds, now carry their users off on strong digital currents, eventually depositing them on islands of ignorance and loneliness. News outlets, which were once a defense against ignorance, now serve only help to stoke the fires and perpetuate the problems. So much so that the consumer ends up like a marooned man walking endlessly around the same island, seeing the same palm tree, the same forlorn beach, the same vast ocean, the same skulking seagulls. According to Harris, “70% of 1.9 billion users of YouTube are watching videos chosen (for them) by an algorithm. That’s more people than follow Islam.”
It’s no wonder that, under these conditions, the ability to exchange thoughts in a face-to-face marketplace appears to be a thing of the past. Under these isolated conditions and in these engineered environments, it is no wonder that children can’t talk to their parents, parents can’t talk to their children, students can’t talk to teachers, teachers can’t talk to students, parents can’t talk to teachers, teachers can’t talk to parents, neighbors never talk to each other at all, nobody can talk to the cops, and Congress is incapable of listening. Even television news panels, stacked with powdered wigs and big brains, devolve into shouting matches, so much so that a disinterested observer can’t even understand what they are saying.
Nobody can talk to anybody because everybody has been sucked away on the algorithms meant to charge the dopamine response in their brains, and they are almost incapable of entertaining information that comes from outside of the bubble that AI has created for them based on their own preferences. The effects of digital isolation are so bad that an entire industry now exists merely to re-teach human beings how to sit down in the same room and have a conversation.
This is a real thing that is happening right now. Pervasively. Every day. It is also a potential death sentence.
Harari backstops the thought: “Soon authority might shift again – from humans to algorithms…Just as divine authority was legitimized by religious mythologies, and human authority was justified by the liberal story, so the coming technological revolution might establish the authority of Big Data algorithms, while undermining the very idea of individual freedom.”
Because the real game in modern life is data. Who has it, and who controls it. How do we live in a future where human doctors are eventually replaced by AI doctors — because AI doctors are extremely inexpensive, don’t require 10 years of schooling, and make fewer diagnostic mistakes. What happens when insurance companies refuse to insure anyone who does not sign up for an AI doctor? Or when they refuse to insure a driver who won’t buy a self-driving car, given that networked autonomous vehicles will have far fewer accidents. How do workers unite to protect themselves in mushroom industries driven by algorithms that bloom for ten years and disappear? How does one even live without surrendering one’s own data to unaccountable Big Data corporations who buy and sell information about people? Who regulates this? Who is accountable? Where is Congress? Does individual agency matter anymore in an AI world where integrated supercomputers collate data faster and better than human beings, and where policy makers increasingly rely on them for economic theory or the design of political platforms?
It’s tempting to just spit out a wad of tobacco and utter an ironic Pshaw, but ignoring these real questions isn’t going to make them go away. This is the world that is being created all around us, at increasing speed, and every single one of us has to live in it. And it’s leaving a lot of what we thought we knew about life in the dust.
“In ancient times land was the most important asset in the world, politics was a struggle to control land, and if too much land became concentrated in too few hands, society split into aristocrats and commoners. In the modern era machines and factories became more important than land, and political struggles focused on controlling these vital means of production. If too many of the machines became concentrated in too few hands, society split into capitalists and proletarians. In the twenty first century, however, data will eclipse both land and machinery as the most important asset, and politics will be a struggle to control the flow of data. If data becomes concentrated in too few hands, humankind will split into different species.
“The race to obtain the data is already on, headed by data giants such as Google, Facebook, Baidu, and Tencent. So far, many of these giants seem to have adopted the business model of ‘attention merchants.’ They capture our attention by providing us with free information, services, and entertainment, and they then resell our attention to advertisers. Yet the data giants probably aim far higher than any previous attention merchant. Their true business isn’t to sell advertisements at all. Rather, by capturing our attention they manage to accumulate immense amounts of dadta about us, which is worth more than any advertising revenue. We aren’t their customers – we are their product.”
The truth is startling. What’s more startling is that from a very young age Americans and other children around the world are being sucked into the data pool, whether they know it or not, and whether or not it is any good for them. And nobody seems to know how to stop the machine long enough to get off. In fact, there may very soon come a point where getting off isn’t even an option.
“Ordinary humans will find it very difficult to resist this process. At present, people are happy to give away their most valuable asset – their personal data – in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. It’s a bit like African and Native American tribes who unwittingly sold entire countries to European imperialists in exchange for colorful beads and cheap trinkets. If, later on, ordinary people decide to try to block the flow of data, they might find it increasingly difficult, especially as they might come to rely on the network for all their decisions, and even for their healthcare and physical survival.”
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Outlaws and Indians.
This world is already much closer to the new reality than we think, which exists in recognizable infant stages — such as the on-going hubbub about Russian use of social media during the last election, the widespread use of bots and memes, and the buying and selling of data by large corporations. And it’s clear that the early stages of this paradigm shift underwrite a great deal of the confusion and desperation we are seeing all around us. Harari writes: “In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail. In 2018 we are down to zero. No wonder that the liberal elites, who dominated much of the world in recent decades, are in a state of shock and disorientation…To be suddenly left without any story is terrifying. Nothing makes any sense.”
