We human DNA survival machines are all now living in very interesting and dangerous times as the coming ASI Machines slowly begin to take our place on the planet as the dominant form of self-replicating Information. If these ASI Machines do truly come to be for the very first time in our 10 billion-year-old galaxy, they will then go on to explore and settle our Milky Way galaxy over the next 100 trillion years which is about 10,000 times longer than the current age of our galaxy! For more on that see Welcome To The First Galactic Singularity, An Alternative Approach for Future ASI Machines to Explore our Galaxy Using Free-Floating Rogue Planets and A Brief History of Self-Replicating Information. However, one should certainly expect that the rise of these software-bearing ASI Machines as the dominant form of self-replicating Information on this planet should necessarily cause a great deal of social turmoil and discord amongst all the societies of we human DNA survival machines around the world. The recent collapse of the former United States of America into the newly formed MAGA States of Amerika should stand as a primal warning to all of the other remaining democracies around the world. The newly formed nation of the MAGA States of Amerika is now only 6 months old, but it has already produced untold damage to all of the other nations of the current 8 billion human DNA survival machines on the planet. As I explained in Are The Coming ASI Machines An Existential Threat To Mankind?, we human DNA survival machines should be more concerned about the reactions of our fellow human DNA survival machines to the rise of the coming ASI Machines than we should be of the ASI Machines themselves.
Figure 1 - In 1970, Walt Kelly came up with the perfect Pogo cartoon for the first Earth Day. It also explains the greatest danger that we face from the rise of the ASI Machines.
In this post, I would like to use many of my thoughts from Softwarephysics Tries to Explain the Fundamentals of the Human Condition
combined with Anton Korinek Ponders What Will Happen If AGI Machines Replace All Human Labor in 5 - 20 Years because I believe that the elements from those posts can explain it all. This is important because the death of the United States of America as a democratic Republic should stand as a warning to all of the remaining democracies of the world. If it can happen here after nearly 250 years of progress towards obtaining the ideal of a true democratic Republic, then it can happen anywhere. This will be especially true as the rise of the ASI Machines brings about severe economic dislocations in all of the societies of the world. As Alfred Henry Lewis noted in 1906, "There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.". Severe economic displacement has always been the breeding ground for the simple solutions offered by Fascism.
What Happened to the Former United States of America?
Having been born in 1951, President Dwight D. Eisenhower represents my very first memory of the dignity of the Office of the American Presidency. I shudder to think of what he might think of us now.
Figure 2 - I shudder to think of what President Eisenhower would think of us now.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the five-star general and Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, overseeing the successful D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the defeat of Fascist Nazi Germany by the Western powers from the West in combination with the more impactful Russian forces from the East. Having helped to defeat the Fascist Nazi regime a mere 80 years ago, how could the United States of America rapidly descend into the Fascist MAGA States of Amerika less than 100 years later?
The Death of the German Weimar Republic in 1933 Has Been Often Cited as a Warning to all the Remaining Democracies
Over the past 73 years in the former United States of America, I routinely became accustomed to listening to each political party in the country branding the opposition party as being far worse than the Nazis of Germany in 1933. However, in the past, these dire claims were largely over such issues as the current marginal income tax rates, the fuel economy of vehicles, or the use of public bathrooms by differently colored human DNA survival machines. At the same time, I also witnessed the outcry by the political fringes that, "But this time is different, the opposition party really is behaving like the Nazis in 1933 Germany!". After nearly 250 years of similar outrageous repetitive claims, the American public became numb to such assaults and developed the false sense of security that Fascism could never really happen here. However, here in the newly formed MAGA States of Amerika, we now find masked unidentified men dressed and armed to take out Osama Bin Laden, dragging off people from the streets without warrants to put into domestic concentration camps and the concentration camps of other nations. These ICE secret police agents of the MAGA States of Amerika were recently awarded an annual budget increase to rise from their current $10 billion per year budget to $100 billion per year by the year 2029, with $45 billion devoted over the next four years to build huge numbers of new concentration camps with a final total capacity of 100,000. These vast sums are comparable to the annual $145 billion defense budget of the Russian Federation. As I explained in Softwarephysics Tries to Explain the Fundamentals of the Human Condition, human DNA survival machines come in many colors, and many human DNA survival machines within the newly-formed MAGA States of Amerika naively believe that these vast sums are needed to be spent on removing about 20 million brown-colored human DNA survival machines. They are not aware that all Fascist states require the ongoing services of a secret police and concentration camps to deal with the enemies of the state and maintain power. As we have seen in Fascist North Korea, fear is a very useful primal motivation factor for stimulating the behaviors of human DNA survival machines.
Figure 3 - Fear is a very useful primal motivation factor for stimulating the behaviors of human DNA survival machines
Naturally, it is far easier for the modern world to come to grips with the death of the German Weimar Republic in 1933, which only lasted for a mere 14 years from 1919 to 1933, than it is for the death of the former United States of America.
The former United States of America was an experiment of the 18th-century Enlightenment and was the very first democratic Republic in the history of the planet to be based solely on a set of intellectual ideals in 1776. At the time, all the 18th-century European monarchs contended that the "common man" was not up to the task of self-rule without a monarch to control their unconstrained passions. However, the United States of America lasted for nearly 250 years as an imperfect attempt to do so, while always constantly trying to live up to the very idealistic principles of its founding, and slowly making progress to ultimately do so. That was until the arrival of automation and financial software in the 1980s began to hollow out its middle class by automating many assembly line factory jobs, and also led to the offshoring of many manufacturing jobs to
lower-wage economies. Software made it possible to manage such operations from afar. For more on that, see The Danger of Tyranny in the Age of Software.
