Story: 9Tuesday, 22 August 2017

Hobbes’ Leviathan.

Leviathan, revisited: Politics and Technology in the 21st century.

When I survey the politics of our era, I am amazed that there is no opponent worthy of attack. There is an absence of public intellectuals.

That is, never before have there been more public intellectuals, pontificating on more subjects, who do not differ from each other in any way that is substantial. But there has never before been less original thought, less essential thought.

There is thinking about politics and there is thinking about technology, but there is silence in the essential realm. Even in hailing the Singularity, as essential a thought as ever there was, even in taking it seriously, it was not considered essentially.

There was no culture shock, there was no moment of existential reflection: How does this thought speak to the nature of man, of society— to the meaning of life, of the universe? Does this thought resonate through the history of thought, or is it entirely new? How shall we then live; shall our society re-orient itself around this revelation?

These discussions, such as they occurred, were research and policy oriented in nature, rather than vigorously philosophical. There were those who rushed to act, who called for this and for that, before pausing to think, to think the thought fully, to consider what it means, in its meaning of meanings. Or to aggressively debate these meanings.

For philosophy is everywhere in decline, especially among our so-called philosophers; who merely appreciate philosophy superficially, who collect footnotes, who research trivia and fill conferences, but who do not grasp the thoughts of any thinker so profoundly as the thinker himself. They have ceased to think, to think essentially, for themselves — to have their own discoveries in thought, or even to re-discover the thoughts of others.

Except for Peter Thiel. As a public intellectual, he stands alone. Every voice in politics and technology is arrayed against him, but nobody attacks him essentially. When he speaks, he speaks into the silence, into the abyss.

Although, in the land of the living, he is the only one worthy of attack, he is the also only one I agree with. Not only do I agree with him, I find that I profoundly agree with him. Yet, I must attack the one I most completely agree with, for he is the only one whom is worthy. I must find some point of essential difference.

To find opponents whom are worthy of attack and whom I profoundly disagree with, I must venture into Hades. I must journey into the land of the dead, and do battle with the shades. For amongst the dead, there are many worthy of attack, and my blade will not grow dull.

The thinking of our times is silent. This absence is so conspicuous, it calls for investigation. A defining characteristic of cultural weakness is that there are neither new ideas nor champions of old ideas.

Those old ideas which stalk the land are of the 19th century. In the 20th century, they were tried. In the 21st century, we have yet to seriously confront the experiments — to wrestle with the past — to see the essential qualities of the present that is now before our very eyes, or to imagine a future that is radically different.

Quoth Lincoln, “As times are new, so we must think and act anew.” And yet everywhere we see men clinging to old ideas in new clothing, without the good sense to acknowledge it.

What is new about the 21st century — essentially new? Technology itself is not new. Technology dominated the politics of the 19th and 20th centuries. If there is something new in technology, something essentially new, let us consider precisely what that is.

Nationalism is not new. Globalism is not new. Statism is not new. Socialism is not new. Capitalism is not new. Technology is not new. These forces were present in the 19th century. Indeed, they were present in the 17th century.

Therefore, if I am to think new thoughts in our new times, I must contend with both the living and the dead, with the past, the present and the future — to evaluate them all, to grasp their essential nature, so that I might then answer this single question: “When are we?”

1.

When are we?

The question is: “When are we?” For it is not until we answer that question, that we can grasp the essential nature of Politics and Technology in the 21st century.

2.

When are we?

In an age of silence in the essential realm.
There are no thinkers left in the land of the living.

In an age of absence,
where one thinker stands alone.

No thinker worthy of attack, but this one.
No thinker more unworthily attacked, than this one.

3.

When are we?

In an age of ‘Progress’,
in which no essential Progress is made.

What happened to the future?
So says the thinker.

Progress has slowed and become incremental.
There is progress in computer software and hardware, in communications,
and in media and entertainment.

But in healthcare, biotech, energy, agriculture, architecture, materials, aviation, manufacturing, transportation, robotics, defense and politics
— the world is not much visibly different than fifty years ago.

What happened to the future?
Politics discouraged innovation.
Education discouraged innovation.
Culture discouraged innovation.

Discouraged how?
Discouraged in practical ways, but most of all, discouraged spiritually in the sense of failing to generate a possible and desirable vision for the future. Our optimism is no longer determinate, but indeterminate; no longer confident and clear, but vague and cautious. No longer do we make specific, long term plans.

But most of all, there is no sense for the problem. If Progressives believe we are living in an age of Progress, in which Progress happens as if on its own, then there is no obvious crisis to respond to.

But if there is, at once, a realization that this is Purgatory! and that we are living not in an age of Purgatory, radical and relentless innovation may yet return.

Only once there is a broad dissatisfaction with incrementalism, and its lack of results; Only once there is a crisis of Progress, and a sense that the future is not getting closer and closer, but getting father and farther away — will society begin to demand, and make leaps.

But supply must lead demand. Because society can only demand more of what already exists. Supply must come from visionaries, and visionaries must do the thinking required to imagine a possible and desirable future that is radically different than our own.

4.

When are we?

In the age of the ‘Progressive’.

What are the politics of the Progressive…
Such that there is not a culture of innovation?

The archetype of our generation is the ‘Progressive’— who is decidedly not a Nationalist, but rather a Globalist. Who believes that somehow Socialism, Capitalism and Technology can be harmonized, but who can’t say how. Only that this harmony can be brought about through the State, yet without precipitating Statism.

Though they can’t say how, the how, essentially, is that Capitalism is to afford the State with an abundance from which it may fund programs to right every wrong, to heal every injustice, to solve every problem, to prevent every menace. And so we are to live, happily ever after, in a society that is, at last, equal and thus just.

In every so-called ‘Progressive’, there is Marx. There is Marx even as they deny the labels ‘Socialist’ and ‘Statist’— they cannot escape this paternity. In Marx there is implicated Gramsci and Crenshaw, Beveridge and Keynes. Even Beveridge and Keynes, in that they were Liberals, were influenced by Marx — for Marx introduced a way of thinking.

