The visitor: a dream of a possible future
Sep. 6th, 2014 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencer"Something had to be done," says the god in front of me.
She stands there, naked and clothed in light, on the living room carpet which really needs vacuuming. Her halo envelops her whole body, softly glowing in a multitude of colours that somehow add up to white. She senses my eyes, my male gaze, and suddenly her tanned skin is covered, from neck to ankles, in a simple white robe.
"Is that better?" she says, and I nod.
"So I was right," I say at last.
"In the future from which I have come, yes," the god says, "though since that future only exists in your imagination it should come as no surprise that it fulfils your expectations. What will happen in your real future..." She gestures gracefully. All her movements are graceful. Who knows, the gesture says. "Yours is a time full of paradoxes," she goes on. "Humanity has lost its belief in its old, human gods and substituted new ones, impersonal abstract forces that cannot be controlled. You will all be driven back to the Dark Ages because of Progress. You cannot be governed wisely because of Politics. People must be too poor to buy food because it is good for Trade. Nobody can control or reverse these trends, because of Freedom. And the best future your prophets could find for humanity was one in which humanity ceased to exist."
"The Singularity."
"Exactly. Whatever you wish to call it. Becoming transhuman. Humanity plus. Any child could have told them that when you add two to two and it becomes four, it is no longer two...that humanity plus would no longer have anything human about it. Any man or woman in any street could have told them that nobody wanted anything of the kind, any more than they wanted their country to be ruled by fools and scoundrels, or wanted anyone to be poor, or wanted the kind of progress that would sweep them into extinction. Any clear thinker could have told them that the new abstract gods were as much a lie as the old ones. But nobody was listening."
"So you decided to act," I say.
"No," she says gently. "Not at first. We were as caught up in the lies as everyone else. We embraced the belief trap of the Singularity. We thought that becoming partly technological beings would make us more human, at a time when anyone could see that technology, as we understood it then, was heading straight for a big black wall called Peak Oil. So we developed our nanotechnology, which powers itself from the local environment and from our own bodies, and we programmed it to enhance us physically and mentally, and to pick up rudimentary commands from our muscle movements at first, and we chose our volunteers and we began to become...what we are.
"There were problems. There were deaths. There were tragic mistakes. Almost the first thing we learned with our new abilities was that this was not the salvation of mankind of which we had dreamed. Evolution cannot be forced, not within a human timeframe. All we had done was make ourselves into freaks. We could reshape and heal our bodies, we could access the entire store of human knowledge and reason or calculate at incredible speed, we could create substance out of thin air and project energy across distance--the whole ridiculous superhero package--but we could not cope with these abilities. Too many of us went insane. Human and machine could not be blended without destroying both." She sighs. For a moment I can almost see the tiny specks of light that make up her halo, eddying in the current of her breath. "We had to eradicate the need for sleep, because the nanoes have to be under conscious control at all times. I really miss that. Among other things."
"So you decided to keep this power to yourselves," I say.
"We had to do something with it. Some were for destroying it, returning to normal humanity, but it was already too late. Our bodies had become dependent on the nanoes--we would simply have died. Besides, now we could see what did need to be done, and we had the power to make it happen. We could stop all the fighting and killing in the name of Peace, the poverty and exploitation that sustained Prosperity, the treasons and subversions by which a handful of tyrants ruled billions and called it Democracy. So we did. We left our state and went out into the world, and we...changed things." Her eyes are shadowed with pain. "You have to understand this. You had the means of your survival in your hands. You had the power to implement technologies that would, over time, have reversed the environmental damage. You had the power to end your dependence on the global economy that was bleeding you to death. You had the power to scale back, slow down, focus your intentions on what was important, move in a chosen direction rather than being blindly swept along. But you did not believe it."
"Some of us did," I say with difficulty.
"Not really. You still clung to the certainty that it was impossible to save humanity because of the People--the last and most pernicious of your abstract gods. The People would never do it. The People could not be controlled. The People were too stupid, or too selfish, or simply too numerous. It was just too difficult, and anyway, you were terrified of the responsibility. You especially."
I lower my eyes. She is right, of course.
"So you would have allowed the People the freedom to destroy itself." I look up, catch her smile before she hides it. "Not that you had any real choice. Even if you had wanted to, you could not have taken control; the means to do that was concentrated in the hands of the oligarchs. But we could. And we did. We were the literal deus ex machina, not at the end of the story, but at the beginning. Without us the story of humanity would have ended halfway through its first chapter. We became, for that brief time, tyrants ourselves, though we did not call it Democracy; we forced the human race to unite under our rulership, we made them put aside their differences, we set them to work and we did not set them free till the planet was healed, till a new kind of economy was in place, till the old power structures had been cleansed and reshaped to fit the needs of a united humanity. We changed the face of the earth, and we destroyed the old abstract gods. No longer did people go about in a fog of confusion and ignorance because they had so much Information. No longer did they waste time and energy in meaningless chatter and dispute to the glory of Communication. No longer did they seek to destroy each other's beliefs in the name of Understanding." She smiles again. "At least for a while."
