What steers your social ethics? What guides your spending habits? What determines if you're healthy enough to go to work today?
If I'd asked those kind of questions just a couple of decades ago, the answer would have been something along the lines of "I am captain of my own soul", but there's been a radical shift since then.
I can recall people telling me prior to 2020 how 'weird' it was to talk about the notion of people "chipping" themselves to monitor their general health and provide a current database of their related records, but this year will see growing numbers of people in parts of Europe doing just that, as was witnessed recently amongst the Swiss.
Biometrics are rapidly engulfing the conventional side of life, and we came very close in the recent pandemic to this becoming 'the norm' for everything - from shopping (facial recognition on check outs) to attending the workplace (track and trace). Technocracy has truly embraced us, whether we like it or not, and there's no escaping the enormous social impact that is having, and much of it is highly addictive and soberingly deadly.
Many want to 'stop the machine' and re-set what's happened, but the inexorable pace of A I and algorithmic development is relentless. In just the time you take to read this piece, further implementation of this juggernaut will mean even more of the new global "reality" will be opening 24/7 in the virtual sphere, overseen by the Neuromancer's of our day.
The hellish 'ghost' in all of this is how this web is enslaving and draining the world of its colour, not because it's incapable of showing us wonder, but because that display is always barbed with a hook of drawing from the soul, draining us into 'the machine' until there is no true (external) identity that remains.
The problem is that we are autonomous beings, needing space and privacy - something we have been fooled into thinking we can gain virtually 'on-line', when we cannot. The genuine manner of this necessity is invaluable - it's the only way we can be renewed to handle the social dimension. Additionally, genuine social engagement must by derived from real and meaningful time spent with actual people - that's one key lesson we must take from the last few years - and yet, we now live in a society more splintered than ever.
The reality is like so many troubling issues of modern life, real discussion and examination of what's happened - and what is vital in the light of this - is evaded by those in power, and most of the institutions which should take up this requirement, especially the church, have elected to avoid any discussion beyond the 'set text' by the powers that be, and this will palpably cripple their validity in the times ahead.
The 'voices' of the moment have proven to be those on the brunt of the social changes recent events have fostered, having to shout much louder than normal as most of their reasonable requests have been muted, 'fact-checked' (expelled) or simply entirely silenced in the majority of mainstream media.
This is the new realm of 'technology ethics' - a place where the human voice is often the most disrespected and tagged as almost irrelevant.
One thing is clear - that voice, especially in regards to meaningful social inter-action, is going to become little more than a dying background sound as the virtualisation process expands. We are going to have to fight hard just to gain a hearing in a manner that counts.
The 'landscape' of this new realm evidenced of late is very troubling. The majority of people not only conformed to every requirement without question, but were highly content to remain there, and desire this continue, even as their vital social freedoms and rights were taken away. This presents a chilling truth of just how deeply the 'new' social order has cut into mens souls, and how dependent the culture has become upon this single source for its sustained 'input'.
The warnings of where this was going were there - the very plans prior to 2020 warned to avoid the very place we've now reached - but 'the powers' just ploughed on regardless, and although there's now a measure of slowing in the aftermath, the overshadowing truth is that all the menace of what is coming is just over the next brow, and the voices are clear... bring this upon us.
What was once viewed as at least undesirable but generally as armageddon is now eagerly expected very soon - a utopia where the new state determines everything - what to say, watch, renounce, believe and hate. There will be no other law tolerated, because that would amount to troubling oneself to the 'pain' of making unsanctioned choices, and that cannot be permitted.
The social retreat from the realm of public space, coupled with the almost insatiable dependancy on artificial environments for 'living' will allow the vast majority to continue to presume that the hub of "life" is now predominantly virtual. Kitchens and spare rooms will become spaces where that manner of living continues to be focused, where we are 'wired' into something that is not us, but is continually conforming us to a new existence.
Our age is marked by this fundamental dilemma, which commenced before the first computers were marketed - we broke from our forefathers pattern of life, and the vast divisions from that have become our accepted lifestyles.
Machines have become chosen as our mentors, because we believe we are placing trust in something more capable, more wise than other people, but the reality is that these systems feed us what others, with their own agendas focused around our addiction, require us to believe to continue the illusion of our new autonomy.
We can only hope that amidst this burned culture, some will continue to push and reach outside 'the net' and find each other. That essential "knowing" is what we are actually made to do - spiritually and socially - so we can truly love and be loved. That recovery is crucial if we are to exist beyond the machine.
No comments:
Post a Comment