"…Can you not understand, Quentin, that the individual is only a node? The weariness of the node is the vigour of the Internet… We are the priests of power… Information is power… It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means… The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual…. The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day is not power over things, but over men…"
…As usual, the voice had battered Quentin into helplessness. Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement Zuckerberg would twist the dial again. And yet he could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of what Zuckerberg had said, he returned to the attack:
"I don't know – I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you."
"We control life, Quentin, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But the Internet, with the help of Raymond Kurzweil, creates human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the people without Internet connections will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Internet. The others are outside – irrelevant."
"I don't care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces."
"Do you see any evidence that this is happening? Or any reason why it should?"
"No. I believe it. I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe – I don't know, some spirit, some principle – that you will never overcome."
"Do you believe in God, Quentin?"
"No."
"Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?"
"I don't know. The spirit of Man."
"And do you consider yourself a man?"
"Yes."
"If you are a man, Quentin, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent."
His manner changed and he said more harshly:
"And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?"
"Yes, I consider myself superior."
"…You are the last man," said Zuckerberg.
Yes okay. And you also left the previous anon comment where I asked if we’d met – am I right? I had a feeling. I’m used to your diction by now, you see.Sorry to be slow about the other thing.
Anonymous writes:Oh all right: blatant self-importance that, may I say? (try stopping you) is completely justified. Now, to enhance it: cover of Dadaoism for me to click on and hopefully pass onto my publisher who’s promoting her otherwise self-deprecating author, me!
hmmm…. i smell a rat. could this really be the germ of a very complicated alterego self and alternet reality struggling to reconcile with the future of a changed mankind? one that lives in its imagination and is satisfied with that? how will the ‘spirit of man’ overcome this fierce reality of isolation…
Karl writes:Here’s an interesting discussion on the difference between the culture of technology in America as oppossed to that in Japan. Optimistic speculation that Japan may eventually renounce techno-culture due to its lack of natural resources.http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=25497693&postID=1238272026898122902
Karl writes:Forgot to mention that you’ll need to click on ‘Show Original Post’ at the top to see the article.
Anonymous writes:It’s over… there is no hope… The Manichean taint in modern technology has rotted into the fabric of our existence. No matter what is done the decline is unstoppable: we cannot ‘uninvent’ the missile base or the fighter jet or other assorted cool American shooty things. The Spirit of Man has been immolated on the griddle of its own self-infatuation.
“Finally, I have one flat-out prediction, one I have made before but deserves repeating: Japan will be the first society to consciously opt out of being an advanced industrial economy. They have no other apparent choice really, having next-to-zero oil, gas, or coal reserves of their own, and having lost faith in nuclear power. They will be the first country to enter a world made by hand. They were very good at it before about 1850 and had a pre-industrial culture of high artistry and grace – though, granted, all the defects of human psychology.”If this happens, I will move there and live there until I die. I am so, so tired of the triumphalism of gadgetry.
I remember sitting in a luncheonette in a subway station and seeing a woman receiving a call on her phone, and actually taking out a small towel and putting it over her mouth, and the phone, so as to mute her voice while she was talking. More often, the Japanese will leave the space, and conduct the conversation out of earshot of those around them.I just want to mention that, although I will talk on a mobile phone on a train, if I am in a room with other people when I answer the phone, I will leave the room. I do this automatically, in the sense that, to me it would take a deliberate overriding of my instincts to stay in the room. I’ve noticed that few others in the UK seem to share this instinct. I wonder what the difference is.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:one that lives in its imagination and is satisfied with that? how will the ‘spirit of man’ overcome this fierce reality of isolation…I think there are two points here, if not more. One is the solipsist point – whether the struggle is with one’s own solipsism. This is popularly expressed in The Matrix with the idea of the red pill and the blue pill. And I do, very much, understand, the appeal of the blue pill, which keeps one in the dream. If we’re all doomed, anyway, why not? I also understand the moral reservations regarding that. The other point, and perhaps the one that concerns me more, is that actually, this future dream world will not be ours. Whatever bits and pieces of technological immortality we’re sold will belong to the monopolists (one of whom employ Kurzweil), and they will dictate our dreams and everything else.Originally posted by anonymous:The Manichean taint in modern technology has rotted into the fabric of our existence.If anything makes me feel Manichean (interesting you brought this up), it’s the existence of transhumans like Kurzweil. If there’s a battle between good and evil to be fought, this is the battlefront. Originally posted by anonymous:Here’s an interesting discussion on the difference between the culture of technology in America as oppossed to that in Japan. Optimistic speculation that Japan may eventually renounce techno-culture due to its lack of natural resources.Hello Karl. I’ll take a read of this later. As it happens, I recently ‘added’ the following quote on my Goodreads profile:”Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over.” — Hayao Miyazaki
Anonymous writes:Any form of progress is relative to a goal or an end: however, in mindsets which eschew any teological foundation movement itself often becomes a substitute for an end. Looked at in this sense techno-mechanical civilisation represents a variation on of Zeno’s famous paradox, always accelerating but crossing increasingly smaller increments of distance. The worst thing is there is no – or at least very little – innate reason why computer technology or nuclear power should be bad; it’s just that we’ve constantly shown ourselves incapable of displaying showing any restraint or moderation until after some disaster. Transhumanism though is the work of a dozen or so biology students read the premise of Sarban’s The Sound of His Horn and thought ‘Cool man, that’s what I want to do when I graduate’. Trouble is post-sixties culture positively encouraged this sort of thing.
I’m not sure I can add anything to that.