Aipocalyto

May I leave the metaphors and illusions in this title up to your mind to fill-in? Probably should not associate an MMT essay title with that movie, but the point today is to give a rant about the baseless fears people have concerning fartificial intelligence and the other apocalypses. Also, the based fears. Both being important for civics education.

This is not the topic for today, but it needs to be upfront: the “Ai” apocalypse is a false framed giant ball of poop, so don’t step in it. Machine automation is not an unemployment story, it is a labour emancipation story, something all soi dissant progressives keep screaming they want… out one side of their mouths. The source of all unemployment (defined as people seeking to exchange their labour for tax credits) is the government, and the government can always eliminate all the unemployment they generate by design (but do not yet know they generate by design).

There is no Realpolitik to consider here, these are facts. If you cave into realpolitik and roll up in a ball and die then good riddance to you. You’re no ꘝꖾꖹꖀꗣꕯꖦꗱ help at all. You are spiritually dead, so go scream with your hair on fire about “Ai” acopolips on someone else’s comments section.

While we’re off-topic, it’s probably worth pointing out the Apocalypse is allegory. The “End of the World” means death of the old, and birth of the new. Which means it is in fact a real thing, happening right now. It is a spiritual transformation (meaning in your minds). A good thing. If you think capitalism dying off is bad, what can I say? Just that it is not to say innocent people are not getting murdered in the millions due to this death drive process. It’s horrific. And agonizingly slow. Nevertheless, the system of labour exploitation does have to die, and I’d sacrifice my life in a heart-beat if it’d help.

Back on Topic:

The anti-“doomer” in me is screaming to write that this is for the young kids, not you XGeners, Boomers, Millennials and probably not even the Zoomers. I want to reach the youth of tomorrow, who cannot yet fathom the metaphors in the above title, but who will in all likelihood be the ones left with the can of needing to give up on golf and table tennis habits, including the XBox versions, to “save the world”.

Things of this nature have been simmering for a while, and only occasionally spill over onto the Ōhanga Pai posts. The other day I heard an interesting interview Nina Burleigh had with journo John Richardson on the subject of Luigi Mangione and how he is basically a revolutionary, not a terrorist. No argument from me there, though you can be a revolutionary and then you can be an ꕯꕒꕯꗞꖡ revolutionary.

From talking to Luigi, Richardson was led to read more about Ted Kaczynski, and disabused himself of his prior naïve bourgeois normie thoughts about the Unabomber. He came to appreciate there was some wisdom to Uncle Ted, albeit squeezed through the insanity juices of extreme nerd materialism and almost obscenely ignorant pseudo-intellectualism.

Richardson noted that his contact at FoxNews was complaining that his by-lines were too “doomer” for the audience and advertisers. (Bit disingenuous already that, since it’s only about the advertisers). Richardson responded, “But all your ‘news’ talk is all doomerism too.” A fair point, for a fair & balanced media propagandist outfit.

Maybe just me though, but it is still 𝕚𝑑🄸🅾𝘵𝕚𖥐 doomerism from Richardson, (not that his FoxNews contact has it any better! — it is a thousand times more nihilistic to think there is no need for doomerism, it is denying ordinary people’s legitimate fears and lack of control over their own puny lives. Doomerism and nihilism are ꕯꕒꕯꗞꖡꕯꖀ, but failure to appreciate doomerism is legitimate is far worse. A Pox on FoxNews and all their ilk. 🪄

And it is nonetheless lack of imagination to be giving up hope. The materialism spawning these pseudo-Kaczynskiites is a deep prejudice of our times (probably one you are unconsciously biased in your thinking about right this second), fueling the false thesis that machines can be conscious (they’re running a deterministic algorithm, that cannot be conscious as commonly understood — I do ‘get it’ that the tech nerds and 𖥐𖦪𖠢𖢧𖥣ꛘ𖨚 like Geoffrey Hinton have a completely different definition of ‘consciousness’ and ‘intelligence’ — namely in input/output behavioural terms, which is of course their brainworms.)

To talk about these supposedly “existential” threats is not doomerism. The only nihilists who are ever of any help are those that overcome their nihilism, at least for some of the time. I’m a neoluddite (and a math-physics nerd who “loves” his ’puter and GNU+Linux distro), and completely opposed to the Mangione/TK tactics. It’d be more powerful to paint-bomb the capitalist rentier parasites in blood red. If for no other reason than this permits mass action, by the millions. (Among billions of other reasons.)

We can always turn a machine off at the socket, without losing our “humanity” and not losing sleep about it, if you think otherwise you are truly insane. The problem, as ever, is with powerful elites and oligarchs who control the means of production, and the means of proprietorially copying the software the naïve-as-all-heck nerds have written. Paint-bomb them to metaphorical death. They can afford the dry cleaning bill [that’s a joke, of course they just send their PA to go buy a new suit — or black red-cross emblazoned insignia leather jacket for the more fashion discerning fascists.]

There is a lot more to write about — for another day — on how the paradigm of “artificial intelligence” and “machine consciousness” is complete nuts, but to come across and not just a clown neoluddite it all needs a whole lot of philosophical backing, which I’ve got on my github physics & philosophy blogs, but a bit reticent to publish it on these social media platforms, since it is all personal opinion. I truly loath philosophical ideologues, Idealists and Materialists alike, but most especially the Atheists and most especially those trying to tell everyone what to think, as if they are genius beacons of Truth because they “know science.” (They have no clue. Maybe a nano-clue. You know. Darwinian evolution is a thing.) Complete lunatics otherwise are the materialist–atheists, worse than any fake-religionists I reckon. At least with a fake-religionist like a christian fash, buddhist nationalist, or reich-wing zionist, their hypocrisy is transparent. They are all deeply anti-religious.

But there you see why I cannot write for the social media about any of this. Your deeply held worldviews are your own to mature and develop, not mine to influence (unless you ask for it). It is when an issue of social justice is impinged that I must speak or write out, just as a moral obligation, regardless of whom I can reach. The machine algorithm fears are baseless. The fear of the power elites is not. Stop using their software. That’s all for today.