When Digital Gods Rule the Earth
Pop historian Yuval Noah Harari promises that if we eat the apple of high technology, we shall be as gods.
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Scientism is steadily replacing traditional religion as the basis for understanding the world and our place in it. A recent essay by Noelle Garnier at The National Pulse entitled “A New American Divinity” argues persuasively that the global pandemic catalyzed a mass conversion to that secular faith.
Over a single year, millions came to “believe the Science” without question. Garnier writes: “The COVID-19 outbreak raised the authority of medical scientists … to quasi-religious dimensions.” She concludes with three critical questions: “Who is doing the science? What are their aims for the future of mankind? And what expression will scientism find when COVID-19 recedes into the past?”
A ready answer is found in the work of Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, author of the 2017 best-seller Homo Deus: A Brief History of the Future. He certainly has the ear of Silicon Valley and the Davos crowd, if that has any bearing on civilization’s direction.
As Harari explores various possible worlds in which cybernetic humans use tech to elevate themselves to godhood given our current trajectory, he theorizes that a tiny technocratic elite will dominate the primitive masses. Furthermore, if artificial intelligence produces superior algorithms, computers will come to know people better than they can know themselves.
If Scientism is the new religion of science and technology, and Transhumanism is the path to apotheosis, then Harari’s “Dataism” is the sect that worships Big Data as the highest earthly power. Whether wielded by human owners or self-aware computers, this mystical information will be used to control the world.
In line with Garnier’s concept of a mass conversion, the 2020 global lockdown appears to be Dataism’s “Great Awakening.” Across the planet, governments, corporations, and universities forced their citizens and employees to move their lives online. Aside from the smartphone’s invention, no event in history has generated more useful data than the pandemic response.
According to Harari’s mythos, the various entities holding that data — from Google to the Chinese Communist Party — are poised to become an overt global priesthood.
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My father, in the 1970s, told me to 'stay off the radar'. He couldn't have imagined this...
Best advice ever. My sons think so too. He was referring to teachers, principals, coaches, etc. To stay humble, use moderation. Be neither the best or the worst. Leave people better than you found them, without drawing attention to yourself. Give to charity anonymously. I am thankful for our poverty, which prevented excess in vice and fostered intense Faith, Hope, Charity, via JMJ.