“Luddite?”


What is a “Luddite?”  Luddite is a pejorative term used to write off anyone concerned about the direction that tech is going.  Are you apprehensive about the progression of any particular technology?  Do you fear that a new innovation may deter the common good?  Then you are simply a Luddite who is irrationally afraid of transistors, computers, or having to learn something new.  Or at least, that is the implication made by those who casually throw the term around.

The name “Luddite” comes from a fictitious character named Ned Ludd, who, according to legend, is famous for breaking stocking frames.  When violent posses stormed factories, during the Industrial Revolution, to destroy machines that automated work, they became known as "Luddites".  Why would people break these machines?  Partially because they feared that automated work would eliminate precious jobs.

If you are in the camp that fears robots will take our jobs, I can assure you that you can rest easy.  Automation has taken the world by storm since the Industrial age, and clearly there is plenty of work for man to do.  See last article.  

What is unfortunate about the “Luddite” tag is that powerful men in the tech industry have arrogantly framed deeply thought out concerns as merely coming from a stupid mob of “They took our jobs!!” caricatures.  Call me quaint, if you will, for my concerns that the Meta-Verse is training the youth to accept that they will only be able to buy a house in a virtual reality land, but Luddite??  It’s intellectually insincere at best and Melian dialogue type bullying at worst.  

In The Singularity is Near (Kurzweil, Ray., The Singualrity is Near, Penguin Books, London, 2005), Ray Kurzweil chronically disregards any concern about technological progression as coming from people who are just being “Luddites”.  In reality, Kurzweil (Chief of Engineering at Google, by the way) is dismissing anyone who objects to his radically explicit transhumanist agenda as mere fools.  

In The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil joyfully promises that we will all soon be swapping out so many body parts with mechanical limbs and organs that we will happily be cyborgs: “By the 2030s we will become more non-biological than biological.” (ibid., p. 309)  A little later in the 2030s, we will be able to upload our “mind files” (consciousness) into the cloud.(ibid., p. 198-201)  Finally, Kurzweil believes that the destiny of man is to someday manufacture God Himself through the advancement of Artificial Intelligence. (ibid., p. 374-376)  He proposes that a new religion will be needed for the people of the coming “Singularity” , which he predicts is a point in time where man will meld so much with his technology that there will be no way to distinguish biological man from non-biological man anymore (ibid., p. 9).  When asked if this religion will have a God, Ray responds,

 Not yet, but there will be. Once we saturate the matter and energy in the universe with intelligence, it will ‘wake up’, be conscious, and sublimely intelligent. That’s about as close to God as I can imagine. (ibid., 375)

But, again, if you have any concerns about any of this, the Director of Engineering at Google laughs you off as just a fusty ole “Luddite”.  

If you think Kurzweil is an isolated incident, look into Harari, take more seriously when Elon Musk says, “We are already cyborgs”, or simply listen to various lectures from Davos over the last several years. It’s all in plain sight, these people are dead serious, they have the power to at least attempt such things, and they view those who want to just live an authentic human life and die a natural death and behold the beatific vision as simpletons.  As mere “Luddites”.  You may say to yourself, “Pffftt… I have nothing to fear.  After all, these people aren’t going to be successful in stamping out authentic humanity.  No one is putting a microchip in my brain!” To you I say, “Just wait until you see the mess they will have made when they fail.”

Hey, maybe we will just get the more Idiocracy or Wall-E version of the future.  I mean, sure no one (for now) really wants to live their whole life in a floating easy chair while watching a 3D television show of a man getting kicked in the groin for 30 minutes, but how bad could the end really be if we just get more technological products inspired by American consumer demand?  Maybe it will just be that bad and no worse.  I mean, everyone likes television, so what’s wrong with watching a little more of it on your VR goggles while you are having a boring conversation with your spouse?   While your at it, why not entertain yourself by altering her appearance and giving her features and a body type you find more pleasing?  Actually, Kurzweil stoops to promising that very thing in The Singularity is Near too. (ibid., p. 29)  In fact, he takes it a step further.  Stated almost like a sales pitch, Kurzweil enthusiastically predicts a future where people will get home from work and engage in virtual “intimacy” with their favorite celebrity through Virtual Reality programs. (ibid., p. 318-319) 

The new normal is upon us.  Or is it becoming upon us?  If you are a bit concerned, don't worry, you aren’t actually a Luddite.  You are just a Lover of Humanity.


The Proof is in China.

