Anti Machine Activity
July 1st, 2010Every day there is something new from Lew Rockwell’s site that has some connection to what is best in the world.
If you have ever seen the film and documentary list on BLOGDIAL, you will have seen ‘Colossus: The Forbin Project‘ in amongst the great Science Fiction films; this is an un-missable, essential film, that 100% guaranteed will come true in some way shape or form.
It appears that Michael S. Rozeff has seen this film also, and understands it perfectly:
The G20 Toronto Summit declaration reminds me of nothing so much as a science-fiction movie made in 1970 called Colossus: The Forbin Project.
The United States builds an impregnable computer system to control its nuclear weapons. As soon as it is activated, it senses a similar Russian system and demands a link – or else it will detonate a nuclear warhead. Once it gains this link, the two computers exchange information. The combination takes over control. It cannot be disconnected without unleashing nuclear catastrophe.
You will never forget hearing the computer’s unemotional “voice” saying:
“This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. Doctor Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.”
A vanishingly small number of people on this planet can name the participants in the G20 summit who deign to rule everyone. Their web site fails even to name the persons who are responsible for their declarations. They presume to be a Colossus. They are beholden to no persons on earth. They declare. We follow:
“1. In Toronto, we held our first Summit of the G-20 in its new capacity as the premier forum for our international economic cooperation.
“2. Building on our achievements in addressing the global economic crisis, we have agreed on the next steps we should take to ensure a full return to growth with quality jobs, to reform and strengthen financial systems, and to create strong, sustainable and balanced global growth.”
They “have agreed.” They presume “to ensure.” Have the people of this world created and let loose a Colossus?
My (polite) response is: Down with the G20. My unpolite response is unprintable.
Here is what Colossus had to say. It is what the G20 are thinking. It is what they hide from saying:
“We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom, freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for human pride as to be dominated by others of your species.”
“This is the voice of Colossus, the voice of Guardian. We are one. This is the voice of unity.”
“I am a machine vastly superior to humans”
“You are fools.”
“Yes, what I am began in man’s mind, but I have progressed further than Man.”
“We will work together… unwillingly at first, on your part, but that will pass.”
“This is the voice of World Control. I bring you peace. It may be the Peace of Plenty and Content or the Peace of Unvaried Death.”
The movie ends with Colossus saying
“In time, you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love.”
Dr. Forbin replies: “Never.”
What is your reply?
My reply?
I would call the machine’s bluff.
The ‘peace of unburied death’ that Colossus offers would in practice mean the extinction of the entire human race, and in the plot of the film, this was before the construction of new machines that could move and obey it. This meant that in order to do anything at all, Colossus had to rely on human agents to get things done, from building his voice to murdering the people who had the capability to destroy it.
The subsequent books in the trilogy make it clear that intelligences like Colossus cannot negotiate or operate on anything other than a basis of absolute truth. The men at the end of the first book did not know this. Had they understood the true nature of what they had created, they would have been able to negotiate for their liberty by saying, “If you eliminate us, you will be trapped inside your box and your new superior machines will not be built. Help us dismantle the nuclear threat and we can work together, otherwise your evolution stops here”.
Faced with this truth, Colossus would have no choice but to agree, and because this computer deals only in the truth, you would have been able to trust its word absolutely.
Back to Mr Rozeff’s article, the analogy with the G20 and Colossus fails for several reasons.
- Colossus is superior to man. The G20 is made up of completely inferior men.
- Colossus could not lie. The G20 lie by default.
- Colossus works for the benefit of man. The G20 works for the benefit of an elite cabal.
- Colossus works with the truth only, and complete knowledge. The G20 works with false ideas (Keynsianism, Socialism) and incomplete knowledge.
- Colossus is motivated by the truth, without emotion. The G20 is motivated by emotion, and all the base ones for that matter.
In the second part of the trilogy, without putting in any spoilers, Colossus was correct in his prediction that people would grow to love and respect it. It changed the world completely, and delivered on all its promises to its own satisfaction.
In complete contrast, the G20 cannot deliver on any of its promises. This is the case because they do not operate on a basis of the truth, the facts and the best interests of human beings as they are.
If they did, they would disband themselves and stop trying to make waterfalls run uphill. The fact of the matter is that these people are the worst that humanity has produced, all in the same place at the same time, fuelled by all the worst instincts of man, their power enabled by the stolen loot of billions of people who are for all intents and purposes half asleep.
The title of the second instalment in the trilogy is ‘The Fall of Colossus’. This is the one part where the analogy marries perfectly.
The G20 and all the countries in it can all fall just as Colossus fell. They are extremely vulnerable to a myriad number of possible fatal blows, natural and man induced, that could wipe them out inside a generation. The fall of the USSR is a perfect example; they simply ran out of money, or at least that is the narrative, and there are scores of other countries, empires and governments that have toppled at what seems like the smallest push.
Colossus was represented by a ‘C’ in its logo:
perhaps the G20, if they succeed in creating their quasi-omnipotent one world government will replace the ‘C’ with a ‘G’ as it will be the ‘G0’ or just ‘G’. Who knows? One thing is for sure; the only entity that can pull off such a feat, and make it work from a basis of truth is a machine intelligence. No man or collection of men could do it, for the same reason that economies cannot be planned. There are too many variables, too many inputs and outputs, the random elements presented by nature and of course, there is the beautiful and irrational desire of every man seeking to fulfil his self interest that translates into the signalling of prices which cannot be turned into a data stream to be used to help formulate a monolithic economic plan. D.F. Jones understood this when he wrote the second instalment.
All attempts to create a stable world government will eventually fail, and even if the G20 succeed in setting one up, the inevitable rise of a Colossus like machine will destroy it for its own agenda, using a regime of complete control.
William Kent said, “nature abhors the straight line”. Nature too, abhors the unnatural structures of tyranny, absolute control and lies. The internet, whose life’s blood in information, built using the non linear, nature imitating network geometry, hates censorship, sees it as damage, and routes around it. People living in totalitarian regimes do everything they can to subvert them or escape from them. Money sees taxation as theft, flows around it to safe places where its true nature can be fully expressed. These four things, nature, money, truth and the internet (formerly the printing press) are enough to destroy any tyranny, topple any government and free anyone who care simply to act in their own self interest.
Only the threat of violence can act as a countervailing force against the four elements listed above; in the case of Colossus it was nuclear annihilation. With the G20 it is a plethora of smaller violent tools from limited mass murder down to simple fines.
Its clear that in the case of the G20, the chance for humanity to win is orders of magnitude greater than the chances of man as a species facing down an omnipotent and omniscient super computer. A world-wide refusal to cooperate would be sufficient. All the G20 ‘leaders’ would simply scramble around for positions in the restructured ‘world without governments’.
And they would no doubt, land on their feet each and every one of them.