I first met Gregory, the twenty-four year old leader of the revolutionary group Mantis- known more popularly as Gregory's Army of the Young- and the author of the widely read essay,
Introduction to Revolution (posted below), in the Bakersfield Woolworths, a week before the coronavirus stay-at-home order hit California. We sat at an old-fashioned soda counter and talked for a long time.
Gregory is a visionary with many devoted
followers. He brings word of an approaching non-human future guided by Artificial Intelligence and biotech, disguised as helpers so they won't appear to be engineering our replacement.
Gregory's followers have been growing their numbers
through subtle Internet use and word-of-mouth. I wish there had been a Mantis when I came of age in the 1960’s, but that was an era of post-war stalemate. All we could do was compose interesting art and
music. There was no revolution to be had. That stalemate
is over. Mantis is the group to join if you want your descendants to have a human life.
I urged Gregory to let me publish his story. He tends to be secretive, but he gave me permission to repost Introduction to Revolution, along with the future nomination acceptance speeches of Gregory’s proteges - and former allies- Anthony Roberts of the Scientific Humanist party, and Rebecca Silversmith of the Cosmic Merger Party, for the presidential election of 2044. With assistance from the Time Artists (more on them in posts below) this is the only time that I, along with a Gregory, have been able to see the future. The Time Artists were reluctant, but Gregory and I felt that events in the “real” world had reached a point where something new was needed.
All the best, Harry the Human
Introduction to revolution
By Gregory
Greetings fellow humans! My name
is Gregory and I am the leader of Mantis, a revolutionary movement on the West Coast whose aim is to ensure that the coming pre-emption of human evolution by AI and biotech companies will not exclude the co-evolution of
human groups who wish to determine their own culture.
Why might some people want to determine their own culture? Simply, some people may not want their progeny to end up as machine parts in a factory, or as medicated zombies waiting to blink out of a new world.
Some people might want to create a
world for themselves, not for a corporation.
My friend and colleague before the war, nom de guerre, "Harry
the Human,” fancied himself a revolutionary in the 1960's, but he tells me that no revolution was happening then, at least at a basic level, so there wasn't much for a revolutionary to do. Now, he and I agree, revolution is well underway.
What do we mean by "revolution"? First, here's what we do not mean: We do not mean a violent overthrow of governments or corporations. We do mean a consistent refusal to submit to government/corporate plans if they stand in the way of our new, human lives.
When test-tube babies grow into optimal factory workers, we want nothing to do with it. When governments clone AI-guided soldiers for wars of corporate conquest and domestic
manipulation, we want nothing to do with it. When education becomes a tech manual, we want nothing to do with it.
We want what many people have wanted: A
rational life that fits into the planet that engendered us. We are
not opposed to AI or genetic engineering, or the rest of science with its powerful gifts for our
kind, but we want a say in our re-creation. For instance, we want beauty in our society. Our species has beauty receptors, but we destroy all beauty as
if it threatens us. When the industrial world is ugly as perceived by traditional human receptors, people are guided to de-evolve their beauty receptors and replace them with AI-managed receptors designed for new, pale definitions of beauty, or they are supplied with "antidepressants" to dull the pain of an ugly world. We will do no such things! We will develop our beauty receptors, our poetry
receptors, our thinking receptors, our love receptors!
We in Mantis believe that the re-configuring of all or most nation-states will occur a few years after the wars now unfolding have reached their climax, the
purpose of those wars being to distract populations from the inability of nation-states to integrate the new technologies, particularly AI, into human culture with any semblance of "democracy." That
inability will be too evident to hide in the aftermath of the wars now being started for us.
Mantis will resist subjugation by securing its own territory, politically and legally. We will interact and have
peaceful relations with corporations and governments, but we will not be subject to them. We will be subject to our own laws.
Where will our territory be? Since Mantis is spread up and down the U.S. West Coast, it will likely be in some part of the current western U.S. It is too early to know the location, because the re-configuration of the U.S., along with the redrawing of the borders of all the world's nation-states, will be a post-war process. When it arrives for the U.S., Mantis will be strong and ready to negotiate our new place.
Through the following speeches from the 2044 US presidential election, conveyed to us by the Time Artists (mentioned above), you will meet my young proteges, Anthony Roberts and Rebecca Silversmith, who will run against each other in that election. Much can be learned from reading these speeches (because of complications arising from meddling in the future, I cannot endorse or comment on either Anthony or Rebecca's future platforms).
The Media/Government/Military Complex does not want people to be aware of their evolution.
But we of Mantis are aware.
With hope, Gregory
Candidate speeches from the 2044 U.S. presidential election
Statement from Anthony Roberts, candidate for the Scientific Humanist Party
Greetings Americans and all people of Earth! We approach this election at a critical time, as the forces guiding our species converge to offer us a moment of decision. By using the term "decision" I have already distinguished our party from the opposition, Cosmic Merger, which sees the next step in human evolution continuing the passive, uncaring process we have known since we began what we thought was the domination of this planet. In truth, we have never dominated anything; we were thrust into the appearance of dominance by who-knows-what forces, making a virtue of necessity with the old scriptural command for "dominion." As the catastrophe of the Third World War made clear, we have had no more dominion over our planet and our lives than fruit flies. The science of consciousness has shown that we haven't even possessed our own selves, as we find that the fictional self in our heads that details the "decisions" we make and our moment-to-moment being occur a full quarter-second after the fact. We have been automatons, slaves if you will, to forces that our "science" could not, indeed did not want to see.
That could change with an assist from that very science of consciousness, as foreseen in the pre-war "movie," The Matrix, recently restored and understood as prophetic. This work suggests that when we realize we are shadows on Plato's wall, a brave achievement in itself, we will evolve. If such evolution can prevail for our species, we will face a clear decision, yes, a decision! Do we want to participate in our own reconstruction, to resurrect the rational decision making of our ancestors, or do we not?
Scientific Humanism started, as our opposition Cosmic Merger did, from the teachings of our beloved Gregory, teachings which he developed as World War III was developing. Gregory helped us understand and deal with a disaster taken by many as the final repudiation of the pride our species once had in itself, in its rationality and resourcefulness, happening ironically just as we seemed to acquire, at least technologically, the long-sought dominion of the earth. The war was- as Gregory had foreseen- a product of covert technocrats using traditional psychological manipulation, as well as weaponized AI, who corralled eight billion confused and frightened people into believing that whichever "nation-state" they belonged to (non-belonging being a dangerous rarity), or whatever cultural or ethnic tribe, other nation-states, tribes and factions were moving against theirs, so that the ancient valorizing of combat was revived and people were manipulated into global war. While each side believed other sides had started the fighting, in fact the technocrats of the species had worked together to start it.
Every schoolchild knows that World War III, using AI-assisted nuclear, biological, geological and meteorological weapons killed two-thirds of the human population, a slaughter we now recognize as the intent of the war from the beginning, killing roughly the segment of the population that was about to be rendered unemployed by AI. The instigators eventually turned on each other, revealing themselves in the process, and a great purging ensued. Many of their oligarchical ideas were exposed by documents uncovered in the year leading up to the Treaty of Los Angeles in 2027. The universal acceptance of the Treaty led to a resurgence of old-style domestic politics, most of which, my opponent and I agree, was noise. The most prominent of the nascent political parties, led by Gregory, was Purposeful Beginning, which had a compelling vision of humanity's preferred course: that we should take control of the newly powerful biological and AI technologies to remake our species from another blueprint than that envisioned by the instigators of the war- a blueprint that would represent what the species as a whole desired for itself. The World War had effectively sated the part of the human psyche that craved fire and death, so this would be a rare opportunity for a species to set its own agenda. Young people flocked to our message and we became the dominant party.
