Ray Kurzweil - “director of engineering” at googol predicts singularity by 2045: “Singularity is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.” - Wikipedia. My mind balks at the stupidity of such an assertion. We humans have taken the paradise of a self-correcting ecosphere and plundered it to the extent there is serious doubt it will support life as we know it within the next hundred years. With few exceptions all of the promises made about industrialization by the ruling class have proven to be lies; how is it now that this latest promise of human salvation is anymore valid than those campaign promises of amerika’s current chief executive Mr. M.T. Suit himself¿ In our world today there are 8 men - 62 depending on the http:// pointer - who own as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion human beings, 2.7 billion of which live on less than $2 a day. Why are these arrogant pencil-neck-geeks not solving this obviously more pressing issue of human existence. Is it that they believe based on happenstance, wherewithal and mathematical capacity that the chimera of their left-brain perception has deluded them into believing themselves, like Icarus, in command of wings; or is it more akin to C.G. Jung´s shadow principle and their infinite hubris is just casting the shadow of Einstein’s observation about infinite human stupidity¿
My sense is this intellectual flailing resembles more the behavior of a flapping crane firmly gripped by the alligator - humanity being the hapless crane and the inexorable physics of ecological degradation being the alligator. These digital wizards who stumbled onto the means to lift the veil of misunderstanding brought about by the historical lack of communication between distant cultures rather than augment, maximize and open all channels between people have been guided by what Leonard Cohen described as the “venal chart.” This business model is so transparent my gifted nephew while still in high school was salivating with visions of sugar plum fairies in his eyes as he described the theory of “monetizing” keystrokes. My limited training with computers includes the acronym Garbage In; Garbage Out (GIGO) a euphemism which seems to have disappeared from the public lexicon in the superheated virtual economy, a marketplace which oddly resembles the fable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” even more than ‘ole M.T. Suit himself. A great sadness for me within this sad existence is the near certain conviction that amongst those 2.7 billion human beings living on $2 a day there is a collective brilliance which far outstrips any avatar the digital wizards of oz could ever conjure given unlimited funds; unlimited time; and unlimited computing power.
The infinite growth paradigm upon which the ruling class bases its wanton destruction of our planetary commons is a hoax reflecting the same juvenile penis envy manifested in Moore’s (Postulate) Law about computing power doubling (on average) every two years. What good is such hubris without a purpose¿ To date the only tangible evidence is the ability of a smaller and smaller segment of the population to fleece greater wealth from more people simultaneously convincing said people they are getting a good deal. This deception is not the fault of those unfortunate few born into favored positions, for they do not possess the internal moral compass born of struggle, compassion and foresight necessary to seek a greater good. The fault lies with those who know better - those who have been betrayed for gain or claim misery to be the responsibility of others. Humans have been at this living shit for a long time and our history is rich with examples of right and wrong - if we allow a handful of empty souls to determine the fate of our future it is because we are not listening to each other - sharing what we’ve learned in our short 200,000 years on this planet. Instead reaching out and learning from people and cultures that was nearly impossible when I was young, we are paying corporations to determine what we see, who we communicate with, all the while paying cash to these same corporate ciphers to steal our expression and market our uniqueness as though it had been manufactured on corporate servers - that don’t seem right.
From the few entitled persons I’ve met in my wanderings, the one trait the privileged seem to share is a paradox between exaggerated self-worth and a dearth of self-awareness. Generalities are of little use, except to say anyone who accumulates more than they can realistically spend usually justify that excess with the belief it is deserved rather than just dumb luck, or in the case of up-by-the-bootstraps Horatio Alger success stories, the bitterness and armor necessary for such singleness of purpose seems to mute the internal voice which usefully asks ‘what is enough’¿ What is of concern to me - is the character of those claiming rights which they are apparently reluctant to bestow on others, most especially the wealth of knowledge we are contributing to, but not benefitting from. When I am in a public place, I tend to the extremes of morbid curiosity about everything and delusional invisibility, neither of which has any real analog on the internet. As to the former, it would take weeks of visiting websites to gain even a remote sense found in a stroll through an airline terminal, or busy urban promenade, and as to the latter, regardless of every profiler media drama ever concocted, or reams of data overseers may choose to collect about me; to believe that contrived avatar resembles my ragged wounded existential self any more than the barest outlines I myself am beginning to perceive after some 3 score years on the planet speaks more to the conceit of technology than any desultory laziness toward my own self-awareness.
My father held C.G. Jung’s concept of synchronicity in high regard, so it is not a complete surprise that when I went to research the precise definition of “desultory”, I learned the internet is down where I live. While the meaning of connection has morphed a great deal in recent years, the essence remains constant; it is mostly now a question of connected to what¿ Should the internet become unavailable forever, will the questions I’ve tried to consider in this essay become any less valid¿ My audience is already suspect with blogger registering an average of 175 to 275 hits day in day out - a complete fiction as far as I’m concerned. I figure the lords of googol are goosing the numbers, just like they fudge their taxes and as anyone who has ever attempted to communicate with the exalted purveyor of all that’s known in the universe, it is a closed circuit - just like trying to get someone on the phone at fb, or reaching one’s bank without a password or a phone. Right now the leaders concept of connection feels a lot like Bob Dylan’s “the cops don’t need you, and man they expect the same.” It’s no small wonder that when the kind woman said to me “I think you’re searching for a deep connection” I felt like weeping. The irony is of course death, the wall of understanding with which our world has fortified itself is the same paper tiger the ruling class is counting on to testify for them once “consciousness” has been uploaded onto the corporate servers after the lesser humans have succumbed to yet again, another empty promise; I’ll still be laughing though somewhere in the aether knowing in my heart GIGO.
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connect - the sonnet
It is a modern conceit to believe
addiction comes from not being connected,
as though anyone could ever even leave.
ask anyone still talking to the dead.
Yet birth makes no promise you will find love;
ask the wandering child from Syria,
or prairie dog shot by the haters glove-
hand covered fearing hypothermia.
What does it mean if one seeks to connect?
-that someplace inside can’t see what’s outside¿
If there’s in and outside - which to protect?
how does one ever know who’s on whose side¿
What if it doesn’t matter? We’re all one-
knowing oneself is to know everyone¿
jts 050817
http://stoneartist.com
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