Save Us! Unite Us! (The Savior Draws Near?)

This is, as you know, a rather crazy time. It is a time, if you will, of mass COVIDITY. A virus has spread like panic, one dressed in pandemic. Contrary to the great preoccupation with presenting one's authentic and true self, this time demands one repress that ambition by obeying the requirement that masks, long thought false, be donned in public.

And anxiety is the new normal.

What do we know about the anxious?

If there is one thing that links all anxious minds it is the quiet plea, or vociferous cry, for security. One could march through history and conclude that every human effort is an attempt to, well, secure security; to ensure one is safe and sound in a place where survival is guaranteed. Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene comes to mind, suggestive as it is of a primal drive to protect the Self from extinction. It should be accepted that all political activism is motivated by a need to palliate anxiety through the legislation of security.

Surely this is a time when the systems we have trusted have not entirely proven themselves suitably fit to protect us. Undeniably those who have, perchance, placed their trust in Something outside the immanence that seems to threaten our bodies at this moment are not necessarily tempted to panic, to run to some authority or system to save them. They have God, faith, prayer; they feel themselves protected and blessed by an Advocate, one with a plan, a strategy: they sense Someone outside of all of this Who is in control. But there are likely countless others not so lucky. While theists trusting in God may very well be deluding themselves with a false confidence, as some might suggest, this hardly matters, because theists are not necessarily given to an anxiety that leadeth them into temptation. But to those outside the protections faith provides, the temptation seems entirely normal, being all that they have to choose in the matter at hand.

What is that temptation? It is the temptation to demand, to expect; to petition and supplicate; even to pray to some earth-bound man-made leader, set of leaders, or System to deliver the anxious from their anxiety. There must be a savior of sorts, a great Intervention. At the very least, there must be a System that can protect, restore and resurrect us; a System that can safely and securely get us back on our feet.

Why am I writing this now, after years away from this blog? Because the temptation that is upon us is great, real; it is a grave threat to all that is free, human.

THE SYSTEM THAT SAVES

I am not suggesting a conspiracy. I am not, for certain, presenting a case that COVID-19 was spread intentionally. I am not even suggesting that what is upon us -- this temptation to accept any kind of solution that saves us -- is imminent. But what I am suggesting is that one can see how easily such a change can take place. For surely we now see, for example, how germ warfare may seem wildly interesting. Sundry enemies of humanity, or simply the so-called West, now see how easily a virus can bring down nations. You want revolution? Look at germs as a proper and effective tool.

But enough with the vagueness of my position, my prognostication. Let me be specific: the world is nearly ready, if not entirely so, for a totalitarian system that is utterly benign, even benevolent; one that is non-partisan or even multi-partisan: it is the System of Artificial Intelligence.

The Chinese Communists, as you know, have been utterly fascinated by the power of a platform like Google; Google developers even helped China develop its own platform to better monitor, shape, organize, and yes, protect, in a complete and total way, the "people of the party." Such a System of AI is entirely reasonable within communism; it is a broad, and seemingly fair, unifying force. It is a system that binds. It is a system that cares.

It is a System that protects.

Let's look right now at some facts that are obvious as individuals "quarantine" for the sake of the Whole. Newspapers are about to die, with readers getting their news through the System of AI. Don't you see how newspapers, hard copies made of paper, carry germs? Besides, within the System, newspapers can be, I don't know, more fully vetted, controlled; you know, to protect us and keep us secure from "fake news." Bookstores are struggling; who wants germ-carrying books? Libraries have asked us not to return books we've borrowed because of the public health threat they pose. Why have books that carry such germs, and wouldn't you rather have online works that are open to all, perhaps even open to the benign and omniscient editor that is the System?

Note how much we've already embraced the System. Education is happening in the System. Type into your search bar the term Google and you'll see Google Classroom pop up as a second choice. Tele-commuting, tele-meetings, tele-medicine, tele-law (yes, court proceedings through the System) are becoming rudimentary, normal. The System is upon us, keeping us safe.

Money, you know, cash? Credit cards? Why keep them? They are filthy, rife with plague. Did not Bill Gates himself, one of the great architects of the System, recently recommend the abolition of cash and credit cards? Has he not commended to us the benefits of an embedded microchip? Surely this System is thoughtful, kind, clean. Surely it will keep us safe from germs, and even safe from identity thieves. Who would not want that? Nothing protects like the System! The System is so kind and sanitary.

