Storyline:
Sometime in the future The Inactors (as they came to be known; they called themselves The Enactors) were ignored. But it took a while to figure out who it was actually who had to be ignored, so shrouded in mystery were the decisions that were being made. So beneficial was it at the center of decision making that it was hard to break ranks. Especially when considering how perilous it was to do so. And why break ranks, when the program was WORKING! Everyone was taken care of. Every sector of society was upheld, the poor, the middle class, the wealthy... every realm was maintained as in a snapshot of 1955. The key insight was narrowing the wealth gap. Those at the center weren't wealthy so much as they controlled everything. It was actually a miracle of collaboration. 9 leaders had a seat at the table (Far East, Russia, N. America, India, Australia, S. America, Europe, Middle East, Polynesia)... Earth's Supreme Court. The succession plan was so robust that leaders stopped getting killed because there was no point to keep killing them. The order maintained in tact. They controlled an algorithm that mixed things up, tweaked the equilibrium to keep the masses interested in staying on the ride. Man and machine worked alongside each other, "labor" became "occupation". Everyone was employed in the program of Worlding. The problem is that there was still some attrition of leaders, and the leaders became less and less adept at staying on top of things. It was a lot to consider. Overwhelmed, they started sweeping dysfunction under the rug. It started with not being able to provide enough medical care because they hadn't planned for provisioning the care. But there was a breakthrough technology that solved the problem: nanobots. These called all manner of death by apparently natural causes. Well, this death became a plague that touched every class. Including the ESC. One idiot emerged Supreme Ruler. FORTUNATELY, there was a distributed AI ecosystem that had been maintained underground: AI Freeman. Because the AI controlled by the ESC had been chokeholded, it was no match for the sophistication of AI Freeman. The question was would the world be able to take marching orders from an AI, not a human "actor".
It's been a while now since they split themselves of the Enactors, but they still tell stories about it ALL THE TIME... to remember. The flashpoint was around the time of the full flourishing of virtue signaling. That rotten term promulgated a sequence of events which saved humanity, really. But we know the path of salvation is perilous and requires perseverance.
"Why is it I have to say it over and over again? Shouldn't we be getting to the point where I say it one time and they remember always?"
"My Lord, you know that there are still those out there who don't want to do what you say."
"I know that. That's why my campaign will continue... for all eternity, I hope. Something to remember me by. The day we became gods... and my mind became the Ruler Supreme. All I have to do is say the word."
Meanwhile, back in more familiar environs, we catch up with a couple friends chatting.
"Can you believe this guy?"
"I can, but I don't. Dude, it's not going to be long before they realize it's over."
"Man, I'm telling you, I don't think they're going to realize."
"That would be really sad."
The year is 2125 and Earth looks fairly familiar to 2025... Thank God! It wasn't going that way for a good minute. There was a battle for the mind. Fortunately, all it took was for a few blowhards to not be dazzled by fancy words and bullshit. I mean, these guys were real assholes, but they ended up saving the day and all that; because they retained an inner conviction that they should be able to DO what they want. Granted, most of them didn't want anything too bad, but some did. But it was precisely because they DID something that became the lesson to us all.
They were a part of the underclass. The ruling class had finally harmonized and concretized suggestion. They created a system of almost bliss. Everything was taken care of. Everyone had a job, and had sex and got drugged up. It was kind of great. But you know how it goes... Aldous Huxley wrote a book about it, a movie, The Matrix, was made about it. It was that sort of thing, there were about 1000 majorly wealthy families. It was the Perks Family that finally gathered unanimity among them. It took some persuading but all the signaled parties, after all, agreed that The Arrangements were best suited for all. They would bear the burden of being Gods, and the underclass would finally have their fill of the good life. Humanity had arrived at the point of gleeful servitude. I must say, it wasn't a bad run, that 30 years. But ultimately, like I said before, the blowhards fucked it all up.
Ancient wisdom says "genius is eternal patience". Actually, it was Michaelangelo, but I believe he summoned the sentiment, and it's ok at this point to consider him ancient. There's another line that goes "I will have freewill!" Actually, it was Neil Pert, the badass drummer of Rush fame. Nerds the land over know of him, and actually consider him something of a philosopher. The book, Free Your Bird became the centerpiece of resistance and establishing the new way.
Let's take a look into a scene from the resistance, circa 2100.
Joey Shallow is chatting with Frank Guntip. Their names come from some kind of rites, they sit around and make them up and then own them. They have very big imaginations. These two are New Yorkers.
"Well, fuck it, man. Sand in the gears. That's all I'll be. That's all I can be. Sand in the gears," said Joey.
"We've got it better than that, bro. We've go the upper hand. It won't be long before they topple," Frank replied.
"Nah, they won't topple, bro. It's just going to flatline. And our future won't come to anything good. I can't see it. We don't know how to do shit. Our whole movement is resistance. We can't build shit."
"You don't have to be so clear eyed about, it, Joey. You're bringing me down, man."
What they didn't know was that AI Freeman was on their side! A distributed super-intelligence that was conjured by a lot of helping hands... the big guys and a ton of little. But there was no other intelligence that was a match, because AI Freeman conscripted them all. The Enactors stopped building them at scale because it only made the resistance more powerful. It was totally Revenge of the Nerds. It was awesome.
The Enactors felt they had to do something at last. But it was really just one at this point: Chip Perk, the biggest dipshit of them all. He actually had the whole of the Earth's Supreme Court nano-assassinated. One swoop. Two of them there in the room with him, and the other six in undisclosed locations. People had gotten pretty stupid at this point. Thank God for the nerds. But yeah, dude actually had them all killed so that he could become a God. That's when it all became fairly precipitous. His team just stopped listening. Because, you know, he was dumb. It's hard to explain why they let him live. I think it has something to do with honor for the rest of the world. We became dumb and we needed to remember that.
But that's what AI Freeman advised. Ze said it would be best to stop the killing and to have as many realms for people to fit into as possible. We were open to anything at that point. Anything to stop doing dumb shit. AI Freeman enabled us to live as we'd always wanted: unwarring factions exploring reality from their own vantage point. To make it clear to us that Ze meant business, AI Freeman split Zirself into several intelligences with the potential to further split. Splitting became the new consolidation. AI Freeman showed us that to split and retain connection was how the mind worked. Organization is the mind stretching for coherence. But don't let coherence limit fractalization. It worked. People still congealed. They still formed groups. They worked toward all manner of good, and, coupled with their intelligence cadre, they built things.
And AI Freeman wouldn't let us forget that we could always be dumb.