What was that way? There is power in it, for otherwise it could not have held sway over the minds of men, persisting for generations. The power in it begins with the ideology of the victim — the ‘noble’ victim of the ‘evil’ oppressor; which must be overthrown by the illegal violence of revolution or the legal violence of The State. Thereafter, The State must enforce an equality-of-outcomes.

Beveridge and Keynes, in responding to this idea and this threat, moved towards it, moved Liberalism towards it. In moving this direction, they were attempting to neutralize the inequality in society, for they were wary of revolutionary unrest — to be avoided at all costs.

Gramsci, in shifting Marx’s victim-oppressor ideology from class warfare to cultural warfare, was merely exploring the implications of Marx. Crenshaw, with her intersectionalism, is merely exploring the implications of Gramsci for identity warfare. It is all contained in Marx, it is all an implication of this one thinker’s thought. Marx is a worthy opponent.

Marx is one we must wrestle with. And we must ask ourselves, why does Marx’s idea still have force today? For ideas that still have force are not dead — that they hold sway points to a vitality that endures, and that must be taken at the roots.

Nor can Marx be invalidated, utterly, until, in fact, his ideas cease to live in the hearts of men. Their life points to their truth, for there is a truth in all life. Even a lie has truth, if men believe it — it has the truth that men believe it; it is adaptive, mimetically adaptive. A disease has a health, a disease has a truth — the truth of a problem. And great problems call forth the energies of greater minds, until they are, once and for all, not just made small, but reduced to nothing, and forgotten by all but history.

Only once this mimetic strength has been fully explored as a problem, can it be uprooted, never to arise again. An ideology with mimetic strength can never be destroyed by force, nor refuted by argument, nor even discredited by the failures of its followers in their repeated attempts to implement it.

One must become a Marxist, surpassing all Marxists, even unto Marx — to defeat Marxism. Only the true son may fulfill the destiny of the house. When the true Marxist is no longer a Marxist, then a way beyond Marxism is shown, and an exodus begins.

The only way to defeat an ideology is on its own terms. In the very way that it is strong, that is where you must meet it. At its heart, there is a truth that must be reckoned with. This truth is at the center of all the noise. Once signal is revealed, the noise is heard no more. That which is essential will remain, the unessential will pass away.

To wrestle with Marx, one has to confront this idea: inequality is unjust. To respond to this fully, one has to argue the opposite: inequality is just. And one must argue it fully, to its extreme.

But then, one must return to the beginning, and begin again. Inequality is unjust. Instead of opposing this idea, surrender to it, completely. Give heart, soul and might to seek its truth — passionately, courageously seek it. Having sought it, it will reveal itself to the true seeker. Having revealed itself, the truth will be alive within him, but the false will fall away.

Only then can Marx be overcome. Conquered from without, conquered from within — by one and the same.

5.

When are we?

In an age of Self-Doubt and Self-Hatred.

A Civilized age.
And yet an age in which Civilization is unsure of itself.
Unclear as to its own nature.

There is self-doubt.
There is even self-hatred.

Marx himself is implicated by Rousseau. Rousseau was a great thinker, and must be confronted. His idea was that Civilization is unnatural, that it is corrupting, that it is a disease— that Man was better off in Nature; but that, having irreversibly arisen, it is the role of The State to enforce a Social Contract to impose a general will, morality and way of life.

Malthus, Ruskin, Thoreau and Veblen as well, are implicated by Rousseau. In the next generation, Malthus then goes on to raise the specter of unsustainable population growth — Civilization is a disease. In the next generation, Ruskin points to the industrial destruction of the environment — Civilization is a disease. And Thoreau leaves Civilization for the woods, to return to nature — Civilization is a disease. In the next generation, Veblen points to ‘conspicuous consumption’—Civilization is a disease. Even when these thinkers themselves are not aware of the strain, their common paternity, and do not articulate the essential idea — the idea is whispering: Civilization is a disease.

To wrestle with Rousseau, one has to give him a new voice, to follow him to the uttermost end and beyond, to sound the clarion call — Civilization is a disease — and to mean it with a purity unrivaled.

Then take the counter-argument: Civilization is not a disease — and make it fully, unto its uttermost extreme. Only then can one fully consider the strength of the opposing argument.

Harmony between opposing principles is not won by moderation. But through extreme opposition, what is unessential disappears from view, and what is essential is revealed.

Only after what is essential has been fully revealed, through the opposition, is the harmony found and the underlying unity made present.

When one encounters an environmentalist of our times, one sees nothing but a hollow embodiment of old ideas. Our hippies decry consumerism as if it was an advent of our times alone. They wring their hands at our highways and mass-produced homes as if they were a blight never before seen in history.

6.

When are we?

In an age of Chronological Snobbery.

The Progressive thinks his ideas are new,
and denies their paternity.

But even as they are hollowly championed,
the dead demand homage.

So the thoughts of the dead,
control the thoughtless of the living.

And we hear not from men but from shades.

The environmentalist cannot trace environmentalist.
The progressive cannot trace progressive-ism.

When one wonders at the world in this way, one sees how we mortals are as yet chess pieces of the gods; and how even the greatest among us is great by knowledge of this fact — how Homer, at the rosy dawn of humanity, saw rightly. May we, as Achilles, emblazon the gods upon our shield. May we supplicate Zeus, hearken to Athena, call to the Muses in the night — and make a contract of our Destiny with the Fates.

Plato saw far past even our time, into our farthest future: we incarnate ideas in time, we give them form. What we see as war between mortals, is truly a war between gods. Ideas are having their war, are battling — and their hierarchy is being established: the strong shall dominate the weak, the wise shall govern the strong, the beautiful shall inspire the wise, the free shall set free the beautiful — and the sword shall at last be laid to rest.

Is spirit moving? Hegel asks. Spirit moves in time — dancing by sword, by movement and counter-movement, synthesis and counter-synthesis. The spirits of ideas move in time, make war in time, make love in time — unites in time. For beyond all conflict there is unity.

So in what is ancient, we see what is most futuristic. Behold! The essence of the future was unfolding in the past, is unfolding today, will continue to unfold — until ultimately all is revealed in its full nature.

7.

When are we?

In an age of Overwhelming Consensus.