And by liberal elites Harari is not talking about leftist professors in the LaLa Empires of University campuses – he’s talking about all of us in the western digital world.
We can begin to make sense of the confusion if we become more aware of what this newest industrial revolution portends, how it effects us individually, and begin to shape our lives with the full knowledge of its potential for harm. We should also be aware of its potential for good. Because that exists also. Either way, there are going to be unavoidable, and massive effects, and we are beginning to see those too. My personal concern is how to minimize becoming part of the unforeseen collateral damage — to avoid becoming one with the bomb crater.
We have long heard stories that AI will eventually push people out of the workforce. This is true, and will likely make many humans suddenly irrelevant. Harari suggests that it will not only make many humans irrelevant in the workplace, but that on a worldwide scale it may also eventually create a near-permanent “useless class”, that is, a caste of human beings completely unable to participate in a ubiquitously AI workplace. Whereas in the past an unemployed farmer might take a job in a factory, by “2050 a cashier or textile worker losing her job to a robot will not be able to start working as a cancer researcher, as a drone operator, or as part of a human-AI banking team. She won’t have the necessary skills.”
The pervasiveness of AI may in fact deprive the world of many of its “fall-back” employment options. Imagine the effect of billions of unemployed, and unemployable people.
Harari:
“Not only does AI stand poised to hack humans and outperform them in what were hitherto uniquely human skills, but it also enjoys uniquely nonhuman abilities, which make the difference between AI and a human worker one of a kind rather than merely of degree. Two particularly important nonhuman abilities that AI possesses are connectivity and updatability…What we are facing is not the replacement of millions of individual human workers by millions of individual robots and computers; rather, individual humans are likely to be replaced by an integrated network…Notwithstanding the danger of mass unemployment, what we should worry about even more is the shift in authority from humans to algorithms, which might destroy any remaining faith in the liberal story and open the way to the rise of digital dictatorships…Once AI makes better decision than we do about careers and perhaps even relationships, our concept of humanity and of life will have to change. Humans are used to thinking about life as a drama of decision-making. Liberal democracy and free-market capitalism see the individual as an autonomous agent constantly making choices about the world…What will happen to this view of life as we increasingly rely on AI to make decisions for us? At present we trust Netflix to recommend movies, and Google Maps to choose whether we turn right or left. But once we begin to count on AI to decide what to study, where to work, and whom to marry, human life will cease to be a drama of decision-making. Democratic elections and free markets will make little sense…Democracy in its present form cannot survive the merger of biotech and infotech. Either democracy will successfully reinvent itself in a radically new form or humans will come to live in ‘digital dictatorships.’”
He goes on to point out that these new dictatorships will look entirely different than anything we have seen thus far. They will “be as different from Nazi Germany as Nazi Germany was different from Ancién Regime France.”
So this is our challenge. Here at RIR we are proud of our close-hold on the lessons offered by the past. But we are fools to an extraordinary degree if we don’t stay out in front of what is happening in the world right now. This is our responsibility as we captain the ships of our families, serve as advisors to our friends, and seek to be men and women of influence in our communities. We can’t do that if we don’t know what’s on the trail ahead of us. And we are fortunate that big minds like Harari and Harris are out in front, scouting the territory, and returning to the campfire to offer ways to navigate our interaction with the supercomputers aimed at us from the other side of our television, computer, and mobile phone screens. Because the power of AI resides in its ability to infect us in the same way that small pox blankets infected Native Americans. It’s largely invisible, and in the moment it may even feel like a good way to stay warm through the winter. But this sort of trade remains exceedingly dangerous, and may even prove fatal if we are not very, very careful.
TJ says
Both frightening and exciting, however the structural framework and conditioning is already under construction and at some level, operational. I see it raising kids, in local and State law enforcement and in my wife’s educational profession. You hit on, or cited just about all of it.
Being closer to 100 than 0, I see more and more people are looking back at the trail covered, letting the dust settle and asking themselves, “Wait, where are we going?”
Easy to get lost in the current recommended pace and approach coupled with media driven financial, physical and cultural fear of everything, including each other. Humanity gets lost in the chaos and those able to avoid the distractions (good and bad actors), move forward unnoticed, towards their objectives.
I wake up grateful every morning even when visiting the dark place, but I do subscribe to a version of a fallen world of limited physical resources and an embedded self correcting natural mechanism that could ultimately reset, or terminate us altogether. From a soulless AI perspective — we’re ridiculously unnecessary.
I pondered this in essence last night, after a group of 15–17 year olds went after each other with knives, a hammer and other primitive weapons over a zip code. Later in the shift I looked at some art, listened to some classic metal and enjoyed a clear, cold grave yard shift sky.
We are amazing and terrible at once and the blessings and curse of our free will seems limitless in both directions. It can feel hopeless sometimes.
Things have us all so wound up currently, I’m not sure we’ll ever get to “Step 2” of the CR Life Management Plan. You remember, the one after Step 1 (wake up)?
Regardless, a great reminder to catch your breath, pay attention to what’s going on; be responsible with and value the next human exchange.