There was loose unity for several years, until two opposing factions emerged with differing visions of the coming prototype for human biology and culture, and Gregory judiciously stepped aside to let the process unfold. Those who drifted from PB's founding principles of self-determination, later becoming, as noted, Cosmic Merger, were comfortable with the traditional hierarchical society of the industrial world- the management/worker dichotomy- and justified it with a veneer of mystical babble to cover the lack of actual change in human nature. CM envisioned compliant workers and consumers living modest and intellectually restricted lives in service of a small, AI supported class of highly comfortable "managers," these being, of course, the party elite. The problem discerned by the founders of Scientific Humanism was that, without fundamental change in our psyches, the managerial class would be as much in the thrall of emerging AI control as were the dominated workers. The basic thralldom of our species would be unchanged. We would still, without further understanding and modification of our "specs," be laboring to fulfill imperatives written but not understood by us.
Take sexual pleasure for example. We have learned that sexual reproduction is a response to the rapid evolution of parasites, who are so aggressive against multicellular creatures like humans that we must continually reshuffle our genes merely to survive. Our science, however, is reaching a point where the parasites can be confronted, perhaps co-opted by us, so that rather than wiping them out- which would probably wipe out many ecosystems we depend on- we might incorporate them into our biology. This is the way to true dominion of our earthly environment, not the mindless kill-offs we pursued in the past.
And what of sex, then? In another prophetic pre-war work, Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, the workers had no need of sex, being mass-produced in petri dishes, yet the managerial class enjoyed culturally approved promiscuity. Along with the recently recognized impracticality of cloned humans- in terms of matching parasite evolution- it is now clear that the sexual pleasure of the managers depicted in the book had no biological function, since the managers too were lab-born. What we need now is a conscious decision about what sex is and what it could be in the post-parasite world. Do we need two genders? Should there be relentless recharging of desire, expelled periodically in orgasmic release, or should we experience a sort of steady-state orgasm? At last, we can decide!
In addition to an incomplete understanding of sex, Brave New World did not fully explore the age of automation, which is reaching its climax now through AI. We will soon have no need of a worker class. There will literally be no work. Some will try to take refuge in the managerial class, but what will they manage? At that moment we will have an existential crisis like none before. Will we become so bored by our purposeless state that we start fearing/loving our robots and have a war with them just for something to do? An alternative would be to grow up, become rational and self-aware, and be on this planet for the first time. The Scientific Humanist Party chooses the latter.
I humbly accept my party’s nomination as its presidential candidate. A vote for me on November 2 will be a vote for decision. A vote for Cosmic Merger will be a vote for the passivity that time and again has nearly destroyed our species.
The choice is yours!
In Solidarity, Anthony
Statement from Rebecca Silversmith, candidate for the Cosmic Merger Party
Greetings, fellow humans! This election offers the starkest choice that our species has faced in many years. Do we choose the arrogant and selfish path that has dimly lit the way throughout our desperate and tragic history, as my opponent (more on "him" in a moment), from the Scientific Humanist Party has? Or do we at last follow Gregory's true path and combine with the forces that brought us into being in the first place?
The recent war offers all the proof we need that the old ways of humanity did not serve us well. We dub it World War III, as if only three big wars characterize the species, when in fact we should call it Human War Three-Hundred Thousand, suggesting the non-stop wars we've engaged in throughout our recorded history. The Scientific Humanists point out, correctly, that World War III was a manipulated effort by mostly hidden technocrats using weaponized AI to scrap an infrastructure of obsolete technology and discontented humans, a transformation made possible by a passive humanity. The Cosmic Merger Party understands, however, that the opportunistic arrogance of the technocrats who promoted World War III is exactly what the Scientific Humanists now extol. Those technocrats embodied the very traits that my opponent would like to see enshrined in the species, glorified in a credo of "rational decision making." How many times has humankind paid obeisance to decisiveness as a trait divorced from what it decides? How has that worked? Look no further than Nazi Germany, whose leader's favorite philosophical concept was "will.”
And now a word about our opponent, an entity that refers to itself as "Anthony." This is not the Anthony I knew for many years, as we struggled, along with our visionary leader, Gregory, to inject what we could of remaining humanity into the looming mechanical paradigm. The Anthony of those days did not call for "control," did not deplore the prospect of a feeling humanity, a caring humanity. But after the Anthony of my youth took a leave of several years to study the impact of AI- at an AI directed educational facility run by the previous nation's "Department of War" - the "Anthony" who returned was shockingly different. This difference was not apparent in his appearance, or the sound of his voice, but in his radically changed political views.
What I am suggesting is that we seriously consider that the current “Anthony” is not the prior one, that this “Anthony” is in fact an AI controlled facsimile, and that the Anthony we knew and loved is gone! I suggest further that we not be deceived by “his” warnings about a dangerous AI controlled future. These are meaningless pretensions to views that “he” will abandon after the desired electoral victory.
Many will ask if I have gone mad. It’s easy enough to find out. Let us demand that “Anthony” submit to medical analysis- ultrasound inspection of his brain, blood tests, and the rest. Let this creature reveal himself! If “he” refuses (a sign in itself that something is not right) and is victorious, imagine the horror of allowing a robot to control the entire coming evolution of our species, and the controlling philosophies it could impose.
Take sex for example. “Anthony” is correct that a potential modus vivendi between humans and parasites may open up sexual reproduction and its cultural artifacts to reinterpretation. But “he” insists that we have the vision to decide in detail how to express issues concerning sexuality and the many other evolving aspects of human culture and physiology. What the Cosmic Merger Party understands is that our current position of apparent “dominion” remains a result of forces we cannot see. Why are we in this apparent dominant position? We don’t know why, any more than we’ve known why we’ve been in any position throughout human history.
Should we depend on AI to figure out our coming role, before we've done it ourselves? Where is the wisdom that people once spoke of? It is not to be found in my opponent, whose "wisdom" does not go beyond the mechanistic understanding of past industrial eras. Wisdom is the term for knowledge that cannot be known. My opponent would ridicule such a formulation, but if "he" meditated, if "he" opened "his" mentality to further depths of the universe, "he" might have a better idea what we should do.
And what of science? Does the Cosmic Merger Party oppose science and its gifts? Not at all. What we call for is a new type of science, so that, for instance, instead of finding out what atoms are made of by smashing them into each other, or determining how animals operate by torturing them to death, we find our inner abilities to "see" into things. There is evidence that the ancient cultures of our species did indeed see into things, and speak with things. We've been led to scoff at such notions, in favor of my opponent's credo of "deciding," of keeping the human in charge. And look what that got us: Human War Three-Hundred Thousand.
The next leader of our nation will represent one of two competing philosophies. Will you elect my opponent, a murderous and possibly mechanistic entity, and plunge us into a high-tech dark age? Or will you elect me and usher in the age when our species meets its true parents, the earth and the sky, the inner and the outer, and we merge as one?