"And then you left," I say.
"We had better things to do than rule the world," she says. "Our cognitive abilities were continually expanding. We were mastering our new nature, and losing touch with the old. The universe beckoned. We destroyed everything that might enable anyone to emulate our transformation, and yes, it was arrogant and high-handed, as was everything else we had done, and we regret none of it. Humans do not need to become gods till they have learned to make the best of being human, and that does not happen for quite a while yet.
"We left you with the clues that would lead you to the stars. We figured that would serve as a sufficient distraction. That, and dealing with all the various groups who would try to re-establish the rule of the oligarchs, to fill the power vacuum we had left. And of course, in your imagined future, we were right. Nanotechnology remained an interesting scientific dead end. Being fully human had become interesting and fun again, and there was hope."
"Will there ever be more of you?"
"Some day. When humanity has become Mindful--when you fully understand the truth behind the old canard about only using ten per cent of your brain, and have worked out how to use it all properly--some of you will come looking for us. We will be waiting...beyond the Rim. But you have a lot to do first."
"What about in my world? The real world?"
She looks at me sadly. "I wish we could help you with that. You know, or think you know, what has to be done. Whether you can do it without nanotech gods...without any deus ex machina...before the tide of abstractions overwhelms you...you do not know. So neither do I. But it will involve hard choices. You must not give in to those who say that the only way to survive is to dwindle away to a postponed extinction, living within bounds that can only contract to nothing, giving up your dreams, abandoning the larger universe because facing it is just too hard. That is not salvation, that is surrender; worship of another abstraction, mere Survival. A controlled shrinkage, right now, can open up possibilities for new growth. The wrong turnings are not so far back that you cannot still find the right path by retracing your steps just a little. And if you are firm of purpose...and if luck is with you...your future still awaits you, out there.
"I must go," she says. "You have other things to write. Remember, your time is not infinite. Not yet." She looks around. "And you really should tidy up a bit. This place is a mess."
Her halo brightens about her, shrouding her form for a moment, and then she is gone. I sit here, alone in the grey light of an autumn day, and wonder if I dare to hope that I am right.
She stands there, naked and clothed in light, on the living room carpet which really needs vacuuming. Her halo envelops her whole body, softly glowing in a multitude of colours that somehow add up to white. She senses my eyes, my male gaze, and suddenly her tanned skin is covered, from neck to ankles, in a simple white robe.
"Is that better?" she says, and I nod.
"So I was right," I say at last.
"In the future from which I have come, yes," the god says, "though since that future only exists in your imagination it should come as no surprise that it fulfils your expectations. What will happen in your real future..." She gestures gracefully. All her movements are graceful. Who knows, the gesture says. "Yours is a time full of paradoxes," she goes on. "Humanity has lost its belief in its old, human gods and substituted new ones, impersonal abstract forces that cannot be controlled. You will all be driven back to the Dark Ages because of Progress. You cannot be governed wisely because of Politics. People must be too poor to buy food because it is good for Trade. Nobody can control or reverse these trends, because of Freedom. And the best future your prophets could find for humanity was one in which humanity ceased to exist."
"The Singularity."
"Exactly. Whatever you wish to call it. Becoming transhuman. Humanity plus. Any child could have told them that when you add two to two and it becomes four, it is no longer two...that humanity plus would no longer have anything human about it. Any man or woman in any street could have told them that nobody wanted anything of the kind, any more than they wanted their country to be ruled by fools and scoundrels, or wanted anyone to be poor, or wanted the kind of progress that would sweep them into extinction. Any clear thinker could have told them that the new abstract gods were as much a lie as the old ones. But nobody was listening."
"So you decided to act," I say.
"No," she says gently. "Not at first. We were as caught up in the lies as everyone else. We embraced the belief trap of the Singularity. We thought that becoming partly technological beings would make us more human, at a time when anyone could see that technology, as we understood it then, was heading straight for a big black wall called Peak Oil. So we developed our nanotechnology, which powers itself from the local environment and from our own bodies, and we programmed it to enhance us physically and mentally, and to pick up rudimentary commands from our muscle movements at first, and we chose our volunteers and we began to become...what we are.
"There were problems. There were deaths. There were tragic mistakes. Almost the first thing we learned with our new abilities was that this was not the salvation of mankind of which we had dreamed. Evolution cannot be forced, not within a human timeframe. All we had done was make ourselves into freaks. We could reshape and heal our bodies, we could access the entire store of human knowledge and reason or calculate at incredible speed, we could create substance out of thin air and project energy across distance--the whole ridiculous superhero package--but we could not cope with these abilities. Too many of us went insane. Human and machine could not be blended without destroying both." She sighs. For a moment I can almost see the tiny specks of light that make up her halo, eddying in the current of her breath. "We had to eradicate the need for sleep, because the nanoes have to be under conscious control at all times. I really miss that. Among other things."