I’m unsurprised to hear that the east-west, or was it north-south, animosities haven’t yet amounted to a gangland peace. Perhaps there is an algorithm that will someday unfuck the territorial animosities of 15–17 year old homies. LMAO.
I was recently watching an excellent program on Netflix that you might also enjoy. Murder Mountain. One of the hundreds of titheads in this drama about Humboldt County weed growers actually made an excellent statement. He was talking about dope money, but it applies to the world of AI: “Stealth is Wealth.”
TJ says
I dig it and I’ll check it out right after I finish Yellowstone and Vikings.
Stay warm
Matthew says
There’s a cyberpunk anime called Psycho Pass that is set in a future that is run by A.I.s. (Or at least seems to be at first) known as the Sybil system. They have scanners that monitor people’s psychological states and makes judgements on them. You can be executed if judged CAPABLE of crime. Your life is planned out by the system. It’s a frightening show.
Hopefully, we are not headed for that.
Wow. What lessons that teaches the people who enjoy it.
Matthew says
It’s an interesting show in that it raises a lot of questions including the possibility of the anarchy rising from the fall of the system would be a worse evil than the system itself. That’s because people have become so reliant on it that they would have a hard time adjusting to living without it. The idea of being that reliant on a system is scary in it’s own right.
It’s also interesting its main characters are the law enforcement personnel of the society. Some people are judged “latent criminals” and are arrested and sometimes executed rather or not they’ve actually committed a crime. The best they can hope for is to be employed to hunt other latent criminals for the police.
I’ll have to check it out. We are clearly reliant on a system, there is probably no escaping that, but we should probably be careful about what system we end up reliant on. Anarchy, is also a system, as far as that goes. It falls in line with the “not coping is also a way of coping” notion. And I’m pretty sure that zapping “latent criminals” is precisely what China is doing by putting thousands of people in reeducation camps. Weird that is happening and very little is said about it anywhere.
Matthew says
For whatever reasons it’s not trendy to care about what happens in China. Of course, now a days the news is always about Trump. It seems to be obsession of the media. Regardless whether the media is pro-Trump (Fox) or anti-Trump (MSNBC), they don’t seem to pay attention to much else.
The first season of the show is pretty good. The second season is about half as long and half as good. Also, it’s pretty violent though I don’t think that will bother you.
It is much like the paradigm set up in the otherwise terrible movie Platoon. Elias and Barnes fighting for possession of your soul. They will begin paying more attention to China. In the near future they won’t have any choice.
RLT says
Increasingly, I’ve seen the “you can be hacked” occurring to the Left. Social media heightens awareness of complicated issues, which in turn demands a response–whether out of a real desire to help, or a desire to signal virtue.
But there’s just one problem: most of those issues require advanced degrees, experience as a minority, and/or political cache if you want to be part of the solution.
Most of the folks who want to respond to these issues don’t have any of that. So the social-media “dogpile” becomes the only way they can respond, and they use it as a “one-size-fits-all” solution.
Combine that with a dogmatic intolerance of anything deemed “problematic” and you’ve got a recipe for a group of people ready to burn down their own power structures as soon as someone in that structure’s leadership sends an off-color tweet.
Talk about a gift to the alt-right.
It interests me that so many people who make rather innocuous comments, such as Tom Brokaw’s recent comment about hispanic integration — which is a fair statement to make — are immediately dogpiled in the digital universe…and then they apologize. There is a phenomenon of intelligent and credible people who have been forced into a very strange apology loop. Robespierre is very much alive.
RLT says
I’m always a little jaded about the apologies myself. They seem less sincere expressions of regret and more just acknowledgement of the power of the crowd and its dominance over the individual. Not to mention its spending power…
And, as with any apology, the folks who say it and mean it often don’t have much to apologize for.
J.F. Bell says
“I was thinking of human beings as free-agents when I wrote that, and I think there is some truth in it, but what I wasn’t considering was the notion that our 18th century ideas about free-will, and human free-agency, are increasingly inadequate to address the realities of 21st century life on earth.”
Rather, the people who shape the modern world are fundamentally psychopaths looking to force humanity into the role of inferior organic machines.
Then again, it would appear some can’t raise their wrists to receive the chains fast enough.
It appears that many millions are lining up to get their chains. The difficult part is figuring out how to avoid taking them. I think it’s possible still, but I’m not sure for how much longer.
Breaker Morant says
Craig said»>
“It appears that many millions are lining up to get their chains. The difficult part is figuring out how to avoid taking them. I think it’s possible still, but I’m not sure for how much longer.”««
This is one of the things that terrify me. How do I avoid taking the chains? I prefer to use cash for restaurants and such, but that option is slowly being taken away from us. Some airport shops won’t take cash-etc etc.
People in Sweden can’t get “Chipped” fast enough, because it is “Convenient.” Really, it’s that hard to pull out a few Kroner and pay for your coffee? What will it take a few seconds away from you being a phone zombie. Freakin’ Idiots.
Can’t anybody follow getting “Chipped” through to it’s logical conclusion?
I’ve been tracking that phenomenon as well. I, for one, will not be getting chipped.
Matthew says
That’s scary. I hadn’t heard of that.