The most reasonable fear to have is not in new technologies themselves, but in the people in positions of power to use them against humanity.  Against authentic culture, against mortality (so people like to promise), and against freedom.  We are all aware of the inevitability of cars standard with kill switches.  I don’t fear the technology itself, rather, those who will have the power to turn off my vehicle because my social credit score is too low.  There is nothing scary about movies staring all CGI characters with impeccable artificial voices matching those of real people.  If Hollywood wants to further damage itself with such movies written, animated, and directed by AI, fine by me.  Good riddance.  But corrupt governments using such technology to incriminate political enemies is worrisome.

The position that he who controls the media and the best quantum computers will control the world is not hyperbolic.  Don't fear the computer, rather, fear the man who wields the computer as a weapon.

There is precedent for this.  If you want a glimpse into where technology controlled by the strong can lead, then look east.  A monetary system based upon social credit scores is only possible with sophisticated surveillance systems using facial recognition that automatically links to personal financial accounts.  The tracking and tracing (wait, I thought that was just a Covid thing?) that China practices today, with cameras on every street corner, whereby it is illegal to go anywhere without your phone on you, and the government records every purchase one makes “up in the cloud”, was not possible even ten years ago.

Once the means to enslave people through technology exists, then the only thing stopping it from happening is the will of the people to resist.  Good thing we are so resistant in America, right?  One may argue that in China, their culture set them up for this.  Their citizens have been a demoralized people, fully subjugated under Communist rule for so long, that they were never able to sufficiently resist the techno-security state they now live in.  Many today reject the fears that it could happen in America, because our culture has historically resisted such subjugation.  Our nation was born in rebellion and was founded upon ideals of freedom and personal liberties.  People have too much “American Spirit” to let it happen here.  Or so, the optimistic tropes go.

Our future isn’t certain, but if the missing ingredient to being held under a technological security state is a demoralized culture, then maybe we aren’t so far off.  In fact, perhaps many of the technologies we are currently being offered will be the very demoralizing agents that push our culture to the brink.  Ironic.


Cultural Suicide

Steve Jobs once said that a computer is a bicycle for the mind.  As long as people are using computers to simply extend their ability to think, do research, and communicate (intelligibly) with others, then a computer makes for a good ride.  The problem with AI is that it is being developed to be a replacement for the human mind.  If you want to understand the real horrors of Transhumanism, this is a large part of it.  Not that AI will “take our jobs”, but that it will replace rational thinking, which literally separates us from the brute animals.  Sadly, the attraction many consumers find in AI is that it will replace thinking.

Don’t feel like writing a description for your Craigslist ad?  No problem, AI will do it for you.  How about that term paper?  AI can write that for you too.  And since your teacher doesn’t want to read “scholarly sounding” banal drivel, she can have her AI program grade it.   How many email communications can we have where AI responds to another AI program, on behalf of humans who never actually know what the hell is being communicated back and forth?  How long might such happen within an S&P 500 company before the side effects show up in the index?  Should we just trust that AI will pick up these patterns and warn us to sell, just in time? 

On that note, is it just me, or is getting harder to tell what the market actually even represents anymore?  Will AI powered investing really help us reward the companies with the best management, who make the best products, and have solid long game strategies that could enhance the consumer experience and soceity?  Hard to tell when Renaissance Technologies and similar companies pay out so well right in the here and now.  Don't think about the bigger picture, just put the money on black, like the pattern recognition machine told you to.  Some consquences have to catch up with this at some point.

Why have we been so driven, since the dawn of humanity, to develop technology?  Hasn’t it always been to make life and work easier for us all?  To make better roadways, to connect civilizations, to reduce our toil, and to allow us all more time for leisure?  And no, by leisure I don’t mean playing couch potato at the television or game console for hours, but the traditional sense of leisure: contemplating, learning new skills, and practicing the arts.

Once upon a time, people, by and large, were illiterate and innumerate because they had to spend the vast majority of each day plowing fields with beasts of burden.  They were not privileged with the time necessary to exercise their minds enough to read the classics, discover the simple and beautiful patterns of mathematics, or learn to play a musical instrument.  It is a blessing that technology has granted the vast majority of people, in the modern age, relief from such hard toil and access to abundant and affordable education.

Here is the current crisis: we now live in the most information rich age of all time, thanks to more recent and wonderful advancements in internet technology, yet the next generation of technological advancements are promising our youth that they won’t have to be burdened with authentic leisure!  Here's a rant we could anticipate from a jealous and cantakerous old man in the near future: “How good you kids have it these days! When I was a child, I had to know how to defend a thesis in writing, graph functions, and practice my piano for an hour a day so that I could eventually play Pachabel’s Canon in D. You kids are so lucky to have the neurolink take control of your hands and play the third movement of Moonlight Sonata for you, without you ever having to take a lesson!”