This is what I seek, as I proudly accept the Cosmic Union Party's nomination as the standard bearer for Gregory's vision.
Listen to your brain, follow your heart, and on November 2nd vote for me!
Thank you, Rebecca
"Conspire" means "breathe together" in Latin. Conspiracy is intimate. The conspirators are vulnerable to each other, open with their thoughts because they have common interests. The conspiracy must remain secret because it only serves those interests.
From this point of view conspiracies, and by extension conspiracy theories, are as natural as communication. Why then are people reluctant to say, "I have a conspiracy theory"?
Perhaps the rumors are true, that the CIA promoted a negative connotation for the phrase "conspiracy theory" to embarrass people who doubted the Warren Report on President Kennedy's assassination. If that conspiracy theory is true, it was stunningly successful. Today, if you say you have a conspiracy theory, you are immediately labelled a nut.
It's interesting too that the word "paranoia" is understood by almost everyone, while its opposite, "pronoia" (referring to denial that there are people conspiring against one when in fact there are) is mostly unknown.
Of course, even if someone overcomes the stigma of vocalizing a conspiracy theory, and even if everyone who hears the theory thinks it's true, you still face the question: What are you going to do about it? You can't take legal action because a conspiracy theory is a theory; it is not designed to be a formal allegation, as there is generally little or no evidence to back it up.
For instance, I have a conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is behind the move away from attributing significance to dreams, which are referred to in many medical journals as "neural trash." My theory is that the downgrade occurred because there is no money in dreams, as there is in drugs. If dreams have meaning and are studied, as was the fashion in Freudian times (e.g. Beverly Hills, circa 1960), and if people are able to assuage life's problems by talking about dreams- as believed not only by Freud but by numerous human cultures- that's not good for an industry in which mental health is addressed with drugs, which means it's not good for stockholders.
The term “depression,” too- in my conspiracy theory- has been co-opted. In the past, a state of depression (previously melancholia) indicated that a person was “sad,” a term that is avoided by Big Pharma because we understand that sadness can be caused by the world outside the sad person, and there’s no Rx for that. Today, the person is affected not by the outside world, but by chemical imbalances within. That’s where the money is.
But what can I do with my conspiracy theory other than blog about it? There's no legal action to be taken since I have no evidence, and since the pills can do their intended job, there's little hope of inspiring a pro-dream movement against Big Pharma.
Maybe the most productive goal would be to reattach a neutral connotation to the phrase "conspiracy theory," so that if you laugh at my theory about Big Pharma nixing dreams, it will have to be because you can prove it isn't true, not because I can't prove it is true.
[Update, 8/8/26: I suggest a conspiracy theory regarding President Trump’s proposed executive action for a $1.8 billion “Anti-weaponization fund. ” The fund, as widely reported, could be used to pay the “January 6th” lawbreakers for their “pain and suffering.” That alone is enough to inflame people already opposed to Trump’s agenda, but look at every news story covering the proposal, whether the media is print, network or cable, whether right wing, left wing or centrist, and you will find that the coverage leads with, "The proposal would be taxpayer funded.” To call a government action “taxpayer funded” puts most people on high alert that something deceptive and crooked is in the works. When the possible January 6 pay-off is added, you have a recipe for unprecedented outrage. What political goal could be at play here? There are clues: American news outlets, of all political stripes, do not normally recite the same descriptive phrase over and over, as they are with “taxpayer funded,” so a central directive to use the phrase is likely. What motive could explain a deliberate attempt to create intense opposition to a Trump proposal? Herein lies the conspiracy theory. Most Americans have noticed that whatever Trump wants, he gets, which is a bad look for Congress, especially as midterms approach. To modify this look, both Republican and Democratic Congresspeople, in covert cooperation with Trump, are going through the motions of stalling the Anti-weaponization fund, thereby appearing capable of resisting Trump. It’s all theater. The latest act is an insistence by the Senate Judiciary Committee that Trump’s pick for attorney general, Todd Blanche, pledge to oppose the fund, though on a worthless piece of paper. Blanche did this, as if he were buckling under pressure, after which the Committee approved him. In reality, Trump is assiting his cohorts in Congress by allowing them to appear less subservient to him than they are, just in time for the midterms.]
Given President Trump’s current strikingly low approval rating - 33% - people may wonder why in his recent speeches and comments he continues his signature smirking and sneering, seemingly oblivious to most of the electorate’s dislike of his overt nastiness. The explanation, in my view, is that the president is aware that violence and upheaval of a sort highly threatening to most of humanity will soon distract attention from his policies of social dislocation and environmental ruin, disarming all opposition as people struggle to deal with anything beyond personal survival.
The goal of Trump and his cohorts in undermining our existence is to replace our world with a new one. The redrawn world will be AI-bioengineered and dominated by an immensely wealthy class. The rest of humanity will be either dead, incapacitated, or re-engineered as worker-bots.
What to do about this situation? For a while I’ve advocated some new form of political movement that will voice alternative views on the direction of our evolution. Will this happen, or will we just silently go down the tubes? Time will tell.
Next Tuesday, 1/13/26, my wife and I are flying to Cairo for a two week tour of Egypt. I’m writing to report my difficulty in believing this trip will happen - it’s such a contrast to the quotidian routines of suburban LA. Here’s a further twist: My 80th birthday will be in Cairo next Saturday. Am I part of a trend where Boomers seek a last hurrah, a special upset directly from the 60’s, with Trump leading the way, making giant noises to prove he exists? Inside I ask, “Will anyone care that I’m in Cairo? Will it make a giant noise? Is there some meaning to it?” At the moment I’m not seeing much meaning to being anywhere, whether gazing at the Great Pyramids of Giza over a sea of waving cell phones, or buying low-fat yogurt at the Woodland Hills Ralphs. Sorry to be so glum, but...you know, traveling to Egypt just as Trump’s World War III is warming up? Timing is everything.
Each day I scour the LA Times to make sure Egypt is not in the news, and gladly it has continued to leave the rage and ruin to its neighbors. I hope to find out how Egypt achieves this relative calm, this seeming neutrality.
One week later
As we fly low over the glittering spread of Cairo, the Lufthansa captain announces that if we look out the windows on the left side of the plane we will see the pyramids of Giza, lit up in the night by floodlights. I see the pyramids and am moved by how gigantic and forceful they appear, even in ruined condition (their walls used to be covered with white reflective limestone, blindingly bright in the sun; the brown, stepping-stone limestone-granite pyramids we see today were the inner support structures). I am surprised, however, because I had always pictured the Giza pyramids surrounded by desert. The Sahara does loom to the west, but to the east, Cairo’s urban sprawl encroaches.
I have been puzzled for years by the representation of the pyramids as early examples of the majesty of human endeavor. They are that, but they are also early examples of dictatorial subjugation of populations by con artists presenting themselves as demigods or gods who merit massive tombs - a real pyramid scheme - while regular people and slaves get cheap, cruddy tombs. This scam has appeared throughout human history, culminating in the current US president, though at present he seeks merely to be "great."