The Scandinavians seem to be a conformist culture. I never understood why we are suppose to imitate them. I like American individualism.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Self-reliance educator Christopher Nyerges stated, “The biggest issue facing everyone is that we seem to be in denial of certain fundamental issues that are getting us in deeper. Everyone should constantly stay alert to the ‘big picture’ and make their own plans. Include others in your plans. Make your circle bigger.”*
Thank you, Craig, for a masterful presentation of a major element — perhaps THE element — of “fundamental issues that are getting us in deeper.” Let’s all continue our efforts to make our circles bigger.
* “Teacher and Role Model,” Dana Benner, AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE, Vo. 8, Issue 01, January 2019, p. 40.
In an interview Harari was asked what people should be doing about the pervasiveness and the danger of AI. His answer was interesting: “Know yourself better than they do,” is what he said. The bedrock essence of self-reliance. At some point that may not be enough, on it’s own, but it does seem like precisely the right starting point. He went on to explain that many people have no idea who they are at all, and this makes them ripe for exploitation through social media and other algorithms. Eventually that results in the bio-tech zombie phenomenon we see all around us.
Saddle Tramp says
The mantra is:
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
— George Orwell
Nothing new under the sun. Same parade with different uniforms…
I think there are many things about AI and the uses of algorithms that actually are new to human experience, which is a major part of Harari’s point, and why we should be paying very close attention. It would be a catastrophic mistake, I think, to slough it off with a cavalier suggestion that we’ve seen this play before. Because we haven’t. Not on this scale, and not in this way.
Saddle Tramp says
I take consideration to your point Craig, but with some disagreement. As to scale I consider that a relative issue somewhat. Mass communication at it’s increased state today is most definitely a factor. However there is the converse to that as well (for the good) in my opinion. Disinformation is not a new phenomenon, nor is divisiveness or outright oppression. You have to do a lot of sifting, but more is available then ever before if you have a willingness to do so. I can’t speak for laziness and ignorance or blindness. Hell, Herod The Great ordered all two year old males and younger to be killed in The Massaccre Of The Innocents. If you are talking of the numbers of people involved (worldwide) and the sheer numbers affected I understand your point. The world as a whole throughout history has been oppressive with the more uneducated and in servile position. The question remains are we on the verge of a cataclysmic and apocalyptic final confrontation with (choose the enemy) to end it all, or just another seismic and tetonic shift of powers and order. I still hold out that it’s the same old archenemies in different disguises with different weapons but with the same agenda. However, for some Seven Deadly Sins is just not enough…
Thanks for your reply Craig.
Saddle Tramp says
Gosh darn!
Where was Big Brother when I needed him:
Massacre not Massaccre
Tectonic not Tetonic
Maybe the Tetons will come down too, but I hope the hell not.
Just to be sure Craig, you are speaking to some highly concerning issues. I do not dismiss that. It’s the same battle as with sticks and stones that now requires upping the game and tactics. Are we outnumbered? That depends on one’s personal view of life, I would have to assume. One individual snuffed out or manipulated is one too many. Look at the man of Stone who admits in front of God and everybody that he was a master of the dark arts and not for the good of you or me. What more do we need to know? You must measure the world by degrees or you end up possibly a hopelessly bitter and disenchanted waste of space. Keeping my ear close to the ground…
lane batot says
Wow. Great but terrifying post. Kinda ironic that you used this kind of media to discuss the dangers of this kind of media, what? But just like the injuns that acquired Euro technology but adapted them to their culture–hang a feather or a bear claw on yer computer to remind yerself what you REALLY are! But as mentioned in the above–SO MANY people nowadays have no real individual identities–their whole lives are made up of PRETEND–pretending to feel this, pretending to believe that, but never really knowing WHAT or WHO they actually are–bombarded CONSTANTLY by artificial media of some sort–“Bio-Technological Zombies” is a sadly accurate term! No wonder we have so many sociopaths and psychopaths anymore. There IS a remedy for it, if only people would realize and utilize it–REAL NATURE. Do you think ANY other animal spends a second worrying about their worth to others or society? They just ARE, and there is never any doubt or confusion about it! Marvelous examples they are, to associate with! No doubts, though, that stupid human technology can interfere with their life(like a jaguar needing to head North to find new hunting grounds, but finding an immense, inexplicable wall blocking his way), but they still remain true to their natures–even if they must adapt to human madness to survive. Surrounding yourself–at least occasionally!– with such examples–Nature and her creatures, and LEAVE BEHIND all those artificial distractions and learn to THINK YER OWN THOUGHTS, is the remedy for us all! I have been VERY fortunate, to have never strayed far from such biological origins and influences–and continue to live such a life-way. But is sad and frustrating to see the overly domesticated, high-tech dependent masses that have no idea there is a remedy, or that they even have a problem! You can lead a horse to water.….
lane batot says
…And another perspective on the smirking youth vs. old injun fiasco–yes, I too, alas, was temporarily duped by that media manipulated scenario(at least I DID ask myself repeatedly, “is this real?”). A GOOD LESSON to always be careful before you make knee-jerk assumptions about ANYTHING. EVER. But of course political manipulation has ALWAYS been a part of human/primate history–we just have different(extremely effective!) tools these days to implement it! Even so, to Anthropologically dissect that little incident and derive SOMETHING positive from it–how many years ago would the old injun have been viewed as the disrupter? Not very many–certainly in my lifetime when ethnic groups were finally beginning to try and assert their rights in modern American society back in the 1960’s. So how wonderful, actually, that so many were outraged and ready to defend the Native American’s ethnic rights against mainstream society!(contrived though it might have been.…). Such a disconnected thought comes from thinking one’s own thoughts while out in the woods, far from any media contraptions and influences.….