The classical liberal arts were called such because they liberated man.  They freed him from having to toil all day in the field, and allowed him to exercise his mind.  Reason is the gift God gave us that marks us as made in his image and likeness; so that we can contemplate what is true, good, and beautiful in order to be fulfilled by it.  Can AI be used to enhance our ability to do that even further?  Well sure it can.  But for now, we are being promised products that allow us to take a pass on contemplation all together.

If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, perhaps AI is more like a motorcycle with rocket thrusters.  I just pray humanity will be able to control that vehichle while riding it in the coming years.  We’ll see.


Frivolous

Not all of the perils we face are so serious, but to keep things immediately relevant, a brand new gadget is woth briefly mentioning.  Someone recently asked me if I found Apple Vision scary.  Ha!  A better word to describe the Apple VR goggles would be... disappointing.  Disappointing because we live in an age where the enhancement of frivolous play is considered "cutting edge".

Of course, Apple’s new VR goggles can be put to good purposes.  In fact, there are all sorts of applications for Virtual Reality that can authentically serve the common good.  Imagine a day where the best surgeons in the world can perform surgeries from the other side of the globe with virtual reality.  Because I am, in fact, not a “Luddite”, I am personally enthusiastic about such technology.  The sheer ability for mankind to accomplish such is a testimony to how great God made man’s power to use practical knowledge to serve humanity.  If it's not Apple who pioneers such a feat, engineers making similar products will.

So what’s wrong with Apple’s new VR goggles?  Judged as a temporal good per se, there is nothing inherently wrong with them, actually.  Temporal goods are always as good as how they are used.  What is disappointing is that Apple has been advertising the VR goggles more as an entertainment device, which could very well be how they are primarily used.  As personal smart phones on steroids that you literally strap to your face.  That sounds like what the world needs right now.  In a recent Apple Vision commercial, a man is frequently shown, all alone, watching a movie on his headset while munching popcorn, a woman keeps herself occupied on an airplane, and a man uses augmented reality to insert panoramic views of desirable cityscapes around his apartment.  Meh.

In fairness, one man was using them to do something creative; draw up the specs for a new surf board he was designing (cowabunga), but the main sell is that you will be thoroughly entertained with this device.  I guess nothing says, “Behold the newest cutting edge technology that will revolutionize the way we do life” like a man in his PJs staring into something liken to scuba gear with his mouth agape.  Somewhere a focus group preferred that message to the VR heart surgery message.  Bummer.


Regret

By the time the ethical implications of this next technological revolution really smack humanity, it may be too late.

In 2017, a former executive at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya publicly expressed his deep regret in helping to develop Facebook.  He said:

The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth… This is not about Russian ads, This is a global problem. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.

While his conversion is noble, it apparently came too late.  Facebook has already came, saw, and conquered.  It has turned people into chronic self-promoters, sharing their life highlight reels, taking pictures of their food, and handing over deeply personal meta-data to the highest bidders without a care.  Facebook has changed the world, and there is no going back.  The best one can do now is simply save himself from social media, as far as he can.

I say “as far as he can”, because even if one deletes his social media profiles and throws his smart phone off a bridge, he still has to work within a society of more inward turned people, who are less eager to communicate with others in authentic and intimate ways, and he has to cooperate socially and professionally with many who are eager to turn their lives into video game simulations.  It’s going to get worse, and it’s going to hurt, whether you think you are going to participate in all of it or not. 

We may not be less human, but there will be less opportunities to share in authentic human flourishing with a lot of humans you might otherwise like to.  Best case scenario, we may be living lives likened to those we see in “Wall-E”, where we are all morbidly obese and sucking down big gulps while playing virtual tennis on floating easy chairs.  Worst case scenario, most of humanity will live like the common people of China do today while the world elites float around in chairs while enjoying some sorts of virtual reality pleasure machines.

It’s okay to voice concerns over certain technological advancements, and one should not be given the blanket tag, “Luddite” for voicing them.

When people voice concerns over GMOs or new MRNA vaccines, they typically do so out of concern for the common good, not because they are paranoid “Luddites”.  People didn’t object to the Covid vaccine because they were afraid of technology.  They objected, in part, because it was rushed and no one really knew all of the side effects of this bleeding edge gene therapy drug.  Sure enough, empty vindication came for many.

If one lived in late 18th century France, and objected to the guillotine, his objection probably would not have come from a fear of technology per se or “progress”.  Rather, he would have seen the specific function of that technology as inhumane.  His concerns would have been natural law based, whereas the fact that the guillotine was new technology would have been mere happenstance.   Even if one were pro-capital punishment, a sane person would have looked at that technology and said, “Maybe these executions have gotten too swift.  Admixed with the intemperance of the current population, this technology is further diminishing due process and the common good itself, not improving it.”

