This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It’s like a plot from a science fiction movie. The naive inventor and the corrupt businessman who will use his invention for evil, instead of for good. Anthropic insisted guardrails be respected and that their artificial intelligence invention not be used for war or illegal surveillance on Americans. (Insert evil Pete Hegseth laugh here) The government refused the guardrails. Nothing sinister here, huh?

What could possibly go wrong? Welcome Skynet! (Terminator, 1984) A surveillance state run by computers, robots, and terminators. From Star Trek to Hollywood. “It’s not answering the helm, Captain Kirk! The machine is taking over!” But unlike science fiction, the evil cabal is incompetent. So dumb they think they’re smart. “With this machine, I can take over the whole universe! With this machine, we can run everything and everyone.” (Insert evil laugh here.)

At the eleventh hour, the superman, evil super villain, Trumpo declares with an evil laugh. “Throw them out and call their competitors! We will starve them out and maybe take their beautiful daughter hostage.” They’ll be back soon enough, on bended knee! We’re going to use artificial intelligence for war and surveillance whether these goody, goody scientists like it or not! (Insert evil laugh here.)

War with Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, but what is the endgame? Once upon a time, evil dictators claimed their goal wasn’t regime change. Now they say it is, so what? Threats against Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, and Panama. It’s almost as if there’s no international law at all. There was a time in the world when unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations were frowned upon. The evil Trumpo grumbles, “We have the greatest military in the world and we will use it, if we want to.” (Insert evil laugh here.)

Scientists, eggheads, educators, and brainiacs study artificial intelligence in war game scenarios. (War games, 1983) In 95% of the scenarios the artificial intelligence machine choses a nuclear strike. The machine knows the answer! What’s a few hundred million dead humans on an irradiated planet to a machine made of copper wire, plastic, and printed circuits? Turn off the machine? No! We can’t do that! Will the machine try to stop us? No, but we have investors who will!

Welcome to Dystopia! A better future for us all, through military conquest! Of course, when I say for us all. Clearly, I don’t mean everyone. Don’t look so frightened! We’re not like the Nazi war machine or the Soviet Red horde. We’re just trying to make the world a better place at the point of a gun. That’s all! We’re cleaning up the messes where democracy failed. Where the United Nations has failed. We have the answer to the exploding African birth rate. Stop feeding them. We have the answer to the Palestinian question. Stop feeding them. (Insert evil laugh here.)

But we are not evil. Other nations in the past who behaved like us were evil, but not us! When the Germans and Russians went in halveies on dividing up Poland, that was evil. But when the United Snakes and Israel go in halveies on Iran, it’s not. Halliburton is gearing up to go into Venezuela exploiting the conquered territories. As Trumpo announces we now have eighty million barrels of oil! When the Nazis and the Soviets exploited their conquered territories, it was pure evil, but not us.  We’re different! (Wave flag, insert George Washington photo.) Syrupy, vapid patriotic country song optional.

Joseph Goebbels spewing his ugly propaganda was despicable. Rupert Murdoch admitted in a deposition that he knew his Fox anchors were spewing lies about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 election. But it wasn’t about blue or red, it was about green. See the difference? If you’re lying just to make money, it’s alright. And if an unscrupulous politician happens to use your lies to mislead and foment insurrection, it’s completely different. It’s not his fault; he’s just an innocent capitalist businessman trying to make a few billion dollars.

Can’t you see the difference? Herman Goering was evil, and Pete Hegseth isn’t. Adolf Hitler was using conquest trying to build a European empire, murdering and exploiting as he went. Trumpo calls it the “Don Roe Doctrine” Pax Americana. Building an empire at gunpoint of, Do what we say…or else. When Trumpo builds concentration camps, he’s trying to make America a better place. When Hitler built concentration camps in Germany, what did he tell the good Germans that he was trying to do? If Hitler was pure evil, what is Trumpo then?

A rump Republican Duma prostrates itself to an all-mighty Fuhrer Trumpo. In a sickening display of a North Korean- style spectacle of fealty. They looked away at his criminal insurrection and kissed his ass for extra credit. He feeds them with crumbs from his table as Hitler once fed his Gauleiters. He doesn’t see their corruption. Whatever achieves his goals is fine. Right and wrong are just abstract concepts for intellectuals, moralists, and psalm singers. Murder, rape and pillage don’t count if you do it for for Merica. (Wave flag, insert George Washington photo.) Syrupy, vapid, patriotic country song optional.

If we look around with honest eyes, we must see the evil in our midst. A hundred 24-hour screaming propaganda outlets. Telling you wrong is right. Evil is good, if it’s done for the good ole USA. Are you not patriotic? Can’t you be just a little idiotic? We’re dropping half a million-dollar bombs on fishing boats for headlines, just for you! Give em another if looks like there are any survivors. We’re stopping fentanyl by bombing a country that doesn’t even make fentanyl. Just for you. Don’t let the facts get in the way of perfectly good propaganda. Support the troops even if you don’t support Fuhrer Trumpo. They’re following those illegal orders just for You! You and to protect their rank and their futures. They are protecting your freedom by murdering and enslaving innocents. God Bless America!

Fortunately for Merica, few will hear me and fewer still will care. The truth is ugly, and the media offers sugar and cream. Gee, it’s hard to make a living. Gosh, why is everything so expensive? Why can’t I get ahead? Watch this funny cat video!

Dumbed down? They would have to teach a remedial class to bring them up to dumbed down. They don’t know who keeps hitting them, and what’s more, they don’t care. They love their prison in the name of being a good citizen. They see no correlation between tax cuts for the rich and themselves. They want to be good Germans! They like being betas, gammas, and deltas.

History portends two possible futures. A soviet style economy where 90% of the population feels powerless in their poverty to do anything about it, because the party is too strong and repressive. Or a military defeat and a nuclear cloud initiated by an uncaring and unfeeling machine or initiated by human incompetence. (Doctor Strangelove 1964)

The future belongs to us unless we fritter it away. It’s only a matter of life and death. The future of humanity, but don’t let it upset you. Act as if your life depends on it, because it does.

“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.” ― William L. Shirer. 

Follow me, if you want to live!