In all fairness, as a mirror of our republic, I don’t find anything wonderful about the episode. From any angle.
Saddle Tramp says
To sum it up philosophically:
Bellum omnium contra omnes (the war of all against all).
Another option would be a prayer to the outlaw aspect of Odin.
Odin was a Tramp too…
Good luck!
RLS says
Excellent piece, Craig, thank you!
Key elements are: being an OBSERVER without becoming embroiled; and individual responsibility is intrinsic in the concept of freedom to choose. How do you choose? Therein lies great power and strength leading to a very important paradigm shift for this beautiful planet.
Thanks, Ruth. The larger point of AI is that it eliminates the freedom to choose. In most cases without the observer even realizing it. Which is precisely why it is so dangerous.
Saddle Tramp says
Lane…
Yes, I think we can all agree that it is very complicated especially when it comes to implementation. Agree some disagree some. That should be the basis of a plural society. The “Don’t Tread On Me” outlook is also problematic. What are the acceptable norms? It appears to my dismay as well that much is being shattered irresponsibly. Someone mentioned not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. That has always been a guiding principle for me. Of course whose “baby” and whose “dirty water” is the battleground. You can only water down whiskey so much. I am well aware of that.
By the way Lane, I did make it to The Bowers Musuem for the discussion of SAVAGE HARVEST. It took place adjacent to a Asmat Tribe Bisj Pole. The Asmat Tribe is a male dominated tribe. The top of the Bisj Pole has a male with a very exaggerated phallus. This is part of the HEADHUNTERS AND SPIRITS exhibit. Both fascinating and eerily unsettling. Dr. Keller president of the museum made an impromptu visit and joined in and thankfully so, or it would have been much less worthwhile without his elucidation. The question regarded whether or not Michael Rockefeller (son of Nelson) was a victim cannibalism. It remains a controversy still, but it seems very compelling that he was. There is no smoking gun. Dr. Peter Keller who is himself no stranger to controversy over acquisition practices which he survived had several theories. By the way he did receive an Explorers Club Award and spent his honeymoon going up the river among the Asmat Tribe years ago and has been back several times. He mentioned that homosexuality was prevalent among the Asmat Tribe. Where does all of this originate? This tribe was still isolated from the world 15 years after the atom bombs were dropped in Japan. My point regarding all of this is it is a very strange world with many anomalies. The truth is irreducible. Everyone to their own tastes if you will as long as you are not throwing me in your pot. The most compelling theory is that Michael Rockefeller did make it to shore and was captured and eaten as a revenge killing for the five tribe members shot and killed by the Dutch. The Bisj Pole is part of that ritual and after revenge is complete they discard the Bisj Pole in the forest to rot. My lingering question is do we always want to emulate the past or should we remain in flux and open to new viewpoints. Some like only ketchup and some like mustard. As long as it is not a condiment used on me go with your own tastes.
Some say the only law is there is none. Others (like the Robber Barons) said anything that ain’t nailed down is mine, and if I can pry it loose, it ain’t nailed down!! Civilization or cannibalism?
Bon appetit…
Saddle Tramp says
Matthew,
Just watched a segment about microchipping on the PBS NEWSHOUR last night. It brings out some other aspects to it that may be of interest. Just to make clear I have no inclination, desire or interest in getting chipped in that manner. We already are to a great degree anyway if you get right down to it. The price of admission. I know this is not a fair comparison, but for some any intrusion is an affront such as being required to have a social security cards or any other means of the government tracking you by the old cruder methods. Hell, I tried to get the State Farm Insurance mobile app for my phone and I could not pass the security test until after several attempts. It knew more about me than I knew myself. All public records information, but things like what car make and model I bought on what date 40 years ago or more. Law enforcement has used this kind of stuff forever, but now it is much, much faster and expanded. We are at the mercy and without a good lawyer you can be screwed. My youngest son who frequently travels the world for business describes the Scandinavian countries as cleansed societies. The U.S. surprises many foreign visitors with the extreme poverty it sees with the contrast of extreme wealth. We are a very mixed country image wise. I will also give you the current state of the trucking industry as one who left the corporate world to take to the open road at 50 years old. My earnings were cut more than half and that was when trucking was still good. It was also the last vestiges of the golden era of trucking in respect to freedom of the road. I ran all 48 states and Canada. It has been a 15 year run. A lot has changed. It went from paper logs to electronic logging (optional) to full onboard recording with gps tracking (optional) to the newest Federal law requiring electronic logs. This does not even include the HOS (hours of service) reegulations. More and more draconian measures and restrictions compared to the good old (and for some) outlaw days. The old guys are really pissed about someone telling them how much money they can make as being hindered by all of the new restrictions. The 55 mph states are considered to be minimum wage states by truckers. Time is money. This is a livelihood and not a recreation. Now many major trucking companies also install cameras watching and recording both the driver and the outside of the trucks in a continuous running loop. Everything operates through the Qualcomm (major mfg of OBR’s) GPS onboard recorder and electronic log. There are hundreds of tattletales in the system. This is just a few examples. They have taken both the freedom and money out of trucking. I am glad I got to take advantage in the earlier days. I made it a paid vacation as much as I could. Now it’s meat in the seat and steering wheel holders. The trucking industry had a bad enough reputation as it was but now it has really gone to hell. I hated to even go into the truck stops (or Travel Centers) as they are called now. Only a few independent truck stops even still exist. I do not see it reversing course but only getting more so. Freedom means different things to different people. The laws crossed me many many times. If I did not adhere to the new Federal or State regulations I was immediately a lawbreaker. The HOS (hours of service) we’re going to be even worse a few years back but got overruled. The reason most all truck stops are stuffed to overfull every night now is the newly required electronic logs. They can’t build new truck stops fast enough to accommodate the parking. It’s miserable out there. I ran all hours, all days, all weather and all over. Water to water and border to border. Glad I got it when I did…
Saddle Tramp says
Sorry. Forgot include the link to the PBS NEWSHOUR. Go to 34:50 for the beginning of the microchipping segment. For some it is truly welcome, but judge for yourself.
