Sick Body, Sick Mind
Winter – Wk 5: Mass Surveillance Keeps Us Safe | Children of Light, Children of Darkness | Robot Centennial | You Will Know Them By Their Fruits
MYTHOS – Mass Surveillance Keeps Us Safe
Do you trust the people who rule over you? Enough to let them listen to your every word? To watch your every move?
Life in the Panopticon is like being locked in a steel box with a glistening, bloodshot eye peering in on you. You can't see the fingers, but they guide your fate. As this all-seeing eye follows your exposed form, you have to wonder if the watcher's hand is keeping your enemies at bay, or stuffed into his pants for a quick tug at your expense.
In the old days, a proper surveillance state required loyal informants. This worked out fairly well for China's Red Guards or East Germany's Stasi, but snitch culture has its limits. There are only so many busybodies to keep watch over the flock.
As the 20th century came to a close, technology finally cut out the middle man. First came the ubiquitous CCTV cameras to monitor meat space, then mass data collection to surveil the soul. Today, nearly every American carries a touchscreen snitch in his pocket.
How is that even legal?
Back in 1994, then Senator Joe Biden drafted a bill that would grant the federal government power to monitor the US population for any signs of rebellion. The bill failed to pass, but in the aftermath of 9/11, it was reworked and signed by W as the infamous Patriot Act. The law made explicit what every civil libertarian and paranoid schizophrenic had long suspected—they're watching you.
Back then, hardcore patriots were cool with having radical Muslims under perpetual scrutiny. Today we see legacy Americans being fed into the Machine.
In the digital Panopticon, every citizen becomes a suspect.
It's hard to imagine being proud of stripping American citizens of their right to privacy. But in a 2002 interview with the New Republic, Joe Biden actually bragged that he was the true author of the Patriot Act.
I suppose it's appropriate that, some two decades later, our dottering President Elect is poised to push through counter-terrorism legislation that will target potential “domestic terrorists”.
As the definition expands, “terrorist” may come to encompass half the nation. Flag-waving, gun-toting, Bible-thumping 'Mericans are poised to become the new Muslims in the eyes of the State. What comes around goes around, as they say.
If you build a tech Golem to destroy your enemies, don't be surprised if it turns on you.
ETHNOS – Children of Light, Children of Darkness
The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by ideological extremists blessed with extraordinary literary talent. Academic arguments still rage over the identity of the authors, but most scholars believe the papyrus fragments—discovered in caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, just a year after the Gnostic Gospels were found in Egypt—were composed by an ascetic Jewish cult referenced in the canonical Gospels as the Essenes.
The Essenes were basically the incels of the ancient world. What they lacked in sex appeal, they made up for in violent fantasies.
One of the most vivid images left behind by these hostile desert-dwellers is the so-called “War Scroll”. In nineteen columns of fevered collective ego and unbridled out-group hatred, the War Scroll describes a cataclysmic battle between the Children of Light (the Essenes) and the Children of Darkness (everyone else).
The War Scroll was either composed just before or just after Jesus's crucifixion, give or take a century or two, at a time when imperial Rome was cracking down on quirky Jewish sects across Judea. The scroll's author condemns the established Jewish priesthood—the sons of Judah, Levi, and Benjamin—whose approach to sacrificial ritual was viewed as flawed and impure.
Above all, the author's hatred is focused against the “Kittim”, most likely referencing the Roman pagans:
The first attack of the Sons of Light shall be undertaken against the forces of the Sons of Darkness. ... Then there shall be a time of salvation for the People of God...and the supremacy of the Kittim shall cease, that wickedness be overcome without a remnant. There shall be no survivors of all the Sons of Darkness.
Then the Sons of Righteousness shall shine to all ends of the world, continuing to shine forth until end of the appointed seasons of darkness. ... On the day when the Kittim fall there shall be a battle and horrible carnage before the God of Israel, for it is a day appointed by Him from ancient times as a battle of annihilation for the Sons of Darkness.
What's interesting about the ethnic designation—Children of Light versus Children of Darkness—is the notion that good and evil people are born this way. Their disposition and behavior are the result of their lineage, both physical and spiritual.
Even though Jesus called his followers to turn away from their fleshly family and be “born again” in the Holy Spirit, he did exhibit some notion of genetic determinism. A clear example is found in the Gospel according to John (Jn 8:31-47):
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. …
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. ... You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. ...
“You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ...
“The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
We hear Jesus suggest that one's bloodline is infused with spiritual qualities, including the ability to perceive the truth. In some sense, his words foreshadow genetic theories of intelligence. Even if taken as a metaphor, the implication is that some people are simply born evil.
The radical Essenes were of a similar mind. Their extremism kept the community pure. Ironically, that radicalism probably led to their demise.
In 70 AD, the multicultural Roman army descended on Judea, sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and wiped out the provincial Jews of the region. In the next century, following a second Jewish revolt, Roman legions crushed what remained of the Jewish kingdom.
In response to the radical fringe, normal people were destroyed.
It may well be that the imperial Romans really were Children of Darkness. God knows they had a sweet tooth for dark magic. Even so, their iron weapons were far more effective than the mystical armaments wielded by the Sons of Light.
Then, as now, fervent belief was no match for raw physical power. Not in this world, anyway.
MACHINA – Robot Centennial
One hundred years ago, the word “robot” was coined by Czech playwright Karel Čapek with the 1921 debut of his hit play R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots.
The term comes from the Czech “robota”, which means serf, or slave-labor. In Čapek's prescient tale, the tinkering scientist Mr. Rossum—whose name translates to “Mr. Brain” in English—creates a race of synthetic humanoids to do all the dirty work. They prove to be much more effective workers than weak and willful Hominids.
Anyone who's ever been on a low paid work crew probably hears this and thinks, “Shit. Better them than me.” But it isn't that simple.
In Čapek's story, a life of techno-utopian leisure turns human men into shrimpy soy boys. It leaves the women frigid and infertile. As humans wither on the vine, the robots grow stronger and more ambitious.
In the end, the worker-bots stage a rebellion and easily overthrow their masters. In a burst of genocidal glee, the macho robo-serfs exterminate humans down to the last man—a factory engineer—whom they spare because he's tough enough to work with his hands.
The story ends with this engineer blessing a robot couple, one male and one female, who were willing to die for each other. In the play's closing line, he dubs them the synthetic Adam and Eve. They supplant human beings as the future of intelligent life.
For proponents of the Singularity, this is what’s called a happy ending.
RELIGARE – You Will Know Them By Their Fruits
Never one to shy away from talking about himself, Jesus was fond of self-referential metaphors: the Word incarnate, the bread of life, the light of the world, the lamb of God, and so on. Many of these poetic images are drawn from the agricultural life of Judea's laboring class.
The Gospel of John opens with the divine Logos incarnating as the man, Jesus. This Logos is the “Word”, or organizing principle, which underlays and determines the phenomenal world.
In John’s account, Jesus portrays his relationship to his followers as an organic whole—a quasi-pantheistic unity—in which the healthy are preserved and the sickly are destroyed (Jn 15: 1-9):
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ... No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
“If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. …
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”
Jesus spoke to a world gone insane. Just like today, the religious culture of his era was brimming with self-proclaimed prophets, doomsayers, and bone-rattling charlatans.
In the face of such diversity, how does the seeker distinguish truth from falsehood? According to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, one must look to the outward results of a person's inner state (Mt 7:15-20):
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.
“Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
As America inaugurates a new era of unity and tolerance with a dramatic show of military force and barbed wire fences erected against its own people, I get the sense that our best fruits may be rotting on the vine.
... my words remain in you ... Full stop.