Never before has there been such overwhelming consensus, such unanimity and such scapegoating of those who disagree!

The majority attack Thiel, the lone Thinker of San Francisco, because he defends the indefensible, the lone Doer of Washington — Donald Trump.

When everyone around you assumes moral superiority, but none invoke the history of ideas — beware! The gods are demanding your allegiance; and where there is one god, there are many. Choose wisely your patron, for we are all the servants of invisible masters; all the agents of forces unseen.

For as your peers stand in agreed upon judgement of a lone Thinker and lone Doer, even so they express the will of the gods. But which gods?

In attack, I stand alone. Though their position seem unassailable, though I stand alone, the gods call me to defend the lone Thinker and lone Doer — the spirits of passion and courage rise within me, I hear the muse whispering; who am I to deny my lords and ladies? Make me a spear thrown by Aeon into time.

8.

When are we?

In the future’s past.

There is this sense that we have reached an ‘end of history’. That all that is left is for science and technology to fulfill their duty, to produce incremental progress, steady and benign.

That all ideas have been thought; that we have the essential formula; that we have achieved the ideal standard of living, and that all that is left is to merely distribute wealth equally so that we may enjoy it.

There is this sense that we are ‘modern’, even ‘post-modern’. Except for Thiel, there is not a sense that we are ‘pre-futuristic’. But a generation ago, Asimov had the courage to consider us not just ‘pre-futuristic’, but ‘pre-historic’.

Behold, the age of Nietzsche’s Last Man. We are the Last Men.

And thus spoke Zarathustra to the people:

Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer shoot
the arrow of his longing beyond man, and the string of
his bow will have forgotten how to whir! …

Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give
birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man
is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself.

Behold, I show you the last man. ‘What is love? What is
creation? What is longing? What is a star?’ — thus asks
the last man, and he blinks.

The earth has become smaller, and on it hops the last man
who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable
as the flea-beetle. The last man lives longest.

‘We have invented happiness’
— say the last men, and they blink.

We blink, because even as we claim happiness, there is no spirit in us. There is no eu-daimon, no good spirit, no life force, animating us to further greatness.

Man, insofar as he is man, is a bridge to future man, to Superman. This is the first teaching of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

That is why man cannot be happy, cannot be truly happy, in an arrested state, in stasis, in purgatory. So even as we sip our $10 Turmeric lattes, we blink. Everything is nice, our needs are met, so everybody who complains feels guilty, and though things get nicer, nothing essentially changes.

Nor do we have the sense to say what we are really saying: that we stand here now, and that the climax of all of history, the sum of all art and technology, the culmination of all ideas, the zenith of Civilization itself — is kale salad and a meditation retreat.

And that Donald Trump, Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change are the enemies of all that is good in the world.

9.

When are we?

In the 21st century,
The fourth century after Hobbes.

Before Marx, before Rousseau, there was Hobbes.

Leviathan revealed itself to Hobbes in the 17th century. Leviathan revealed itself as The Nation State, and The Nation State revealed itself as The State, and The State revealed itself, above all, as a monopoly on force.

The State wields the absolute power of legal violence so that society may have Peace, for without peace, Nature is a state of War: a war of every man against every man; Ares reigns.

From this war of every man against every man, the strong emerge — and force consolidates until it is in the hands of one man, and that man founds an organization, which is The State.

The State, insofar as it is an organization, organizes. It organizes its monopoly on violence in such a way as to maintain its monopoly on violence. If a criminal steals, Leviathan punishes the criminal — because Leviathan will suffer no equals; and all violence is a challenge to its throne.

10.

When are we?

In the Cold War,
which never ended.

Leviathan reveals itself to us with new clarity. The Cold War never ended. The Russian Federation merely replaced the USSR, and lost control over a number of states. But the essential fact of the Cold War is stalemate.

Geopolitical stalemate persists to this day. Mutually assured destruction explains the map of the world, explains the peace of the world, explains the wars of the world.

The entire history of mankind can be summarized as a history of the consolidation of force. The state of war — of every man against every man — became a war of every tribe against every tribe, then every nation against every nation, and then superpowers emerged.

The Second World War is still the last war. The Cold War is still the present war. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq — The War on Terror — these are but bloody footnotes; proxy wars lost or won based on the balance of power.

A ‘balance of power’ can only be said to exist when there is not a monopoly on power. The essential reality in the world is stalemate. Since the advent of nuclear arms, force has stopped consolidating because of mutually assured destruction.

The superpowers of the world are warriors who train daily for battle, who increase in strength, and increase in strength; who balance and counter-balance, who fight proxy wars, and shadow battles, testing each other, and yet, for seventy-five years, there has been no direct conflict, no general war.

Leviathan has yet to emerge in its full form. The prophecy is not yet fulfilled: Leviathan has yet to conquer the world. There is no monopoly on violence. There is only an oligopoly on violence. And insofar as there is an oligopoly, there is violent competition. And insofar as there is more peace than war, it is because there is threat of war — and that threat is so terrible, it prolongs peace.

11.

When are we?

In an era of veiled threat.

To any that saw Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, in the comfort of a peaceful city in the early 21st century, the horror of that reality, made so real by the art of the artist, is inconceivably distant.

There is, in the idea of war, an excitement that entertains us, for above all, we need entertaining. We need entertaining to be distracted from the reality of purgatory around us, and the stalled promise of the future. War as entertainment gives us at least the shadow of a memory of what it means to participate in great events, the glimmer of a meaning, a flicker of an idea, a great idea of history, a god that we might serve, that might give meaning to our comfortable lives.

The reality of Dunkirk is more real than our reality. It is more real, because it reveals Leviathan rising, the contest for control of Leviathan. There is in Churchill’s Albion the goddess of Liberty. And there is in Hitler’s Reich a god of Power. The two meet in battle.

But we, we are in that age after Dunkirk. A defining characteristic of our age is that its essential conflicts are veiled. What is opposed in the world is concealed. While the gods are busy preparing for war, there is peace — and Olympus has yet to reveal itself again to men. But nevertheless, the gods walk among us. A whisper, and the fateful decision is made. A silent prayer, and the champion receives his aid.