And what threat is deemed by many (who likely already adore the System) to be the biggest threat to human health on the planet? That's right: climate change. Just note how the System protects our health by protecting the planet! Surely our carbon footprint can be drastically reduced! Think now of all the empty school buildings and campuses that don't need to be illuminated, cooled, or heated. Think about all the buses sitting haplessly dormant. Think about the cars that are not moving, the trains that have stopped rolling, the jets that are no longer jetting. How clean and safe this all can be with the System! What, do you think reasonable people would oppose this Great Security?

And think of it as a form of government. Right now we have congressional members in the US who would like to have remote voting, so they need not come to Washington DC to convene; to vote. How is that not better than practices of the past; now representatives can vote via the System! Why go to Washington at all? And that's only part of it: the System could just represent everyone on the planet! It's nearly omniscient; it will likely become so, at least in an entirely mundane, immanent way. Surely it can lead us; protect our rights; create just laws and rules and regulations with the WHOLE PLANET in mind (so to speak). Surely the System can be our government, saving us from campaigns and elections, parties and platforms. Surely then we can be united, bringing a great end to partisan politics. How cool and glorious is that -- to have a System that need not be elected?

Heck, through our phones, or Bill Gates' microchip, we can even have the System monitor our health, keeping us safe and secure, with apps that keep us from the unclean and with sensors that call 911 when we collapse at home. Who would not want that?

And let us not forget the angels of the System itself, the satellites, drones, and robots that will watch over us, serving us, saving us. Heck, we even already pray to the System, with petitions and supplications. We no longer need ask God for answers, we merely need to type our requests into the System's search bar or, if we are truly devout, merely say the prayer in the right name: "Alexa, who was Jesus and why would anyone pray in His Name?"

WHAT AI ULTIMATELY MEANS, NO?

The late-Marshall McLuhan, the visionary of the 1950s and 60s, said at the dawn of the electronic media age that a "global village" like what we see now means "the end of nature." I will not explore this fully -- who could? -- but McLuhan at least meant that the normal physical realities of the world, what we consider the natural limits, have been made subject to mankind; that humanity has subdued the thorns and thistles and has escaped into a new world, a new garden, that unites us differently than Nature itself would allow.

However, if I am an evolutionist, believing there is no God but chance; that all organisms, even humans, evolve from so-called lower forms to so-called higher forms, then I would go one step further than McLuhan: the System stops human evolution. Perhaps one example will suffice to prove my point. Should my neighbor tell me his automobile is broken and he wishes he could fix it, I will likely tell him that he ought to "Google it" or "YouTube it." This advice seems sound enough; it is surely kind of me to tell him where he will find answers. But should he follow my advice he will be find an answer to his query that is a singular answer; he will imitate what he is told, and he will repeat the steps. But if, like myriad souls before him who could not "Google it," he had merely tried to fix the car on his own, really tried, he may not only have fixed it but found an EVEN BETTER WAY to fix it than what he was shown on Google or YouTube. In short, he, and humanity with him, would have evolved. As it stands now, we are even externalizing our memories by uploading them to the System via Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and "The Cloud." This, all day long via our phones that ping back to the System, is how we are "evolving," by yielding what has traditionally defined our humanity -- the biological and physical and the limits these possess -- to what is animated (sort of) by a binary logic encoded in machinery.

But in the global village, particularly that village we commonly call communism, evolution and the innovation evolution demands come to a near if not total stop. In short, we end nature. We end what it means to be human. We have a System that answers for us.

Oh, yes, we will still have people uploading new insights to the System; the System will even already have likely purloined them for itself. After all, it is for the benefit of All that the System takes everything into itself. The System is not, nor can it be, about the individual, but the collective. Besides, it's likely the individual's fault so many have been infected by COVID-19, or by the other viruses that will surely come our way. And perhaps, at least to the System, the individual's innovation, his or her claim to having created something, is a profound virus of a different sort, with individual pride elevating itself above the communal need. Remember, you have heard this elsewhere: You did not build that.

So at this time of great anxiety, note the language, the reportage; watch the headlines. You will see and hear things about our aching need for a savior, an intervention; a protector and guide; a System of justice, health, fairness, equity, security. (Years ago in this very blog I called this impulse Hosanna Politics, entirely because Hosanna means "save us.") Who among us dares not want the System to heal us, our planet, and unite us finally over our great divides?

You will also hear arguments for the abolition of family, private property, private associations, capitalism, and even Christianity, as it is blamed for family, privacy, and capitalism.

The theists, those allegedly gross individualists with their selfish faith in God, may very well call the System that finally unites us The Beast. The highest creation of humanity. A new Adam, placed in a new Garden.

The theists, now that I think about it, may very well be anxious -- for entirely different reasons.

©Contratimes/2020