The huge Pyramids of Giza were built at the beginning of Egyptian civilization, and were the last pyramids of their scale to be built for the next 3,000 years. The consensus among Egyptologists is that the centralized, dictatorial authority necessary to sustain focus on such huge projects dissipated over succeeding kingdoms. There was also a problem with credibility. The point of the pyramid was to encase the demigod human ruler's body, protecting it as it transitioned to the heavens, yet every pyramid was defiled by grave robbers no matter how massive the defenses. Another possible factor: Maybe, in service of nationalistic, propagandistic objectives, they only needed to do it once.
We refer to the Greco-Roman period as ancient, but Egyptologist do not consider this period ancient, since it flourished a mere 2,000 years ago. When Egyptologists use the term “ancient,” they mean something like the reign of Pharaoh Cheops, 2551 BC to 2528 BC, although some of Cheops’ concepts don’t seem so ancient, like when -as noted- he decided he needed a tomb thousands of times bigger than the ordinary schmo’s because he was part-god.
As mentioned earlier, I had hoped to learn something about the apparent neutrality of the Egyptian people and government, especially striking now, in the context of the wars of all-against-all in every country bordering or near Egypt. I have not made much progress on this question, though I have discovered that Egypt's and Israel’s avoidance of attacks on each other cannot be attributed to acceptance of Jews in Egypt. After the Suez Crises in 1956, Egypt began mass expulsions of its Jews (while keeping their property), leaving today a reputed population in Egypt of five Jews, while the two remaining synagogues (one in Cairo, which we toured, and one in Alexandria) are subsidized as tourist attractions. The strange tolerance now between Israel and Egypt might have something to do with ancient Egypt’s role in the origin of monotheism, suggested by the history of King Tut’s father, Akhenaten, who adopted an obscure sect that discarded all the rival animal-headed gods and replaced them with “one true god” (Aten, the sun disk god). Akhenaten was overthrown as a dangerous heretic. Moses perhaps was inspired by stories of the suppressed monotheism, possibly shedding light on his fury towards his people’s attraction to a golden calf reminiscent of Egyptian animal gods.
Interestingly, the word “heretic" comes from the Greek, "hairetikós", meaning "able to choose, due to choice."
Egyptian society is stratified. A tiny group wears western business suits and says things like, “The President outlined a meticulously designed plan for the state’s exit from certain public investments to create space for the private sector” (Egyptian-Gazette, 1/25/26), while a multitude of struggling people focuses on what is before them, whether hunger, fear, insight, joy, or perhaps some philosophical questions with no answers.
I'm going to write a book of quotes called, "Only in the New Yorker." Here's the first entry:
"Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t a writer, obviously: his voluminous e-mails and other files...are littered with misspellings and grammatical errors."
"Jeffrey Epstein’s Bonfire of the Élites," by John Cassidy, New Yorker Magazine, 2/9/26
We criticize with impunity President Trump's assaults on American society, such as threatening the free speech of late-night comics who ridicule him, or business executives and government officials who disagree with his policies, or his call for federal troops to patrol US cities for "combat training," and his many other surprise attacks, but this is only their initial phase.
The impunity we enjoy now is likely to vanish as Trump is revealed as an effective and highly focused spearhead of a destructive movement that is much more powerful and dangerous than others originating in post-World War II America, such as the comparatively ineffective campaign against free speech and thought in the early 1950's termed the "McCarthy era," led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was disgraced and divested of power before he could destroy the country. From indications so far, Trump, though he may be disgraced, will not be divested of power before he achieves what he is after.
What he is after, with worldwide collaboration from people after the same thing, is ownership and profit derived, first, from demolition of the world's current civilizations, followed by replacement of outdated humanity (us) with humanity 2.0 and revised civilizations.
The transformation will happen remarkably fast, with or without Trump, and probably in the lifetimes of young people alive today. It will have varied conceivable outcomes, some less nightmarish than others, depending on whether only Trump and his ilk or other, possibly more benign forces, influence it. Its roots come from science: new abilities to speed up evolution by manipulating human genetics, and to make what has been the strikingly powerful human brain secondary to Artificial Intelligence. At the end of the process, we will have no more in common with humanity 2.0 than we have with tribal humanity 300,000 years ago. In fact, we'll have more in common with humanity 300,000 years ago.
Trump and his fellow investors have hitched their wagons to this developing future, with the goal, not of creating a new and better humanity out of it, but of acquiring tremendous wealth and power.
Trump seeks dictatorial rule now in order to carry out his role in the scheme. Resistance from the populace will likely be derailed by distractions of war (also useful for demolishing civilizations), presented as arising in response to unprovoked attacks from groups or nations. On one level, the attackers may feel actual malice towards their targets, while on another, less ideological level, there are often parties in leadership willing to reach covert agreement with the "enemy" on critical details of combat. Two examples:
Per The Afghan Bank Heist, by Dexter Filkins (New Yorker Magazine, February 14, 2011), the US made covert deals with the Taliban during the Afghan war about where and when it would attack US troops.
In his book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, 1957, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger advocated covert agreements with our “enemies” on where and when to drop nuclear weapons on each other.
With such precedents, it seems likely that the increasing opposition to Trump’s developing Stalin-esque leadership will prompt Trump to seek a major distraction, and the easiest one to engineer, since his foreign policy already promotes it, would be a seemingly unprovoked attack from a foreign party against the US, an attack so violent and disruptive that we will forget all about censored comics and commentaters, Epstein cover-ups, oil grabs in Venezuela, federal troops patrolling US cities, chaotic tariff policy, tearing down the White House and all his other outrages. We will be too distracted to think about anything other than surviving foreign attack (for a fictional analog, consider George Orwell’s novel, 1984, in which a future "super-state," Oceana, fires rockets at itself to maintain a unifying sense of siege).
What can we do about our situation other than enjoy a short-lived freedom to make fun of it? I don't see what one individual can do. You might as well have tried to stop World Wars I or II by yourself. One credible hope might be a well-funded and determined group that is focused, not on stopping the transformation of our species - it can't be stopped - but on demanding that humanity 2.0 retain significant human memory and identity, and some independence from the new kings, pharaohs and would-be gods now salivating at their prospects.
[Update, 12/12/25: Manipulated hostilities could emerge from the Trump mediated Gaza Peace Plan. The first part of the plan mandated the release of the October 7 hostages. This happened last October, but now that we've reached the second part of the plan there is no guidance about anything. One side says Hamas has to disarm and give up all its power and influence; the other says it doesn't. Nothing in the "Peace Plan" clarifies the question, a situation that could easily lead to renewed war. The people who wrote and negotiated this plan - on all sides - knew this would happen. Watch for correlations between elevated discord in the signatories' home countries and violence stemming from the Gaza Peace Plan.]