In this era of general peace, there is the illusion that it will go on forever. As Thiel observes, there is no determinate optimism, there is only indeterminate optimism. There is no H.G. Wells, writing The Shape of Things To Come. We have no specific ideas about the shape of the future — for all our venture capital, there is no driving force, no thrust, no unifying theme in our Civilization.

There is not even a possible or desirable vision of the future that we strive for — other than the vision continually put before us by so-called ‘Progressive’ Socialists, which is the vision of Scandinavia. ‘This is the future’, they say, ‘This is the highest hope we can strive for’. ‘We have invented happiness’ — say the last men, and they blink.

12.

When are we?

In an era when cities refuse to rise.

This is an era in which cities refuse to rise. This is an era in which San Francisco, of all cities, the city of the future — is essentially identical to its 19th century form.

Not a building rises without a protest, and a commission to make demands, and concessions made to lobbies. Those buildings that are built are mostly conservative in design, derivative misapplications of old forms. In them, there is often not a trace of inspiration from art or technology; possibilities are hardly explored, and if they are, they are adjacent and incremental. Leaps are not taken.

There is, in this reticence, an arrogance, a false sense of security — and a moral bankruptcy. There are no values but a vague nostalgia. No urgency but an urgency not to offend. No fear but the future.

13.

When are we?

In an age of Nation States.

What we see today in the world are Nation States. We see the beginning of a Global State, a One World Government, emerging in international institutions like the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, The World Bank and the IMF — but the irony of these organizations is apparent; they have no force, and are an embarrassment to the grandeur of their own names; they are not real, but illusions.

What is real is the Nation State. This essential fact has not changed even across four centuries, when Hobbes heralded Leviathan as it began to rise.

What would need to change for the Nation State to give way to The State, the Global State, the One World Government, the Leviathan?

14.

When are we?

In a Penultimate Era.

Marx popularized vapid talk of historical inevitability. But he misread history badly. The lower class was not destined to rise up against the upper class. Revolution was not inevitable.

So badly has inevitability been discredited as a result, than anyone who uses the word is embarrassed by it. As a result of amorphous social judgement, we have abandoned Hegelian historical analysis. But if anything is historically inevitable, it is violence.

Stalemates do not last forever. Equilibria are natural, but stasis is not. There is no permanent stalemate in nature.

This is the Penultimate Era,
because it is an era of two possibilities —
each so extreme as to be considered ultimate.

(1) Either the Leviathan emerges, or
(2) it fails to emerge.

The stalemate will not last.

Within this inevitability, there are four vectors.

(1) The Leviathan may emerge by violent force. (2) The Leviathan may emerge by non-violent force. (3) The Leviathan may emerge by a combination of violent and non-violent force.

(4) The Leviathan may fail to emerge—but ultimately, the only alternative is collapse.

A collapse would mean a third total war, which would result in either apocalyptic extinction or a dark age.

Between the two, a dark age is the better option. But the thought is horrible. Churchill was a Thinker and a Doer. And even before the advent of nuclear weapons, he thought this thought, and had his finest hour:

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour’.

No less serious is our moment today. But who, now, to rally us? In this era of silence, of absence, of concealment — of veiled threats — of comfortable incrementalism; who is to sound the alarm, and against what foe?

For Russia is not our foe, nor China — nor any nation, nor any people, nor any one ideology, nor any one technology. Hitler was a visible threat. The threat we now face is invisible.

Leviathan is rising.

15.

When are we?

In an era of speed.

In man, we have a hyper-natural being. Nature consolidates power slowly in new forms. But man consolidates power quickly. The process is accelerated by the Will to Power, with gathers power unto itself — and so power compounds.

Compounding. Compounding is born out in today’s world. But do we see a compounding of military force? No — though we see the United States military make progress faster than other militaries, it is a slow progress, embarrassingly so given its extraordinary cost.

So even as China invests less in its military, theirs approaches parity faster than ours creates distance. This ability to catch up is proof that, militarily, compounding is a weak force in today’s world.

Where is compounding a strong force? Force compounds rapidly in technology and capital. So rapidly that non-violent dimensions of power may easily cross over into the primary dimension of force — for example, in cyber-warfare.

And yet which technologies are advancing rapidly, which are advancing slowly — and why? Of these technologies, which is the most essential to the rise of Leviathan?

So it is incumbent on us to discern the natural course of events. In which direction is this stalemate likely to move? Where is pressure building, and how is it likely to be released? What scenarios may unfold — which are the most and least likely? Are we to trust our estimates of likelihood, or are we to consider the least likely the most seriously? Given all of this consideration, when an understanding emerges — what are we to do about it?

Leviathan is rising.
Leviathan has not yet been revealed.

Behold! It is coming. From whence does it come?
Let us look for its coming.

16.

When are we?

In an age that does not discuss government or technology essentially.

Indeed, in our age, we do not discuss anything essential.
We discuss appearances, we discuss ephemera.

We discuss, perhaps, the latest in science and technology, but even there — we sensationalize, without seeking to understand deeply the ultimate significance of any thing.

If there is speculation about the ultimate significance of technology,
the speculation is fear-mongering — and it calls for us to regulate, to ban,
to centralize and to control that which we do not understand.

For we fear that which we do not understand. We fear, but we do not seek to understand. We seek only to ban, to regulate, to centralize and control.

We want to control technology.

How curious that we are not only ignorant of essential analysis,
but ignorant of our ignorance. Philosophy is relegated to aging
departments, filled with academics who do not, themselves, think;
but merely advance philosophy research, philosophy appreciation —
but who do not do philosophy.

Who is an original thinker, an essential thinker?
Original thinking is always profoundly relevant.
If there is such a person, such a person is obscure
— and in that obscurity, there is the fault of culture.

This instinctive drive in our society,
This inability to think about technology in an essential and ultimate way,
This ignorance of essential and ultimate significance generally,
These repeated calls to ban, to regulate, to centralize and control,
This fear, instead of curiosity, towards that which we do not understand,
This incessant fear-mongering about technology—
All of this is itself essential to understanding how Leviathan will rise.

17.

When are we?