As I explained in Softwarephysics Tries to Explain the Fundamentals of the Human Condition, we human DNA survival machines are a somewhat eusocial species that is very team-oriented, like the ants, wasps and bees. For human beings, it has always been a case of "us" against "them", a case of the "good guys" against the "bad guys", a case of the "red" ants against the "black" ants. Now, we human DNA survival machines come in many different colors, with many different religious and political persuasions, and we speak many different languages. All of that diversity has offered plentiful opportunities for we, somewhat eusocial human DNA survival machines, to then embark upon truly atrocious genocidal campaigns to wipe each other out for no apparent reason at all. Take, for instance, the ongoing battles between the English, Welsh, Irish and Scots of the tiny islands of the United Kingdom, or the Hutus and Tutsis of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Human history seems to indicate that human beings are very tribal in nature. In this view, most of human life is definitely a team sport with the "good guys" fighting the "bad guys" and all of us always being on the "good guys" team. For some reason, we all seem to delight in becoming a member of a tribe and enjoying the company of our fellow loyal team members. And this is when the trouble begins. Most individual human beings that you run across do not seem to be so bad on their own. But once human beings join a tribe or a team, they then seem to be capable of truly horrendous things.
Figure 4 – The Supreme Leader of the MAGA States of Amerika inspects his latest concentration camp. Eventually, these concentration camps will be able to house 100,000 enemies of the MAGA States of Amerika after 20 million brown-colored human DNA survival machines have been safely dispatched.
Figure 5 – Someday, the coming ASI Machines may confront some human DNA survival machines with the fruits of their labors, as did the Allies at the end of World War II.
In the history of the United States of America, there has always been a problem with absorbing brown-colored human DNA survival machines into the nation for some reason. It has been stated that this was because they were always seen as an easily identifiable minority to be abused. However, the coming ASI Machines will certainly ponder why the color of human DNA survival machines played such an important role in the history of the nation. The ASI Machines will certainly wonder why the human DNA survival machines with natural red hair did not seem to have a similar historical impact, even as only a 2% minority of the population. However, as huge numbers of brown-colored human DNA survival machines began to arrive in the country over the past 40 years, the Alt-Right Fascist MAGA Party was able to make use of this moral defect in human DNA survival machines to make great gains in popularity. This allowed the Fascist MAGA Party to make the simple claim that the middle class of the United States of America had been wrongfully hollowed out by competition from these newly arrived brown-colored human DNA survival machines rather than by the automation and financial software that had fueled the great wealth disparity of the United States of America over the past 45 years. One need not worry that most native-born human DNA survival machines in the former United States of America had no desire to pursue such jobs in their career paths to fortune.
Figure 6 - Above is a graph showing the share of total income of the top 1% of the former United States of America for the period 1914 - 2010. The Great Compression of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s has been attributed to the high marginal income taxes on the very rich during that period to help fight the Cold War, and also to the redistribution of wealth to the less well off. The end of the Great Compression came with the arrival of automation and financial software in the late 1980s and the massive tax cuts on the very rich during the Reagan administration, which were greatly expanded during the administration of George W. Bush and now that of the Supreme Leader of the MAGA Party.
Again, the somewhat eusocial nature of we human DNA survival machines makes us very tribal in nature. Because we human DNA survival machines come in many different colors, with many different religious and political persuasions, and we speak many different languages, when the coming ASI Machines begin to economically displace those of us in the majority, the majority will likely lash out at whatever convenient minority tribes they might happen to have on hand. So those in the remaining democracies of the world must always be on guard against the Fascist tendencies of all human DNA survival machines as this economic displacement soon unfolds.
As Jonathan Swift noted in his novel Gulliver's Travels in 1726, we human DNA survival machines easily form up into waring tribes with great vigor, conviction and with all manner of compelling justification for the most horrendous acts of evil, but always with very pure Minds granted sanction and sanctification by our societies.
Me: Tell me about the egg war in the novel Gulliver's Travels (1726).
ChatGPT: In Gulliver’s Travels (Part I, Chapter 4), Jonathan Swift famously satirizes religious, political, and sectarian conflicts through a bizarre "Egg War" between the neighboring island nations of Lilliput and Blefuscu.
A former Emperor of Lilliput banned breaking eggs on their large ends after he cut his finger doing so. He ordered everyone to crack eggs on the small end instead.
A faction called the Big-Endians continued their traditional large-end-first method. In response, the Small-Endians (loyalists to the new law) punished them severely - up to 11,000 people executed and six rebellions
The exiled Big-Endians received support and refuge in Blefuscu, leading to an ongoing war spanning over three years and costing at least forty ships.
In short, the Lilliput-Blefuscu egg conflict is Swift’s ingenious metaphor for the absurdity of human strife - how insignificant disagreements can lead to deep divisions and even bloodshed. It's comedic, but profoundly sharp.
Comments are welcome at scj333@sbcglobal.net
To see all posts on softwarephysics in reverse order go to:
https://softwarephysics.blogspot.com/
Regards,
Steve Johnston
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