Think about the current advancing technologies and really ask yourself if this society is temperate enough for ever more realistic and complete Virtual Reality simulations.  If the most common freeway billboards are any indication (weed, Draftkings sports gambling, and Fascinations adult boutique), it seems like a clear “No”.  

And many of those in a position to take advantage of that reality clearly understand this and don’t care, by the way.  People have been pushing Meta-verse investment strategies for the last few years, centered on buying virtual “real estate” low now and selling it once people realize they can’ buy any actual real estate anymore. 

It’s commonly understood that these technologies are coming at breakneck speed, while simultaneously, living standards, wages, and the human experience itself will continue to diminish.  If you have concerns, don’t be afraid to express them, and certainly don’t be afraid to guard how you do the human experience. 


Keep your Humanity

If you are concerned about any of this, there is a solution.  Fight for yourself here.  Fight for your humanity.  Understand it, value it, and then fight hard to keep it.

I know a young man who got the Covid jab because his parents guilted him into it.  Having his own reservations about the gene therapy component of the shot, he said, “I guess I surrendered part of my humanity in doing so, but at least my sister won’t keep my baby nephew from me anymore.”  Even more so than taking an experimental gene therapy, I agree with him in as much as he took a treatment that he didn’t want to while submitting to irrational coercion from his family.  That’s where he really surrendered part of his humanity.

We don’t know what all of the implications of this ever changing world are going to be, but others will experience similar dilemmas, for sure.  Your humanity is worth holding onto.

There are people who have practically taken a hobby of finding a group of perceived "world controllers" to blame their problems on.  Some blame the Free Masons and others blame the Jews; for seemingly everything.  Ironically, there are some Protestants who love explaining how all the world’s problems are rooted in the mysterious “whore of Babylon” that they believe is the Catholic Church.

I do not raise concerns over the fast growing nature of AI in order to give people a target faction to hang our problems on.  There are good benefits to AI, to be sure, but for all the fake goods that AI also promises, the best way to combat them is not to angrily blame the creators, but to just say no to the evils many of them have to offer.

I recently heard an uplifting story of a wealthy man who is investing in a company that makes VR products used in the medical field.  The applications sound like they will really benefit medicine.  But as he sat there at a recent meeting with leaders of the company, someone in the room casually suggested, “There may be a huge market we can tap into for this product to be used in the adult entertainment industry.” To which the investor firmly opposed and threatened to pull out if the company pursued such.  We need more men like this in the field.

We need lots of engineers, scientists, and investors who have the same conviction and backbone.  AI, VR, and many other technological advancements are coming, and there is no stopping them. The more men we have in these fields, committed to playing conscience for those developing these technologies, the better. We need men dedicated to keeping technology oriented towards the same thing we have always wanted it to do; further human fulfillment, not replace it.  Keeping these technologies out of sin is a big part of that.

At the end of the day, that is what we are all called to do, stay out of sin.  If you are terrified of the next generation of technology, there is no better solution.  Yes, it is the solution to pretty much all of your problems in life, but that’s precisely the point.  If you really want to resist that which potentially threatens humanity, then start by saying no to the most egregiously sinful aspects of it, and continue by embracing your own human nature.  This has always been found in doing that which is most proper to man and, thus, rejecting whatever compromises your dignity and the dignity of others as human persons per se.  To advance that which fulfills you and your fellow man as human beings and to resist that which harms us all as human persons.  In short, to resist sin.

I will leave with a quote from Thomas Aquinas from the Prima Secundae, Quesition 3, Article 8:

For perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as with that object, in which alone man'shappiness consists

St. Thomas dedicates much of the Prima Secundae to man’s nature and how man must act in accord with his nature (resisting sin) to attain perfect happiness found in the Beatific Vision upon death.  Happiness is not found in any temporal good per se, let alone the next technological innovation.  Happiness is not found in our jobs, our hobbies, a political figure, the brand new Apple VR goggles, or “trucks” that look like an 8-bit graphics design on asphalt.  As temporarily satisfying, or partially fulfilling any of these things can be, our happiness is found in making the most of the God given true intelligence we are given, contemplating God, knowing his will, and living it.

No matter what technologies are in store for the future, you will always be made in the image and likeness of God.  You will always be able to choose embracing that to the fullest. You will always be able to read a book, pick up a musical instrument, learn how to disassemble and reassemble a car engine, and most importantly, you will always be able to know and choose the good and resist doing evil.  Therein, alone, you will find authentic human happiness.

Choose humanity. Choose happiness. Choose the good.

God bless,

Gadfly