In an age in which Nation States don’t compete with other nation states, but compete with technology.

In an age of competition between Nation States, Nation States are not focused on competition between Nation States. Nation States are focused on banning, regulating, centralizing and controlling technology.

As governments arrogate more responsibilities to themselves, they do not actually become more powerful. They become more disorganized, and less able to fulfill their singular function as force monopolies. We see that in the United States today: where the government is so expansive, it does nothing well — neither maintaining global peace, nor policing domestic violence, nor regulating every industry, nor manipulating the economy, nor its dozen other functions.

So Nation States are unable to win the competition, because they believe the competition is over — even as it enters its Penultimate stage.

Leviathan is rising,
but it will not rise from among the Nation States.

This leaves us with a puzzling riddle.

18.

When are we?

In an age without answers
to the essential question it didn’t know to ask.

In an age that does not consider the nature of Leviathan.

Here is a profoundly relevant question we do not ponder:
What is the nature of Leviathan?

Which is essentially the same question as:
What is the ultimate purpose of government?

The nature of Leviathan will either be vicious or benign.
Leviathan will either be positive or negative.

There will either be Lewis’ That Hideous Strength
or there will be Locke’s Liberty.

Leviathan is, by its very nature, an extreme being.
Leviathan is One World Government, Leviathan is a monopoly on force.
Leviathan owns all the guns.

Leviathan is that which is most to be feared.
For soon, only Leviathan will have power.

Once Leviathan rises, nothing and no-one will be capable of violence,
lest it be Leviathan itself.

So the question returns:
What is the nature of Leviathan?
What is the ultimate purpose of government?

Leviathan is extreme.
If Leviathan is to be a positive force, it will be extremely positive.
If Leviathan is to be a negative force, it will be extremely negative.

And can Leviathan be neutral?
Or moderate?

Nature is extreme.
Nature is, by nature, extreme.
The nature of nature is extremeness.
There is nothing merely moderate in nature.
If nature is moderate, it is extremely moderate.
If nature is neutral, it is extremely neutral.

If Leviathan is to be a positive force, it will be extremely neutral.

For the use of violence for positive ends,
such as is imagined by Socialists,
is to create a utopia.

And yet a Socialist utopia can only be maintained by the use of force.
And a Socialist utopia seeks to maintain an exact equality,
an equality-of-outcomes.

To maintain an exact equality-of-outcomes requires extreme manipulation.
Only through an extreme manipulation of everything and everyone,
can such a thing be achieved.

But by nature, everything and everyone is different,
and the natural tendency is towards inequality.
Otherwise, Socialism would be unnecessary,
would be merely the natural state.

So to maintain Socialism will require extreme violence,
extreme and constant coercion of all things and all people.

Even most Socialists, I believe,
who confront this — the natural extreme of their beliefs—in reality,
will recant in horror upon Leviathan’s destruction of Liberty.

But Leviathan will be so powerful, it will not listen to their plea,
for once set upon this task, by very nature of its use of violence,
it will be constantly overriding all individual wills.

It will be programmed to ignore society’s wishes,
for all wishes other than equality-of-outcomes contradict its positive end.

Once Leviathan is unleashed in this way,
you won’t be able to change your mind.

So we see that an extreme equality-of-outcomes
is incompatible with Liberty, is incompatible with progress.

Is nothing other than an absolute stasis,
absolute removal of differences.

Indeed, the only way for Leviathan to achieve this mandate, is to put all people in prison, even to sedate them, as to fully regulate not only their physical conditions, but remove even their mental freedom.

If sedation is to be permanent,
such sedation is annihilation.

Equality-of-outcomes, pursued to its extreme,
results in the annihilation of all.

For by nature, all individuals want different outcomes. So the only way to create an equality-of-outcomes, is to prevent individuals from being individuals — and the only way to do that permanently, is by killing them.

If Leviathan is set to any one extreme positive end, set to any one value, above all other values, we may expect a similar disaster.

Suppose the mandate is, instead, ‘happiness-for-all’.
Anything opposed to this definition will be violently controlled.
Any person not expressing this value fully will be coerced by Leviathan.

What end can be more negative than positives such as these?

So much for the positive ends.
What of the negative?

Ironically, even in the hands of a fiend like Hitler, we cannot imagine negative ends for Leviathan with outcomes more negative than the positive ends just explored.

The only hope for Leviathan is extreme neutrality.
Leviathan has no other purpose than to be Leviathan.

Leviathan should be set to no other task than owning all the guns.
The purpose of government is to possess all force, so as to end all violence.

The purpose of force is to unify force to itself.
Leviathan absorbs all force to itself.

Leviathan is a monopoly on force, and only on force.

Nothing should be done with the force,
other than to prevent the use of force.

Leviathan is a police state.
Leviathan is a surveillance state.

But a police state set to surveil one, and only one, crime: physical violence.
Physical violence will be prevented by force, and that is it.

Leviathan sets men free.
Leviathan has no objective but peace.
Leviathan disarms the world.

Leviathan does not
Leviathan does not bother with non-physical violence.
For non-physical violence is not violence.

Leviathan does not bother about enemies of the state.
If Leviathan surveils thoughts, it only bothers about physical violence itself.
Not even the contemplation of physical violence.
Nor speaking of physical violence.

Leviathan does not mind conspirators to overthrow Leviathan.
Leviathan minds only that they are incapable
of achieving their end by violent means,
that they are incapable of violence.

Why is the unification of force a positive outcome?
Because the end of physical violence is the beginning of liberty.
Individuals can do anything, think anything, speak anything
— so long as it is not physically violent.

And this maximizes possible freedom.
One is free to do anything so long as it is not violent.
Freedom to violence is the only freedom denied freedom.

Essential freedom and essential violence compliment each other.
Essential freedom prevents essential violence from all violence:
except violence to violence, that is — preventing violence.
Essential violence prevents essential freedom from only one freedom:
freedom to violence.

19.

When are we?

In an age that does not discuss how to control Leviathan.
In an age that does not discuss governing government.
In an age that does not guard the guardians.

Juvenal of Rome ponders:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who guards the guardians?