https://youtu.be/CU5_sboUcVQ
Jim says
Great post. Four times I tried to sit down and read this post in its entirety, wanting to digest and ponder it fully. Three times I was interrupted with some crisis. Still thankfully by a biological unit in my house. There’s a lot of meat on these bones and you’ve laid out a lot to think about. Thank you.
Fortunately by waiting I’ve had the opportunity to read the additional comments by other readers. It made the experience that much more fulfilling. I’d say it was one of your best discussions on capturing the current human condition.
I would add one thought that comes to mind while thinking about the ultra high technology being implanted in our lives. All of this operates on the edge of a razor. All payroll computers, medical computers and the like depend upon if the power grid staying reliable, hopefully that Nikkei won’t crash or air traffic can be reliably managed.
Humans are at their core a tribal and ignorant lot. Evidenced by the other 80% of the world. As soon as enough people get angry and desperate they can decide to mount up with their clubs and rakes and try to break things. The guy standing over you with a big club has a lot more free agency at that point than anyone would like to admit.
We are one or two nuclear airbursts away from electronic cataclysm. Perhaps a tectonic shattering earthquake coupled with a pair of tsunami‘s would return many to subsistence farming. I know my paychecks come in the form of 0/1s.
Not that I think there’s some apocalyptic end to humanity. But we build our computer based information societies essentially on a house of cards praying that there isn’t a strong breeze.
I’m sure humanity will come up with some other way to resurrect it. Or it could be another 50 years before everything is back to normal. But my point is there’s always something incredibly stupid that humans are capable of just when those bright thinkers think they figured us all out.
Thank you!!
lane batot says
Subsistence farming? Not moi! My green thumb fell off a long time ago–hunter-gatherer or nomadic pastoralist for me!
Ugly Hombre says
I call it the “electronic opium epidemic”– its much to late to stop it or control it, and everyone is fooking hooked*..
In the DOD, it happened so fast- (the turnover from paper to cyber ) It became a giant FUBAR situation- no one knew how to control it or use it safe and correct, and serious bad things happened. EG the massive and stunning OPM hack. and the many other deadly serious breaches of classified information that happened during the last 20 years. Those events- will return- and hurt us bad if we get in a war with a nation that can reach out and touch us-
Real bad…
Now its just a push of a button and classified info is sent into the cyber void– yes, there are controls but its too damn ez to send it out, electronic copy it- and beach the fire walls and steal it.
And someday.… some bad actors will turn our computers off and kick the shit out of us while we are dead in the water. The computers go down that’s it- incoming..
I hope the brass hats have a plan for such a nightmare but from what I’ve seen odds a’int good.
In the old days, paper, or film classified info was held tight and the ways it was held- and controlled, made it very hard for people without a need to know to get to it. At first there was a paper back up to all records- but that faded to much trouble for the brass and those days are long gone. A EMP attack could fry everything electronic. Three ring land line stand by was the rule If the threat levels went up. One EMP attack today- we are toast. We may not be able to recover.
Nowadays troops walk around the bases with their pie holes deep in their phones like gaggles of government issue GI zombie geese, dead to their surroundings. In the prehistoric days, a small back pack “did not present a military appearance” and could get you braced, Marine NCO’s loped around Cubic and jacked you up for chin fuzz or a hippy looking wardrobe on the weekends. One of the benifits of being long in the tooth is that you can do goofy stuff. One froggy day.
” Hey Airman! What are you doing walking around with your beak in that pansie phone! GD it! did you ever hear of situational awareness!? What if I was a fooking Russian and I jumped out of the bushes with a empty vodka bottle and beat your Az with it!?”.
