Citadelization and Artificial Intelligence
When the last great technological revolution founded upon electricity and oil became widespread it completely changed our entire economic, social and political structures. If we add in Darwin, Nietzsche and modern science we can say religion was completely brought into question also. The disturbance that fell upon humanity 150 years ago was cataclysmic when comparing before and after. The computer and AI revolution will be at least as transformative.
Our current economic, social, political and religious structures are completely inadequate to harmonize these massive disturbances. At least 150 years ago the basic necessities of life, food, water and shelter were radically decentralized. A family could literally thrive on a few acres of farmland with their own garden, their own well, their own eggs, their own milk cow and their own plow horse. It was a lot of physical labor, but it was a citadel that could buffer and adapt to the radical changes in labor efficiency.
Finally, after the huge commodity boom caused by World War I and then the Spanish Flu wiped out millions, the prices for commodities collapsed years before the 1929 collapse of the stock market. Agricultural productivity from industrialization was perfected to meet the needs of the war laid carnage upon the basic structure of life like the invention of the machine gun to replace the musket made warfare an irresolvable open wound upon all prior honor and decency for decades.
These decades of farm depression, financial collapse and another World War ushered in political and social revolutions of both left and right totalitarianisms that swallowed up every previous economic and religious structure. All because electricity and oil introduced these new forms of concentrated and applied increases to physical labor efficiency. What will the computer and AI replacing human mental labor bring with it? And how can we deal with these radical changes when our entire livelihoods and basic necessities are so removed from our personal control?
We can already see where this is heading if we open our eyes. The most popular and growing religious worship is around the “end times” and the apocalypse. Th movie industry is focused upon making dystopian movies from blockbuster dystopian novels. Catastrophism is mainstream science now. Governments are practicing their skills at being able to radically restrict the speech and movement of people. The herd of humanity has already caught the scent of a coming stampede.
There is no way we could or should stop these changes coming from intelligent computers replacing mental labor upon which our world is built any more than we could stop electricity and oil replacing physical labor. The decades of upheaval finally brought the invention of nuclear bombs that, so far, have prevented another world war. Humanity will see a new day dawn with new, unimaginable fruits of our suffering through radical change. Humanity will survive, then thrive just like we did the last time.
But we start this next great advancement with every economic, social, political and religious structure a paper edifice that will either burn or collapse. Like I stated, humanity is a great bet to come through this transition even closer to “Heaven on Earth”. But if you are betting your own life or that of your family on the system we currently exist in being sustained then you are a blind fool.
It is time to choose whether you want to be a physical or a spiritual being. Some humans are gravitating to Earth to remain wet and green. While some humans are desiccating their bodies and stuffing their minds with information like a seed coming to maturity.…and separation from the body. No judgment whatever you choose, but choose you must. As an individual, because this is a personal and soul choice.
If you are ready to ride the wave made from the coming storm then I highly recommend you become as resilient and as reconciled as possible, inside and out. Explore your life. Are you still dependent upon the health care system? Are you still completely dependent upon the electrical grid? The food distribution system?
It is time to act now. Not to destroy your life and livelihood. Not to scare your children or your neighbors. But to be wise with your limited time and resources. When you lift your head up to see the coming threats, do not panic and run. That is a self-reinforcing hysteria.
Take a deep breath, choose to live and ask what is killing you? Or better, what are you killing yourself with? Find your core. Who are you? Then you can find your tribe.
Rings around your core. Citadelization is life's strategy to remain alive.