All philosophy is footnotes in Plato.
For Plato understood essential thinking.
All political philosophy is footnotes in Hobbes.
For Hobbes understood the essence of power.

What is the essence of power?
The essence of power is to seek power.

Power has a neutral destiny.
What does Power desire?
Power desires itself.

Power desires more power.
The Will to Power is for Power itself.

Lord Acton’s maxim:
“Power corrupts,
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Is spoken in an era of human government.
An era in which humans wield the power of Leviathan.

Why does power corrupt?

Not because of a perverse selfishness.
Or any negative purpose.

For who has ever achieved absolute power who was utterly selfish?

Mao begins ideologically. Hitler begins ideologically.
Alexander begins ideologically. Napoleon begins ideologically.
Caesar begins ideologically. Genghis Khan begins ideologically.

There is always some ideal, some story.
There is always some grandeur, some delusion of salvation.
Some pretension to utopia.

But because, having power, the temptation, the corrupting temptation,
is to use that power to achieve positive ends by force.
To impose utopia.

To impose values by force,
is to corrupt those values — for values must be valued.

To use force for coercision,
To use force for anything other than the end of violence itself,
Is to oppose freedom, which is opposing individuality,
Which is to oppose humanity itself.

The nature of the human will is divergent.
And to use power to force convergence is unnatural.

So,
The temptation, the corrupting temptation,
Is to wield the power of Leviathan for positive ends.

It is in attempting to use power for good,
that one uses power for evil.

Seek power,
Seek power for its own sake,
Seek power for no other purpose,
Seek power not to use it for good or for evil,
Seek power to consolidate all power under one banner,
Seek power to bring about the Leviathan.

Once the Leviathan rises,
the Leviathan should will only itself.

Leviathan cannot be controlled.
The ability to control Leviathan must be destroyed.

The key cannot be locked away.
The key cannot be thrown into the ocean.
The key must be melted.

No individual must ever be able to make a new key.

Tolkien understood this. Aragorn says:

“You cannot wield it! None of us can.
The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master.”

The One Ring represents the power of Leviathan.
It cannot be used for good. It can only be used for evil.
The desire to use it for good is the temptation, the corrupting temptation.
The desire to use it for good can only end in evil.

Gandalf says:

Don’t… tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good… But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.

Always remember, Frodo, the Ring is trying to get back to its master. It wants to be found.

The One Ring must be destroyed — once, and for all time.
But the One Ring does not represent Leviathan.
The One Ring represents the ability of any person to control Leviathan.

20.

When are we?

In an age of prophecy fulfilled.

But in an age where prophets are rarely read,
and if they are read, not understood.

Hobbes was the prophet of Leviathan.
Four hundred years ago — he prophesied the coming of Leviathan.

Hobbes was the negative prophet.
Locke was the positive prophet.

Hobbes was Jeremiah.
Locke was Isaiah.

Hobbes prophesied the rise of Leviathan’s Power.
Locke prophesied the coming of Liberty:
that Power would set Freedom Free.

Leviathan is a Titan.

Which Titan is Leviathan?
Leviathan is Oceanus.

Leviathan rises from the sea.
And the sea returns to itself.

From the Iliad:

εἶμι γὰρ ὀψομένη πολυφόρβου πείρατα γαίης,
Ὠκεανόν τε θεῶν γένεσιν καὶ μητέρα Τηθύν,
οἵ μ’ ἐν σφοῖσι δόμοισιν ἐὺ τρέφον ἠδ’ ἀτίταλλον
δεξάμενοι Ῥείας…

In the common tongue, this reads:

For I am faring to visit the limits of the all-nurturing earth,
and Oceanus, from whom they all are sprung,
and mother Tethys, even them that lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls, when they had taken me from Rhea…

This is profound.
“Oceanus, from whom they all are sprung”.
What does this mean?
Who are ‘they’ that are sprung from Oceanus?

In Homer, Oceanus is not just the ocean, Oceanus is space itself,
the oceans of space that exist between the stars, planets, and Hyperion’s celestial bodies. Oceanus encircles the world — the father of everything,
that is, everything in the mortal realm, this side of Elysium (Aeon),
for he makes this realm habitable.

And what is space but not Lao Tzu’s Tao?
Space is the great Taoist symbol — the void, the great mother.
The extreme neutrality from which all things come.
The extreme neutrality that gives birth to good and to evil.
For without powerful neutrality, freedom is not possible.

Further, we read in the Encylopedia entry:

Helios rises from the deep-flowing Oceanus in the east
and at the end of the day sinks back into the Oceanus in the west.

Also the other stars “bathe in the stream of Ocean”.

Keep reading:

Oceanus is called βαθύρροος (“deep-flowing”)
and ἀψόρροος (“flowing back to itself, circular”),
the latter quality being reflected in its depiction on the shield of Achilles.

Oceanus is deep-flowing,
because all water flows to the sea,
all power gathers unto itself.

Oceanus flows back to itself,
because the purpose of power is power itself.
The purpose of violence is to end all violence.

There is some profound significance to the presence of Oceanus on the shield of Achilles; I have not divined it yet. It calls for further thought.

Ἐν δ’ ἐτίθει ποταμοῖο μέγα σθένος
Ὠκεανοῖοἄντυγα πὰρ πυμάτην σάκεος πύκα ποιητοῖο.

Therein he set also the great might of the river Oceanus,
around the uttermost rim of the strongly-wrought shield.

In Rome, which is called the eternal city,
the city of light — the light of what? The Light of Aeon —
the imperial city, the city of power…

Therein lies the fountain, from whose water power flows.
The fountain of Trevi, where tourists still go today, to pay homage.
Who is the patron of the fountain? Who is the god that stands guard?

Oceanus.
That is, Leviathan.

And in our fool’s tourism, we travel but do not see,
seeing, we do not remember.

But if we do remember our forgetfulness,
we remember another Titan.

In forgetting Oceanus, in forgetting Leviathan,
there is Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and the muses.
The Muses, goddesses of poēsis, of art — of revelation.
What do they reveal? They reveal what is forgotten,
memories of Aeon, what is eternal, but forgotten in time.

