- >'What would it mean to build artificial intelligences and other machines that were more like octopuses, more like fungi, or more like forests?' - James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence - ----- - *People are gathering in the tents, to hear the prophet speak. They're caked in dust and oil from the day's work. Work meant to feed their hungry families, but when it doesn't, they come to the prophet to fill up their aching bellies on his words. He speaks low at first, almost like he's whispering a secret. Makes them gather near. Tells them what they are all feeling, what they all know. The land is dying, in some places it's already dead. The dust blows on the breeze, a warning and a death knell for civilization. His voice rises as nears his message, until his words echo across the barren and dying fields. He tells them of the mega cities that are still green. The one that gave up fossil fuels and use technology to restore their habitats and farms. The ones that have embedded all of the living world around them, even the newly released heard with chips and geo location data to monitor their health. 'The world is reviving! Mankind can restore what it once sought to destroy!' the people cheer and some even weep. Can you blame them? After the meeting, the people push their children forward. They beg the prophet to take them. Take them to the cities where they will be safe. Where they will never suffer hunger again. He pats their heads and smiles. He did his job well. He sold them the lie of technological redemption any they lapped it up. Hell, it's a good story. In another decade, those desperate souls will be dead and the cities will expand in their wake. Maybe by then, he'll have paid back his debts. Maybe then, he'll be assigned the apartment his great grandparents were promised...* - ----- - Is there a place for technology in our future? Of course there is, but there will never be a place for technological redemption. Those prophets who peddle lies to increase their profits, their control, their enclosure of everything and everyone will never give up until the last drop of water hits a stock exchange. Til the last breath is strangled from the earth and its inhabitants to boost its bottom line. So, they tell the good story of redemption, they make it palatable. They dress it in hope and spirituality. They make it almost beautiful. A lot of people believe in it. Even today, it is embedded through eco-philosophy and ethics. Look at any part of the ecological movements and you will see it's footprints. - Like it's sister ecological piety, - ## Sources: -