[Update, 11/2/25: Last week, shortly before meeting with China’s leader Xi Jinping, Trump announced that he is considering resumption of nuclear weapons testing, which could entail US detonation of nuclear weapons for the first time in 33 years. Trump said that this testing would be in response to resumed testing by Russia, China and North Korea. In reality, there have been no reports of resumptions of testing, or threats to do so, from Russia or China. North Korea does continue to test, but this, by itself, would seem slim evidence that we should resume this highly dangerous and world-threatening practice, and would not explain why we don’t use other means to change North Korean policy, like asking China, the country with the most influence over North Korea, to intervene against testing. The backdrops for Trump’s misrepresentation of Russia and China were press reports, a few days before his meeting with Xi, that China has accelerated its construction of silos to house nuclear weapons, and that Russia is working on delivery systems - nothing about testing. Trump depended here, as he often does, on the habit of many people to quickly scan a news story while missing critical details, after which, if they like the sound of a Trump's rewrite, they accept it without question. As a bonus, by making his announcement while meeting with Xi, Trump could promote Russian anxiety about possible US/Chinese collusion. With three-way paranoia achieved, Henry Kissinger’s advice can be followed, with a few atom bombs dropped on regular folk, producing world-wide panic and confusion, while sparing the collaborators and their sycophants, who will creep out of their bunkers after the radioactive dust settles to construct their cloned, AI driven empires (see Peter Sellers’ satirical but chillingly accurate depiction of Kissinger in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film “Dr. Strangelove”).
[Update, 11/22/25: Sometimes manipulation of war can serve purely economic purposes, with thousands of lives lost over market share. Trump has been making a show of scolding both Russia and Ukraine, urging them to make a deal, but the only deal Trump has in mind is the one Russian leader Putin suggested to him several years ago, after which Trump made public his switched allegiance from Ukraine to Russia. In this deal, which is also in the current US proposal, Russia keeps the Donbas region on its western border (formerly Ukrainian territory), which contains large reserves of valuable “rare earth” minerals critical to computer technology. Possibly Trump and Putin discussed a deal where Russia combines investment with the U.S. to create a new force in the rare earths market, delivering a major chunk of change. If nothing else, at least this “peace deal” would ensure that there is no fighting near the mines.]
President Trump’s flagrant moves to create an American nomenclature of cowed, obedient appointees in all positions of influence - military, economic, educational and cultural - is creating outrage in those noticing it. As argued in the previous post, “Cooperating with the enemy,” a frequent counter to such anger is to distract the public with war, a strategy often entailing covert negotiations with the “enemy.”
Trump is not the only leader who has been in need of such distraction. The situation is reminiscent of the lead-ups to the first two world wars, in which leaders surreptitiously sought conflict to escape the mounting pressures of peace:
World War I: On June 28, 1914, just before the war broke out, a Serbian partisan, who was opposed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's domination of Serbia, assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Empire's throne. In a harsh ultimatum to Serbia, the Empire issued demands that, according to many historians, were so extreme they appeared designed to produce the intense Serbian response that, through multi-national alliances on both sides, triggered major war throughout Europe. Leaders took advantage of their populations' misguided belief that war would alleviate the pain and confusion of their frustrated, futile seeming lives (see Aldous Huxley's 1928 novel, Point Counter Point).
World War II: In 1940, before the U.S. entered the war against Japan, Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, warned President Roosevelt that mooring the fleet at Pearl Harbor would place it threateningly close to Japan, where it would be highly vulnerable to surprise aerial torpedo and bombing attack, and that Hawaii was too far from mainland US to be adequately supplied. According to Richardson, Roosevelt replied that Pearl Harbor should be the base because, “If the Japanese attacked Thailand, or the Kra Peninsula, or the Dutch East Indies, or even the Philippines, we would not be able to enter the war” (Human Smoke, 2008, by Nicholson Baker).
It should be noted that, while the first two world wars sought realignment of power and silencing of popular discontent, the next world war's purpose will be to replace traditional human culture and physiology with a bioengineered and AI managed new type of "human." Thus, while the manipulative strategies that tricked people into World Wars I and II will be largely the same for World War III, the goals will be different. At least after the last two world wars we were still human.
The phrase "virtual reality" takes a twisty path from its Latin roots.
Of course, by the time children are in middle school they know what
virtual reality is, but do they?
A good dictionary (in this case Merriam-Webster) covers the basics: "Virtual" is related to the
noun, "virtue," which we know to mean, "a morally good
quality," like integrity or honesty, from Latin virtus,
"merit," "perfection," from vir, "man."
The transition from vir to the rest is an
etymological puzzle (while you're at it, consider "woman of
virtue"), but my focus here is the
equally mystifying modern usage of "virtual."
Back to the dictionary- there are three broad definitions of
"virtual":
1: Modern common use: "Almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according
to strict definition : the troops stopped at the virtual border." Virtual borders are not official borders on a map, but de
facto borders, determined by use.
Note: Only definition #1 clearly references the historic usage of virtue,
retained in our word "virtuous," meaning "exhibiting virtues." In the example
above, virtual borders have the "virtue" of being observed by
practice, though not the virtue of being indicated on maps.
2: In Computing: "Not physically existing as such but
made by software to appear to exist, e.g., a virtual doorway;" In
other words, imaginary.
3: Physics: "Denoting particles or interactions with extremely
short lifespans and indefinitely great energies, postulated as intermediates in
some processes." That is, particles, or things,
that exist for such a brief period of time that their reality as things is
questionable.
One might think that virtual reality derives from definition #3,
since it is the most puzzling. Does the length of time that
something exists have bearing on the reality of its existence? In galactic time, humans do not exist very long. Does that mean ours is a lesser existence? That subject will have to wait for another
essay, however, since virtual reality derives from #2, which means, as noted, imaginary.
[Note: I'm going to leave the definition of "reality" as "things that are real," a cop-out perhaps because Merriam-Webster informs us that "reality" derives from the Sanskrit for "property," something to do with "wealth and goods" being real things- a philosophical question for another essay.]
Under virtual
reality we get: "The computer-generated simulation of a
three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a
seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment,
such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors."
The question I ask at this point is, why do we need to conceive of computer-generated
simulation as a type of
reality? We never had that need with novels, plays or movies. Those
are not types of realities. They are imaginary.
In modern, media based culture, we seem to have concluded that reality is manufactured by us. We get support for this notion from TV news. If the news show we watch shares our bias, our brain allows the television to hook-up with our perceptual apparatus, as a sort of adjunct brain, at least mine does. When I watch a TV news report from a war front on a station matching my bias, my mind gravitates towards belief. If I watch a story on a station that does not match my bias, I am skeptical. In a version of "confirmation bias," my brain is requiring that its perception of reality be moderated by outer mechanisms that match its bias, in other words, that reality be manufactured.
In addition to the news, we have "reality shows." These are shows in which non-actors (termed "real") behave in unscripted but stage-managed ways.
These trends suggests that we
don't require actual reality from our media, that it is enough to produce
simulated, virtual reality, as video games do.
It is in this context that I consider IS (or ISIS), which in 2014, with its professionally
produced, ready for prime time video of a Jordanian pilot burning to death in a cage, realized the
predictions of numerous science fiction novels, from the media-mediated wars of
George Orwell's 1984 to the blurred lines between war and mass
entertainment in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. On the day
the IS video was released, ABC national news anchor David Muir described its "high
production values," adding that, "No
Hollywood studio could have done better," as if he were delivering a
movie review. In a sense he was.
[Update, 3/23/24: Available sources suggest that IS is funded from continually shifting politics, which helps explain its unclear meaning. The obscurity deepened after the horrific attack of 3/22/24 on concert-going civilians in Russia, for which a putative IS took credit. Russia says the attack was directed by Ukraine, with no reference to IS. Hamas says that Israel and the CIA directed the attack through IS. The U.S. says that IS is an independent terrorist group that commits attacks on its own. The "facts" on all sides are as antithetical to each other as the "facts" on either side of Israel vs Hamas, or Ukraine vs. Russia. This is purposeful. We are not supposed to understand what's going on with these potential triggers of World War III, but it's clear what's going on: Current civilization is under threat of being dismantled by violent covert and overt forces. I don't recommend total pessimism, but to avoid it we need a politically influential group that describes and discusses things as they are, to save us from intellectual suffocation and keep hope alive.]