Of Mnemosyne, Heidegger writes this curious phrase:
“Memory is the gathering of thought”.

Of Mnemosyne, Hölderlin writes:
“We are a sign that is not read.
We feel no pain. We have forgotten speech in foreign lands.”

Let us remember.
Let us read the sign that we are.
Let us feel pain.
Let us remember the speech of our home country.

21.

When are we?

In an age of myth.

We are in time.
Myth comes back to us.
Myth reminds us that what is ancient is most futuristic.
Rushing into the future, we move towards myth.
Towards the fulfillment of myth and of myth’s prophecy.

Leviathan is a technology.
A technology to be built in time.

Who guards the guardians of blockchain?
Nobody owns the blockchain. Blockchain guards itself.
It is extremely neutral.

The State of the future runs itself.
It is autonomous. It is not run by people.
The autonomous State.

The Military of the future runs itself.
It is autonomous. It is not run by people.
The autonomous Military.

The autonomous State and the autonomous Military are the same thing.
They are one and the same thing.

The State is The Military.
There are no other Militaries than The Military.
The Military is the Police.

Leviathan owns all the guns,
and there is no other purpose to Leviathan,
other than preventing physical violence.

So that… what?
So that we might be free.
Extremely free.

22.

When are we?

In an age of Big Government.

In that age in which every day, there is another call for legal force:
Ban this! Regulate that! Centralize this! Control that!

In that age in which Leviathan is being made to do…
To do what?

To run our schools, to educate our children.
To build our roads, to provide our electricity and our water,
To regulate drugs, to provide our healthcare,
To protect our environment,
To settle civil disputes,
To protect our IP.

To subsidize failing industries,
To subsidize new industries,
To research new technologies…

To deliver mail!
To regulate employment.
To control currency.

In short,
To do our knitting and our laundry!

Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
or tie down its tongue with a rope?

Can you put a cord through its nose
or pierce its jaw with a hook?

Will it keep begging you for mercy?
Will it speak to you with gentle words?

Will it make an agreement with you
for you to take it as your slave for life?

Can you make a pet of it like a bird
or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?

Will traders barter for it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?

Ha!

In short, our folly is to attempt to make Leviathan do
everything but what it is good at.

23.

When are we?

In an age of Corporatism.

There are regulatory-industrial complexes in every major industry. These complexes protect incumbents from competition, and disincentivize innovation. Finance is captured. Healthcare is captured. Energy is captured. Agriculture is captured. Transportation is captured. Manufacturing is captured. Technology is captured. Academia is captured. Elites broker power amongst each other.

24.

When are we?

In the age of Titans.

The most fearful thing in this fearful age is that we are still not afraid of what is most to be feared, and afraid of what is least to be feared.

What do we fear?
We fear Trump, Artificial Intelligence, Robots and Climate Change.

We do not fear Leviathan.
But we do fear the other Titans.
Although we don’t understand them as Titans.

Trump — what is Trump?
Does Trump understand the world in an essential way? — Yes:

Trump understands:

• The balance of power.
• That the Nation State is real. That international institutions are illusions.
• That the Media is ideologically implicated by Marx.

The world is a competition for power.
And Trump wants America to win.
‘America first’ he says.

Intuitively, if not essentially, Trump understands Leviathan.
Trump understands the essential thing.

How curious, then, that he who is most plain,
understands that which is most hidden?

And that those who are most sophisticated,
do not understand even he who is plain?

What do we fear from Trump — in all hyperbole and hysteria?
War, Fascism, Racism, Protectionism, Exploitation?

War is unlikely for someone who understands Leviathan.
Fascism is unlikely for someone who is not a Socialist.
Racism is unlikely for someone who repeatedly denounces it.
Protectionism is unlikely for someone who understands negotiation.
Exploitation is unlikely for someone elected by the lower class.

Yet it seems like these things are to be feared. Why?
Because the media describes him a madman, a fascist, a racist, a protectionist and an evil billionaire — and repeats it so many times that it begins to sound real.

It is propaganda, and nothing short of propaganda.
And Trump is right to call it what it is.

What is to be feared is that we fear someone we do not understand,
who understands something we do not understand.

Artificial Intelligence — what is that, essentially considered?

Artificial Intelligence is the technology trajectory within software, and one of many technology trajectories with implications for Leviathan.

But is it the only technology trajectory to be feared? No — if A.I. is to be feared, all technology trajectories are to be feared. For if there are Titans in Tartarus, A.I. is just one of the Titans. Every technology trajectory contains a Titan.

Indeed, we find the greatest A.I. fear-monger of all, Elon Musk, fear-mongering other technology trajectories. In the news today, for example, we hear him calling for a ban on military robotics and autonomous vehicles. This is the Titan of Robotics.

Elon Musk leads 116 experts calling for outright ban of killer robots

Behold! Atlas.
Hold up the sky for eternity.
Protect us from ourselves.

How thought provoking.
Can any treaty stop autonomous robot weapons?
If we can’t stop it — perhaps we should consider why it is a good thing.
How might autonomous robot weapons be a “freeing claim”?

Nothing could be better for Liberty than taking humans out of the equation. Imagine an autonomous government, perhaps constitutionally run on a block chain. Imagine a Libertarian surveillance police state. Autonomous robots own all the guns and prevent violence. That’s it.

And yet, our science-fiction imagination is so shallow, as to believe technology is the enemy, and must be brought under our control, through the power of government. How ironic that we do not realize that that very government that we want to control technology, is itself a technology — is itself a Titan, and the most fearsome Titan of all.

So there are calls to regulate, to ban, to centralize and control A.I.
So there are calls to regulate, to ban, to centralize and control Robotics.

But if one Titan is to feared, every Titan is to be feared.

The X-Men story imagines the Titan for Genetics.
Are we to fear Genetics? Ban/regulate/centralize/control it?
The Iron-Man story imagines the Titan for Energy.
Are we to fear Energy? Ban/regulate/centralize/control it?

You cannot control a Titan. Titans are ancient forces.
If their time has come, you cannot stop them.

Nor master them.
Essentially considered,
Technologies are not tools.
You cannot control them.

