‘In the early 2040s, nanobots will be able to go into a living person’s brain and make a copy of all the data that forms the memories and personality of the original person: You 2.”
— Ray Kurzweil

I recently finished reading a book by an innovator in the field of Artificial Intelligence. “The Singularity is Nearer; When We Merge With AI” by Ray Kurzweil was a difficult read that forced me to look up many words and take notes in order to understand.

I am asking you to trust that I dragged myself through the technical jargon for you. The book describes a future where mankind will be suckled by machines that provide our every need: food, clothing, shelter, companionship — even sex — largely through implanted neural signals. The author seems certain that life will improve for everyone.

This will be brought about by what he calls a “positive feedback loop” and the marriage of AI to our modern supercomputers. These two emerging technologies are driving an eminent explosion in AI-driven research across the entire spectrum of human development.

Prime directive

Stay with me here. While reading the book I had a random documentary playing on Prime called, “Bad Faith.” The film moved quickly from the background to the forefront. It provided many answers related to our broken politics for this son of a working-class family who was raised to believe in a God of love and kindness.

The documentary taught me about a political operative named Paul Weyrich and the powerful machine he built in order to ensure white supremacy and patriarchy would always retain power in America. The thing to understand is that the men who serve that machine only serve themselves and that the main thing they worship is power.

Something suddenly became clear as the documentary taught me about the dark origins of Christian Nationalism. If you believe in a God of love and do not believe He is about to destroy the people in charge of this world, then you must have read a different Bible than I did.

The greed inherent within our capitalist society will always visit injustice and harm upon people who work for a living. New advances in AI and nanotechnology will place immense power to subjugate and control people into the hands of those who benefit most from that very system.

We should expect the rise of an immense evil.

Almighty dollar

The positive feedback loops discussed in Kurzweil’s book are the beating heart of our capitalist system. They are developments or technologies that make money fast enough to attract piles of investment capital and top intellectual talent.

Tons of cash are advancing this science because it will help big business reduce its top expense: payroll. AI may also finally bring about the end of free will by forcing humans to depend upon AI for everything, making them much easier to control.

I hate to describe the future in sinister terms, but it is essential for those of us who have suffered from generations of exploitation from capitalism to understand the nature of what is going down. Many of us have loved America far more than it has ever loved us back.

Kurzweil glosses over the tremendous power of our military industrial complex, thirsty commercialism and the wealthy coven of Christian Nationalist preachers — all with their hordes of fanatical, violent followers. Their power has only grown. These have ever been the enemies of the poor, the brown, the abandoned and the rights guaranteed to these by that pesky Constitution.

The gospel these people preach teaches that wealth and prosperity are God given. If you are a poor, single mother of three in Appalachia, it is because that is what He wants for you. God is just cool like that with Joel Osteen.

These powers that be do not want everyone to vote, obviously. They believe in segregation, systemic racism, and income disparity. America as we know and love it is all that stands in between them and total domination.

Memories of the dehumanization I watched our capitalist system inflict upon generations of my forebearers lurk in the cracks of my aging face. I see them there — those who should not have been simply just parents, but teachers and protectors. They were kept beyond our grasp by the cruel necessity of two and three jobs.

Hueristic lifestyle

According to Kurzweil, in just 20 years advancements in AI will bring about Singularity, a merger between humanity and the Cloud.

The book discusses the science of heuristics, which has allowed a deep understanding of the neurological hard-wiring of the human brain. Our culture of conflict did not originate by accident. The algorithms behind the information that have polluted our national thinking might have been deliberately designed to bring about this self-destructive society.

Have we reduced truth to a construct and free will to a mirage on purpose? This business is feeding the positive feedback loop that keeps us all afraid of one another. They keep us drowning in lies and misinformation until it is hard to breathe in America.

I can see now that we all serve the dominant positive feedback loop of our day. That is, the industry that generates the most cash. Nobel prize winners in physics and biology this year were pioneering research in AI and the proteins used in genome engineering, the building blocks of life itself.

The wealthy tech barons at the vanguard of AI development are fueled by piles of money that have been connected to titans of industry and these mega-church leaders.

It’s a plan that very well could destroy American democracy. These people do not love common folks.

Once AI has matured enough to fuel the global economy as well as our blood has to this point, those in power will have no further need for human peonage. The working class and poor will become their last obstacle to having everything.

When scientists finally crack the mysteries of life, we will be utterly defenseless against the evil forces in our society that are destined to control it. In essence … they will become God.

Heuristics, AI and power-hungry evangelicals will form an incredible control mechanism left to our God to save us from. Have empathy and truth been gradually choked out during our generations to our collective shame? America’s fall from Grace became undeniable on our watch.

The original lie Satan told Eve was, “You certainly will not die. Your eyes will become opened, and you will become … like God.” Our desire to be like God has us chasing that forbidden fruit into the bowels of hell. The secrets of life are divine intellectual property.

The God I believe in is offended. I say God will destroy these people because He gave us free will and He loves humanity, and the things that I see going on around the world right now look like the worst part of the book of Revelation.

The height of human technology and wisdom has produced a world that worships money, passes amoral policy that punishes the poorest among us and has us all convinced that everyone is guilty so no one is to blame.

I am a flawed human who has made many mistakes. A sudden return of the God I was taught to believe in could, very likely, produce a dark and fiery end for X.

At least I will meet eternity as myself, not some digitally altered profanity. And I will not live to exist in a life that lacks the humor, love and beauty that shares my heart … with God.

May His will be done.