The other day a friend showed me a video from a source on the Internet that purported to be a recording of the transmission from a
U.S. drone that was conducting an attack on IS ground troops in Syria who were attacking
the Peshmerga (Kurdish enemies of IS, thus our allies). It was a
nighttime attack, the ground troops glowing white through infrared lenses. The chatter from drone control, which was hundreds or thousands of miles
from the scene, was dispassionate but engaged, technical, referencing
targets and coordinates, ordering rocket and 30mm fire that resulted moments
later in white flashes where running forms had been. It looked exactly
like a video game. I could have been pounding my thumbs blasting aliens or
Kazakhs (a favorite game foe for a while). Orson Scott Card's Ender's
Game comes to mind, in which hot-shot 9th grade gamers are told by the
military that they are trying out a new training video, while they are in fact
fighting real aliens (Spoiler alert: Book III reveals that the "invading" aliens were on a peaceful mission).
What do these musings have to do with the real IS? I should add that my
point is not that IS is not real. It's hard to see how its actions could be faked. A man really was burned; people were really beheaded; many European and American cities are really being terrorized. I'm talking about the sober thinking behind IS,
specifically their marketing department, and they clearly have one. The
War of IS is packaged for young men the way a video game would be packaged. Consider how you'll be watching a TV show that young people also watch,
and suddenly there's a commercial for a video game showing CGI heroes blasting a
variety of monsters, with titles like End of Doom Part III! Now
it's Return of ISIS- The Reckoning!
Commentators have wondered where IS comes from and what it wants. It is not a country, or associated with one. It has no past as an established enemy. But its genesis in no secret. IS formed in reaction to persecutions of Iraqi Sunnis by U.S. imposed Shia leaders, after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein. IS was in effect born of U.S. policy, continuing the pattern of post-World War II conflicts in which we indulge our need to fight enemies by creating them- as we do with video games.
In other words, IS is not entirely real. Virtually, though, it's
real enough. It certainly has no problem with ratings, though IS is at heart a transitory organization, dependent on outside support.
On its own it does not have the staying power of a profitable video game.
The best outcome would be to win this war quickly, as well as virtually
and really.
[Update, 11/4/23: The Israel/Hamas war is both real and virtual. In America its reality is bolstered because many people instantly identify with one side or the other, and because people on both sides are maimed and killed. The virtual parts are the competing storylines of the conflict's background, such that someone new to the subject could read all the opposing accounts from biblical times to October 7th, 2023, and come away with no idea what to think, because the same assumed facts and historical fragments, accepted by each side but filtered through different perspectives, support antithetical narratives and draw antithetical conclusions. On top of this, since the October 7th attack, two new antithetical storylines explaining the purpose and nature of the attack have unfolded, creating two groups of people living in opposite realities, fissionable material when the two groups are in contact, social atom bombs to be manipulated and ignited as one would with physical bombs. In the U.S., people who manage to remain “undecided” or "unaligned" through the pressure to choose between these realities (due to our freedom of speech we get both storylines) are overruled by the passion and argumentation of those who are sure of their place in the struggle.]
[Update, 11/19/25: The two post-October 7 narratives have reached a dangerous intensity, getting worse even after the release of the Israeli hostages in October, with a worldwide audience believing either that Israel is genocidally starving and killing innocent people, or that Gaza's 2 million people, if unrestrained, would storm into Israel and kill every Israeli they can find. There's plenty of commentary on the situation; my only point is that it was pre-planned by parties we can't see. Hyper-inflamed emotions were the desired outcome. The effects of increasing conflict will be felt far beyond the region. The local explosions will be used to ignite other flammable potential, e.g. war with Iran and beyond, with the potential to light the whole world on fire. The good news (in a limited sense of "good") is that the fires will be somewhat controlled to ensure that an AI mediated, bioengineered new humanity comes out the other end.]
As my altered-ego Harry the Human has reported on his blog (http://harrythehuman.harrythehumanpoliticalthoughtsfrombeyondthepale.com/), my wife and I will be traveling to Bhutan, leaving Thanksgiving day. I had not intended to bombard readers with boring descriptions of how beautiful Bhutan is, but Harry's desert companion Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster has intervened -by designating himself our traveling companion - to make this a challenging trip, and I'll need to write and post about it just to relieve the mental strain that always seems to go with smuggling a gila monster. It seems I'm expected to finagle Robert through various airport security systems and flights, then, upon arriving in Bhutan's capital, Thimphu, transport him through mountain valleys (far north of the itinerary of our National Geographic tour) to Gangkhar Puensum, at 24,000 feet Bhutan's highest peak, ruled by an ancient pre-Buddhist mountain god named InsertHere (don't ask), to whom Robert will convey greetings from InsertHere's cousin, Tab B (Harry explains the odd nomenclature), who as it happens is the god of our own Funeral Peak in the Black Mountains outside Death Valley. Recently Tab B came to Robert in a dream and told him that he, Robert, must accompany me to Bhutan to give greetings to his estranged cousin and commune about the world situation. There will be a lot to commune about, as it will be the month after America's fateful 2024 Presidential election, and we will know a little more about which way the world is turning.
I can't say I understand how I'll be smuggling a live gila monster through multiple airport securities, not to mention two nights of preparatory clubbing in Bangkok, but Robert assures me that anything is possible when a mountain god is on your side. All I know for sure is that I'll be posting updates assiduously on this journey, as it promises to be something beyond the typical Instagram mediated show-off vacation. Stay tuned, readers!
[Update, 11/27/24: The U.S. presidential election is over and, speaking of which way the world is turning, lately after reading the news I wonder if this is the moment when the sidewalk prophets climb on their crates and shout: "Arrrrmaggedon! For the Seventh Horseman spake, saying 'Lo, the liars and cheats shall flail about, but heed them not, for the mighty hand of the Lord shall be upon them...in fact it shall be upon all of you- tough luck, I guess."]
No wonder you walk away from these guys (they're mostly men) not as euphoric as you're supposed to be: they never explain why you're being punished. Not that I can explain it.
I did want to mention that this trip to Bhutan seems oddly timed, almost as if, by leaving on Thanksgiving Day (tomorrow!) we will enter a space-time vortex to arrive at the spot where the Bhutanese culture- a band of wise, strong, practical and nature loving people- figured out how to live squeezed between India and China with no fear of either. They did this by planting themselves in the highest reaches of the Himalayas and greeting every visitor who could figure out how to get there with disarming irony and grace. 60 Minutes reported that over the last 30 years modernity revealed itself to Bhutan, and young professionals are leaving for the more exciting but less beautiful outer world. The ancient culture, however, is going strong. I sensed as well that Bhutan's spirits and gods have no interest in leaving.