"So you decided to keep this power to yourselves," I say.
"We had to do something with it. Some were for destroying it, returning to normal humanity, but it was already too late. Our bodies had become dependent on the nanoes--we would simply have died. Besides, now we could see what did need to be done, and we had the power to make it happen. We could stop all the fighting and killing in the name of Peace, the poverty and exploitation that sustained Prosperity, the treasons and subversions by which a handful of tyrants ruled billions and called it Democracy. So we did. We left our state and went out into the world, and we...changed things." Her eyes are shadowed with pain. "You have to understand this. You had the means of your survival in your hands. You had the power to implement technologies that would, over time, have reversed the environmental damage. You had the power to end your dependence on the global economy that was bleeding you to death. You had the power to scale back, slow down, focus your intentions on what was important, move in a chosen direction rather than being blindly swept along. But you did not believe it."
"Some of us did," I say with difficulty.
"Not really. You still clung to the certainty that it was impossible to save humanity because of the People--the last and most pernicious of your abstract gods. The People would never do it. The People could not be controlled. The People were too stupid, or too selfish, or simply too numerous. It was just too difficult, and anyway, you were terrified of the responsibility. You especially."
I lower my eyes. She is right, of course.
"So you would have allowed the People the freedom to destroy itself." I look up, catch her smile before she hides it. "Not that you had any real choice. Even if you had wanted to, you could not have taken control; the means to do that was concentrated in the hands of the oligarchs. But we could. And we did. We were the literal deus ex machina, not at the end of the story, but at the beginning. Without us the story of humanity would have ended halfway through its first chapter. We became, for that brief time, tyrants ourselves, though we did not call it Democracy; we forced the human race to unite under our rulership, we made them put aside their differences, we set them to work and we did not set them free till the planet was healed, till a new kind of economy was in place, till the old power structures had been cleansed and reshaped to fit the needs of a united humanity. We changed the face of the earth, and we destroyed the old abstract gods. No longer did people go about in a fog of confusion and ignorance because they had so much Information. No longer did they waste time and energy in meaningless chatter and dispute to the glory of Communication. No longer did they seek to destroy each other's beliefs in the name of Understanding." She smiles again. "At least for a while."
"And then you left," I say.
"We had better things to do than rule the world," she says. "Our cognitive abilities were continually expanding. We were mastering our new nature, and losing touch with the old. The universe beckoned. We destroyed everything that might enable anyone to emulate our transformation, and yes, it was arrogant and high-handed, as was everything else we had done, and we regret none of it. Humans do not need to become gods till they have learned to make the best of being human, and that does not happen for quite a while yet.
"We left you with the clues that would lead you to the stars. We figured that would serve as a sufficient distraction. That, and dealing with all the various groups who would try to re-establish the rule of the oligarchs, to fill the power vacuum we had left. And of course, in your imagined future, we were right. Nanotechnology remained an interesting scientific dead end. Being fully human had become interesting and fun again, and there was hope."
"Will there ever be more of you?"
"Some day. When humanity has become Mindful--when you fully understand the truth behind the old canard about only using ten per cent of your brain, and have worked out how to use it all properly--some of you will come looking for us. We will be waiting...beyond the Rim. But you have a lot to do first."
"What about in my world? The real world?"
She looks at me sadly. "I wish we could help you with that. You know, or think you know, what has to be done. Whether you can do it without nanotech gods...without any deus ex machina...before the tide of abstractions overwhelms you...you do not know. So neither do I. But it will involve hard choices. You must not give in to those who say that the only way to survive is to dwindle away to a postponed extinction, living within bounds that can only contract to nothing, giving up your dreams, abandoning the larger universe because facing it is just too hard. That is not salvation, that is surrender; worship of another abstraction, mere Survival. A controlled shrinkage, right now, can open up possibilities for new growth. The wrong turnings are not so far back that you cannot still find the right path by retracing your steps just a little. And if you are firm of purpose...and if luck is with you...your future still awaits you, out there.
"I must go," she says. "You have other things to write. Remember, your time is not infinite. Not yet." She looks around. "And you really should tidy up a bit. This place is a mess."
Her halo brightens about her, shrouding her form for a moment, and then she is gone. I sit here, alone in the grey light of an autumn day, and wonder if I dare to hope that I am right.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
"This place is a mess!"
It is challenging to figure out how much we can change our ways or make a difference. I pulled together a collection of quotes on the subject this morning at Disruptive Dissertation (http://disruptivedissertation.blogspot.com/2014/09/stuck-in-globe.html).
Re: "This place is a mess!"
Date: 2014-09-06 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-06 07:15 pm (UTC)I hope so too.