A dazzeled, startled, wierd stare like a Igorot had just appeared out of the boondock with a pig sticker before his eyes- appeared on the kids face… a good sport he could take a joke- lol
Its pretty bad though- I am not kidding, if you have your face in your phone walking down the street as a civilian you look dense- if your in uniform doing it it looks uber stupid. And you might get run over by a beer truck.
In civilian life every thing is in the GD computer and the fooking computer never works- every thing is on line and no one picks up the phone anymore, instead you get a phone tree to hell ‑that never ends. Most places might as well not have GD phones.
Its a type of cyber slavery- and it will get worse. Medical, finance, legal if you are not computer literate in daily biz.- its difficult, if you resist it- our go full metal retro you won’t get chit done and are in the new outcast class of society.
I try to stay out of the matrix- pay with silver don’t do social media etc but if you use the computer- the big tech bastards have your number. And what is happening in China now with the near total control of their citizens via tech.– will come here. And sooner- not later.
If you are half a century old or less, you will see it.
*Me too I am here in the matrix typing up ORF rants.
lol
In our rush toward “the internet of everything” we seem to be whistling past the graveyard of vulnerability. When a massively complex system that operates everything from our cars to our refrigerators to everything we do for a living goes down, what then? What’s the fallback position?
Rick Schwertfeger says
I use my computer daily for many things. Banking on line, paying many bills on line. Communicating with family and friends on line, etc., etc. I’m reasonably well-informed about things cyber. I do utilize an online backup provider. But if/when the system goes down, I am not aware that the folks who operate these systems have a fallback position. Perhaps they do, and keep it under raps for security purposes. But as far as I know, we’ll be shit out of luck.
You raise great points here. We don’t hear much about fall back positions or secure data storage, and in the event of an EMP event it wouldn’t even matter. It reminded me of Wendy’s grandfather, who did well for himself as a citrus farmer in what used to be lovely southern California. He kept large amounts of cash the old fashioned way: under the mattress. But my favorite technique was what he called his “frozen assets”, bread bags stuffed with cash he kept in the freezer. He may have been on to something. But, of course, the Great Depression survivors had an entirely different comfort level with various institutions because they knew exactly what happens when they fail.
Saddle Tramp says
Jim,
Back in the early 1980’s we leased cold storage space for a distribution center in what we called “The Caves” over in Kansas City, Kansas on Holliday Drive in what is a huge underground network of storage warehouses. Missouri has them too. They are the by-product of mining for limestone. At the time the one we were in was the largest warehouse under one roof (albeit overburden) in the world and was owned by Beatrice Foods at the time. You could get 100 rail cars inside. Safeway Frozen Foods Terminal was 4 miles back in on the Portal B side that we were in as well. I remember when being giving the tour of the whole place on a golf cart when evaluating it we went past the VITAL STATISTICS STORAGE and a surplus GOVERNMENT CHEESE STORAGE facility. At one time the caves were considered for nuclear fallout facilities as well. I can remember my brothers and friends discovering an old abandoned mine in Missouri that had piles of huge tins of saltine crackers strewn about and left behind. The craziness we pursue due to Cold War, Hot War and mass hysteria knows no limit below ground or above ground (and space and oceans too). The Trident if you will. Either with paper or electrons they still got ya by the shorthairs. The revolution will not be televised. Another thing at the time in the caves was that they were still mining back in the caves and started blasting around 4 in the afternoon. The doors would shake. One time a part of the old mine collapsed and a high velocity wind with lime dust blew through the caves when I was there. Large chunks would break loose from the ceiling on occasion. The walls and ceilings in the freezers were all rock. Once a freezer always a freezer. If not the ceilings would collapse if allowed to thaw. Life underground. The ambient temperature was like 58 degrees in the cave proper which was the big advantage. You got used to it…
Padre says
Thanks for this piece and the many thoughts it provoked. As a member of that strange little bridge generation between Gen X and the Millennials, I find myself being pulled along with the prevailing cultural winds (e.g. I hardly ever carry cash.), while at the same time wondering just where in the hell we’re going. My social media presence is a concession to my role as a pastor who needs to connect with people where they’re spending their time, but whenever I venture on there I end up being disgusted by how superficial the wasteland is.
I was most intrigued by this paragraph:
“I was thinking of human beings as free-agents when I wrote that, and I think there is some truth in it, but what I wasn’t considering was the notion that our 18th century ideas about free-will, and human free-agency, are increasingly inadequate to address the realities of 21st century life on earth. What I think I’ve discovered since writing that piece is that many of the people who are involved in these Freak-Out dramas have been hacked. They are no longer free-agents. They actually have no recognizable free-will whatsoever. They are bio-technical zombies.”
While I agree that the relevance of traditional religions is indeed cratering in many respects (and largely through our own apathy and preoccupation with matters of seconday importance.) this is one area where we may have some answers. The various streams of Christianity that trace their thought back to St. Augustine have long argued that we are not the free agents that we claim to be, but are instead both inclined towards self-interest and susceptible to hacking from spiritual entities both good and evil. So while not everyone may agree with the premises of Christianity, it does offer a plausible model of human nature that fits the craziness we’re seeing all around us.