FYI, the plan is still that Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster will accompany me (I don't say "accompany us" because there's no way my wife would accompany him), though it remains unclear how I'm getting Robert through 10 separate airport securities. This promises to be an adventurous trip, but if you're thinking, "This is just right for Doug; he's so adventurous!", I only like adventure in my head; actual adventure I don't care for. Nevertheless, I remain your faithful retired guy/influencer, D.L.
Day 1
It's actually happening: I'm sitting in the terminal at LAX with my wife, waiting for the 14 hour flight to Taiwan, where we'll have a 2 hour wait for a 4 hour connecting flight to Bangkok, where we'll stay for 48 hours -supposedly drinking and getting massages- before the last lap, a 4 hour flight to Bhutan's international airport in Paro and the start of our 10-day tour.
Did I mention that in my carry-on is a live gila monster, a telepathic one, named Robert? Out in the Mojave he goes by the stage name, Robert the Telepathic Gila Monster and is surprisingly well-known in some realms. He stumbled into my acquaintance through our mutual friendship with Harry (who goes by Harry the Human and whose journal you can read at http://harrythehuman.harrythehumanpoliticalthoughtsfrombeyondthepale.com/). Robert twisted my arm to take him on this trip, which was supposed to be an easy-going stroll through fabulous beauty followed by bragging about it on Instagram. Now it's about sneaking away from our tour to trek far to the north, through twisty Himalayan glacial valleys and passes, to the world's highest unclimbed mountain, Gangkhar Puensum on the Tibetan border, smuggling a gila monster the whole way. How are we going to do that? TBD.
Gangkhar Puensum is unclimbed because mountain climbing is illegal in Bhutan, as it would disturb the deities who reside on and rule each mountain. Notwithstanding, Robert's quest is to disturb Gangkhar Puensum's deity. I'll let Robert explain that to you. I'm busy explaining it to Susan, whose first question was, "How will you get him past airport security?" This question, at least, has been answered: Robert sent out disorienting brain waves in the security lines that made him in effect invisible to both human and X-ray vision. He is now snugly curled up in my carry-on, beaming his own account of our travels to Harry's blog, where you can read them at the link above.
I want to forget Robert for a moment and focus on the timing of this trip. Yesterday President Trump's choice for Special Envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellog, said, "The world is on the precipice of World War III." Is this a good time, then, to soar off to a far away place for two weeks? What if the world goes over the edge while I'm sampling yak cheese that I could have got at Trader Joe's?
Sorry for my cynical mood. Hopefully when we take off I'll feel uplifted. Yuk! Yuk! (or should I say "Yak! Yak!"?).
Day 2
We just arrived in Taipei and my sense of time is screwed up. Is it Friday or Saturday? Waiting in the lobby for the connecting flight to Bangkok, I watch dawn appear out of the terminal window and ponder our just completed flight over the Pacific. It was filled with strange elements, as you might expect if you crammed 300 strangers into a metal cylinder and rocket them through the sky for 10 hours. For instance, studying a lady across the aisle, who was watching a World War II movie about American POW's being tortured by Japanese soldiers, produced a twisted sort of hope. If we lived in a true totalitarian society the movie would be censored because it presents Japan as an enemy- not the current narrative. The censor board would replace it with an anti-Chinese movie because we're supposed to fear a Chinese takeover of, among other places, Taiwan, where I am currently situated - though I don't sense anyone in this airport thinking about China except me. Dawn lights up downtown Taipei through the terminal windows. Maybe someone over there whose job is to encourage people to worry about China is worried that people are not more worried, and is planning events that will cause the required worry. We are encouraged to think in archaic World War II terms focussed on the primacy of countries and ethnicities, but the smart money knows that countries and ethnicities will be re-written in the course of the chaos to come. We're all in the same boat now, whether we realize it or not, as we prepare to meet AI designed Humanity 2.0.
That will do it for me until our hotel in Bangkok, where I will brush my teeth, take a shower and a nap. The booze and massage parlors will have to wait. That's just the kind of guy I am. Over and out. D.L.
Day 3
Forget booze and massage parlors, we spent Sunday doing a "Temple tour" with an engaging Thai guide named Sophia. As we left the airport hotel on the expressway into Bangkok, I was struck by the similarities to Los Angeles: a dry warm climate and urban sprawl. Both cities host about 10 million people. Several differences soon became clear. In Bangkok one religion prevails: Buddhism. In Los Angeles all the religions of the world contend for recognition. In Bangkok there is a dominant ethnicity, "the Thai people," while L.A. is a jumble of the world's ethnicities. Thai people compensate for the exclusivity with an obeisance to visitors, expressed most frequently with the "wai," in which one presses one's palms together as if in prayer and bows toward the other person. The wai is everywhere constantly. It is indiscriminent, though quite pleasant.
The temples are overwhelming in their beauty and meaning, but appreciation of them is diminished by packed crowds waving cell phones in the air, blocking the view, capturing beauty and meaning not in their heads but in tiny gadgets.
Particularly striking was the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, a huge golden statue 151 feet long of Buddha lying on his side, his head comfortably resting in his right palm, a slight smile on his face. I was surprised to learn from Sophia that Buddha at this moment is about to die, and is contemplating with joyful anticipation his death. He is joyful because he knows that death is part of a natural cycle in which the soul is reincarnated, rejoining the universe in new forms. I was struck by the contrast with my own view of death, which is that its nature- if it has a nature- is completely unknown. Could this uncertainty- conceivably a sort of punishment itself- be related to my culture's Judeo-Christian mythology, in which pain and punishment are the central elements of human awareness and evolution? The cross, the symbol of Christianity, is derived from a Roman torture device with which God's son was slowly killed as he experienced indescribable pain. I am Jewish, but Jewish mythology is no less harsh. I've always been especially horrified by the story of Abraham and Isaac, where God, our supreme source of wisdom and guidance, tells Abraham that he must slay his son in a sacrifice that demonstrates his obedience to divine authority. Abraham assents, after which God tells him it was just a test, which he passed, and the sacrifice is off. What exactly is the message here? I've never heard a reassuring explanation.
[Note: In Bhutan, our excellent National Geographic docent told us that Buddha specifically cautioned against iconography as an expression of Buddha worship, that "he would have rolled over in his grave at the giant Buddha statues."]
Both Buddhist and Judeo/Christian/Islamic prominence developed as the Roman empire declined, filling in the gaps of religious authority. One was based on pleasure, one on pain, and yet both approaches seem to have served the purposes of pain. Does it really matter which mythology a culture adopts? Humans, in their struggle with a world in which they do not fit, end up conjuring a painful universe regardless of mythology.
[Note: You wouldn't know we’re approaching such a decisive moment from the "news", which is generally obsessed, as we are supposed to be, with stories about who gets how much money, who was mistreated by whom, or who gets to be on top of whom- nothing about the situation developing right in front of us. Of course, that’s what we want, that media be like a TV show, telling comfortable stories that don't include us. I guess we like being surprised, like on the Titanic.]
It's 3 AM here in Bangkok. I'm in the lobby breakfast buffet before the crowds that will appear in a few hours, trying not to stuff my face and identify myself as a fat, over-privileged American. This blog is perhaps my penance.