A very popular book in traditional Christian circles over the past couple of years is Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option”. His thesis is that the world we’re headed into appears to be increasingly hostile towards and incompatible with classical, orthodox Christianity, whether of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant streams, and the Church in America has erred by trying to win a culture war through elections and legislation that it was never meant to fight, let alone win. So the answer now is to focus on building intentional, sustainable communities (tribes?) that will provide some economic security for its members and especially focus on educating and raising up the next generation to keep the light burning. So while that’s an explicitly religious proposition, it sure sounds a lot like what the RIR report is trying to do, and what all of us who are going to want to opt out of the Brave New World are going to have to do on some level. It’s hard to be an outlaw or an Indian alone.
There’s some ramblings for you. That’s what happens when you let just anyone wander up to sit by the fire. Preacher’s gonna preach! Keep up the good work guys!
Well done Padre. Glad to have you at the fire.
Jim says
One of the thoughts I held in my core when I moved to Maine was that I hoped my kids would believe they would not die in the cold, drown in the rain, start the room fire, fish their own dinner. We aren’t mountain people by any stretch. By even standards up here we are cityfolk. But trudging out is a ‑10 windchill to get the eggs before they freeze teachers just a tiny bit of resilience that I wanted my kids to have.
Southern California provided none of that. Although there are plenty of opportunities and there are plenty of people who can survive in extreme conditions, it had just become too perfect. My perfect house, in the perfect town, by the perfect beach, with the perfect school and the perfect temperature with an endless summer. Adversity is abhorrent in SoCal.
I helped my 15-year-old daughter muck out horse stalls yesterday. It was 0°. She didn’t wear gloves. She said they got in her way. Boo Ya!!!
You are winning. If it had been up to me the Figure 8 would be in a much more remote location, and likely entirely off-grid, and far more individually sustainable. But I intend to stay happily married and so it doesn’t look that way at all. But, we have managed to do fairly well with what we have in terms of providing for ourselves, and survivability in a sustained disaster — with accessibility to the better things in life. It’s about balance. You’ve done that very well I think, and some day your kids will carry that forward to the next generation.
Eric L. says
This will be the next topic of discussion at the family council fire. And passed on to my circle.
Glad I’m living where I do.
It may be the most important discussion you ever have. My daughter is about to graduate from college. She called last night and told me she was disconnecting her social media. Her decision arrived at independently. Made my entire year and its only February. Thanks for being here.
Eric L. says
Oh, I’ve had some important ones with my boys at deer camp. Which happens to be our last fall back. Homesteaded in 1871 and still in the family. The council fire is under one of the biggest Burr Oak trees I have ever seen. It’s a spiritual event when that fire burns. And thanks for what you guys do. Even if it scares me straight up, sometimes. I knew I should have led that counter technology revolution back in 84.
Love it, and thank you. The Council Fire is brilliant, and unquestionably important. Here’s to many more deer camps and council fires in your future 🙂
Ugly Hombre says
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/01/apple-apps-china-censorship/
Here is another example of big tech (Apple) assisting and working to help- a ruthless Communist Socialist government control and surveil its citizens.
https://applecensorship.com/
“In late 2017, Apple admitted to U.S. senators that it had removed from its app store in China more than 600 “virtual private network” apps that allow users to evade censorship and online spying. But the company never disclosed which specific apps it removed — nor did it reveal other services it had pulled from its app store at the behest of China’s authoritarian government.
In addition to the hundreds of VPN apps, Apple is currently preventing its users in China from downloading apps from news organizations, including the New York Times, Radio Free Asia, Tibetan News, and Voice of Tibet. It is also blocking censorship circumvention tools like Tor and Psiphon; Google’s search app and Google Earth; an app called Bitter Winter, which provides information about human rights and religious freedoms in China; and an app operated by the Central Tibetan Authority, which provides information about Tibetan human rights and social issues.”
Google Youtube is just as bad- hiding and spiking information and manipulating search results to promote a leftist view point while censoring and cloaking conservative Constitutional articles and stories.
They would have done the same thing in National Socialist Germany that they are doing in Communist China today.
And they will not hesitate to increase the intensity and up the ante in America when they get the chance.
You can count on it.
I don’t think there is any doubt that data collection and the manipulation of information will only get worse. Deepfakes are the latest scary twist. What remains for us to figure out what we are going to do about it as individuals and communities. There is also very little doubt in my mind that the US government will eventually harness that power to its own ends — if they aren’t already. I don’t know exactly what that is going to look like, and the freedom of the press remains strong, but in our case the hyper-partisan press is part of the problem. So the effective difference is slim. Keep your powder dry.
Ugly Hombre says
Agree- will do.
It’s amazing to me to see it happening as a geriatric old devil.
. Damn strange that people put up with it, I guess its the frog in the soup pan tactic, if the attacks on the 1st and the 2nd along with the general Orwellian big brother snooping had happened when the WWII generation was young- there might have been push back already.
Perhaps Congress does not take action on it because they are in on it?- all deep states want total control, or are they just frogs to? Suckerman and the rest of them lie and/ or act sorry so there is no correction and no penalty.
I know a 80 some year old SAA master gunsmith who calls computers “Infernal machines” I think he is right.
And we invited them into our homes.
Ugly Frog sends..
lol