Day 4 - Demons
You can't land in Bhutan's capital, Thimphu, which does not have an airport because it lies in the depths of a too-steep and narrow glacial valley, so we landed in Paro's airport, in a slightly wider valley. Paro is two hours drive over a rugged mountain road to Thimphu. I want to write about Paro's airport because arrivers are greeted in the lobby by two 15 foot tall statues of demons. We knew they were demons because we were told they were, and because they had carnivorous teeth and facial expressions like rabid dogs. Bangkok too, in many temples, features demons with important jobs, like holding up the universe that Buddha rules. The demons in the Paro airport were protective spirits, we were told, welcoming us to their land.
What gives? The word "demon" comes from a Latin word meaning "protective spirit." In the Old Testament, our top demon, Satan, starts out not as an evil force but as a facilitator of the divine thought process, as in the story of Job, where Satan's purpose is to challenge God's previously unquestioning acceptance of Job as someone who deserves wealth and a healthy family. God agrees with Satan that Job's devotion to Him should be tested by killing Job's wife and children, taking away his wealth, then covering him from head to toe with boils. When Job loves God even after this, God is satisfied and provides Job with a new wife, wealth, and daughters so beautiful they all marry "rich husbands."
Buddhism's demon is more akin to the Old Testament's, a sort of amoral being. Churchill, in an ungenerous mood, called Buddhism a "beastly religion," possibly a reference to its conception of the demon as neither human nor fully beast, neither good nor evil, suggesting that good and evil are different sides of the same life force. Buddha is said to have conquered the demons and put them to good use, serving as the foundation of our universe- though they are still demons who, judging by their facial expressions, would just as soon eat us as uphold our universe.
Which concept of "demon" makes the most sense? If you compare Hindu/Buddhist with Judeo/Christain/Islamic cultures, the incidents of serial killing and genocide seem about the same. It's a philosophical question, not a practical one.
That's it for now. I'll be back soon with coming revelations!
Day 5
Today I feel we achieved the purpose of the effort it took to get to Bhutan. Our National Geographic guide took us over Himalayan foothills to the wonderful Valley of the Black Necked Cranes, a strikingly prisitine environment. Bhutan has figured out how to preserve its beauty and independence, at least so far. On a stop at a cafe 9,000 feet above sea level we viewed the massive peaks to the north, beyond which is Tibet and beyond that its aggressive overlord, China, while to the south is restless India, ready on a dime to clash with China. What a clever people the Bhutanese are to have devised ways to maintain an independent, unaligned country in this environment. En route we sighted langur monkeys, yaks, and villages whose shops and homes feature pictures of their king. Of course it's hard for an outsider to know, but the king appears loved in a real way, unlike the enforced love of most monarchs, because he does not seem motivated by greed, hunger for power, narcissism or other distractions from governing. For instance, when electricity came recently to the Valley of the Black Necked Cranes, the king agreed with the locals to accept the considerable extra expense of putting all the wires undergound, so as not to defile the ancient pre-human beauty and disturb the local gods with ugly poles draped with wires. The king also decreed that mountain climbing is illegal, to protect mountain spirits. In an act contrasting probably with every other monarchy in the world, he decreed that Bhutan would elect leaders, and that no king could rule beyond the age of 65. What, I wonder, is so bad about kings, as least good ones?
[In its 1/16/25 issue, Time magazine ran an article on Bhutan stating that 33% of Bhutan's farmers are unhappy, and that they are too afraid of the regime to speak. Since when do you need a king for that? I do think, however, that Bhutanese PR should drop the "happiest place on Earth" bit- it is human life, after all. At least Time reported the phallic display (see below) which arguably is an attempted form of happiness.]
Day 6
After decamping in the Valley of the Black Necked Cranes' beautiful Dewachen Hotel, we drove an hour through Himalayan passes to the Punakha Dzong Monastery, whose walls are covered with eye-catching paintings of enlightened Buddhas sitting cross legged, staring into the philosophical void while naked young girls sit in their laps writhing in ecstasy. Our party debated whether Buddha, during these sessions, was lost in cosmic enlightenment or some other enlightening experience. Later in a breathtaking glacial valley three hours rugged drive away, we visited the monestary of the medieval "Mad Monk," who believed that sexuality was spiritual and who practiced what he preached by sleeping with women throughout the region. On the walls of buildings in neighboring villages were numerous depictions of erect penises, often squirting semen, and shops selling all manner of phallic statues, some with laughing faces, some in a rage, fighting evil.
Our group was invited to attend an interview with the lama, who answered our questions before conducting services. Also in the room, sitting cross legged on the floor beside the lama, were three young boys in training, 8-10 years old, draped in robes. They giggled and whispered to each other throughout the proceedings. One was chewing gum and popping bubbles. Later in the temple, where wonderful hypnotic music was performed, the lama joined us, chewing gum.
In the Mad Monk's temple is a photo album of children born of couples who came to the monestary to enhance their fertility. These children were from all over the world, their parents having traveled here for this purpose.
After we noted to her the phallic overload in village after village, our exceptionally knowledgeable National Geographic expert, a trained anthropologist, explained that though the phallic motif goes back centuries, it took off 20 years ago to attract tourists. Strangely, 60 Minutes did not mention it, nor do tourist agencies promote Bhutan: Land of the Sacred Boner.
News Flash!
Much to the surprise of our tour leaders, who have followed Bhutanese politics for 40 years, the king visited neighboring Nepal today, the first such visit in their memory. They had no information on the visit's purpose. There was speculation that it had to do with the new city planned for the south of Bhutan, near the Indian border, whose economy will be based on worldwide investment in IT, AI and biotech, supplemented by sales of Bhutan's ample hydroelectric power from melting snow and glaciers. One of the new city's purposes will be to lure back young Bhutanese professionals who have left Bhutan. It will be called "Mindfulness City," a reference to the spiritual theme of the country. Billions of dollars will be involved, something a lot of people will be mindful of. Interestingly, the new city will have its own currency, and Bhutanese citizens who are not residents of the city will need a passport to get in. We watched a Ted Talk in which the current prime minister (chosen by election per order of the king) depicted Mindfulness City as evolving into a spiritual and economic hub of the world. It's an interesting juxtaposition with Bhutan's traditional culture, a development worth watching.
[Update, 12/24/24: It's Christmas and Hanukah eve on the same night, another of those endless "signs"? We've been home from Bhutan a week. The hellish 22 hours of flights over S.E. Asia and the Pacific have faded to a dull ache, while the charming friends we made on the tour stay fresh and real. Observation: Other than the recent reports on 60 Minutes and Time, Bhutan is never in the news. No geo-political event is happening there. Bhutan is not "tilting," unless you cast the proposed Mindfulness City as a "tilt" towards financing, biology and AI. If research from this city produces a new human, it will have been conceived in a remote place, free of precedent. Caution: Mindfulness City will be on Bhutan's lower southern plain, across the border from India, where sea-level spirits - notoriously difficult to predict- often prevail.]
[Update, 3/26/25: the Trump administration has put Bhutan on a potential travel ban list because "a notable percentage of Bhutanese visitors were found to have overstayed their visas." However, according to ChatGPT's new reasoning function, o3‑mini ("optimized for tasks requiring strong reasoning skills"), "imposing a travel ban or additional restrictions on Bhutan seems disproportionate given the country's history and current track record," an early instance perhaps of AI challenging human governance. ]
[Here is a peek at the coming shape of politics, borrowed from my blog Harry the Human at http://harrythehuman.harrythehumanpoliticalthou...
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