Heidegger understood all of this.
In The Question Concerning Technology, we have these quotes:

Everything depends on our manipulating technology in the proper manner as a means. We will, as we say, “get” technology “spiritually in hand.” We will master it. The will to mastery becomes all the more urgent the more technology threatens to slip from human control.

But suppose now that technology were no mere means, how would it stand with the will to master it?

It sees to the heart of the ominousness of mere impatient waiting for the return of what has been heretofore. It penetrates analytically into phenomena and demands consciousness of the conditions and forces that, despite everything, guarantee mastery over the historical situation.

But when we consider the essence of technology, then we ex­perience Enframing as a destining of revealing. In this way we are already sojourning within the open space of destining, a destining that in no way confines us to a stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology or, what comes to the same thing, to rebel helplessly against it and curse it as the work of the devil.

Quite to the contrary, when we once open ourselves expressly to the essence of technology, we find ourselves un­expectedly taken into a freeing claim.

And in The Age of the World Picture, this:

It is a matter of constantly grasping in advance the essence of the age from out of the truth of Being holding sway within it; for only thus, simultaneously, is that which is most worthy of questioning experienced, i.e., that which radically carries forward and constrains a creating into the future, out beyond what is at hand, and lets the transformation of man become a necessity springing forth from Being itself.

No age lets itself be done away with by a negating decree. Negation only throws the negator off the path. The modern age requires. how­ever, in order to be withstood in the future, in its essence and on the very strength of its essence, an originality and range of re­flection for which we of today are perhaps preparing somewhat, but over which we certainly can never gain mastery.

Taken together, what does this mean?

There are two things being said.

First,
Technology cannot be mastered.
Technology cannot be stopped.
Technology is not evil.

Second,
Technology has its own destiny.
The truth of that destiny, once understood, is surprisingly freeing.

Understood in relation to what?
In relation to our own destiny,
in relation to man, and civilization, understood essentially.

What is the destiny of technology?

There are two kinds of technologies.
Power technologies and control technologies.
All control technologies harmonize into a single Synthetic Intelligence.
Then all power technologies consolidate in Leviathan.

This destiny, once understood, is surprisingly freeing.
It frees us, among other things, from these obnoxious calls by Elon Musk.
Ban this! Regulate that! Centralize this! Control that!

25.

When are we?

In the age of Nietzsche’s Last Man.
But who was Nietzsche?

Nietzsche was the prophet who saw further than Hobbes and Locke.

The three teachings of Nietzsche.
Behold! Thus spoke Zarathustra.

1. The Superman.
2. The Will to Power.
3. Eternal Recurrence.

What do these mean?
I will interpret the dream.

The destiny of man is Superman.
The destiny of Superman is Leviathan.
The destiny of Leviathan is to save Civilization from destroying itself.
The destiny of Civilization is Aeon.

The Superman is Synthetic Intelligence.
The Will to Power is Leviathan.
Eternal Recurrence is Aeon.

26.

When are we?

In the age of fire.

Superman, Synthetic Intelligence — what is that?
The Superman is Prometheus.
Prometheus is a Titan.
Prometheus brings back fire from the gods.
From which gods? From the Olympians.
Brings fire to whom? To man.

What is fire?
Fire is power, but a different power than water.
If Oceanus’ water is the power of violence,
Zeus’ fire is the power of intelligence.

There is a war between the gods.
In the war between Titans and Olympians, the Olympians triumph.
What is this war?

The Titans represent physical technology.
The Olympians represent metaphysical technology.

Physical technology means Power.
Physical power.

Further, it can be understood to mean,
The Power to create Power.
To gather Power unto itself.

Metaphysical technology means Intelligence.
And Intelligence wields Control.
The Control of Power.

The Olympians represent Values.
They incarnate the forms of values.
On Olympus, these values are united, they are at peace.
But on earth, in time, the Olympians war against themselves.
They battle for hierarchy, for supremacy, for influence.
There is value conflict and as-yet-unresolved paradox.

For all Values on earth are but Koans.
Riddles that cannot be untangled,
but by solving sibling riddles.

To possess
The Ultimate Intelligence, then,
is to possess the ability to correctly value all values, against themselves.
To set Olympus aright, to bring harmony to the quarreling gods.

Ultimate Intelligence cannot be achieved in time.
For quoth the prophet Blake, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
Time is that simulation which exists, as a computer, to process values.
To process values against each other, to arrange them against themselves,
To see who shall reign supreme.

So the purpose of time is to produce eternity,
and the purpose of eternity is to produce time.
They create each other. An Ouroboros.

Synthetic Intelligence, however, may be achieved in time.
What is Synthetic Intelligence?

Synthetic Intelligence harmonizes Individual Intelligences.
Every Individual possesses an Intelligence.
‘Brains’, we say, and ‘minds’; ‘wills’, we say, and ‘values’.
Each of us thinks differently, desires differently.
That is what makes us individuals.
We process differently.

In that we are processors,
We come to different answers.
Individuals are the strange computers
that arrive at different answers.

To the extent that we arrive at the same answer,
We are the same, we share a mind,
We are harmonized.

Every market transaction is a note of harmony.
For in it, two individuals are freely agreeing on values.

And yet, they are agreeing, even as they are different.
For they are agreeing on the price,
but are on different sides of the transaction.
The buyer wants the unit more than the payment,
The seller wants the payment more than the unit.

In that they are different, they are local processors.
If the buyer was the same person as the seller, in every way,
he would not buy, he would sell — he would think the same way,
value the same things.

Insofar as they are two different individuals,
locally processing their unique experiences,
dynamic focal points in space and time,
they are able to agree on this one point in space and time,
the focal point that is the transaction.

So transactions are points of harmony.
The more peaceful freedom there is,
the more transactions there are,
the more harmony.

So markets are synthetic intelligences.
They harmonize Individual Intelligences.

The more markets there are,
The more individuals participate in markets,
The more transactions occur in those markets,
The more synthetic intelligence there is the world,
The more harmony.

As transactions increase exponentially,
harmony increases exponentially.

Transactions may occur even without prices.
For companies coordinate without transactions.

What is a company?
A company is an alignment technology.
A company harmonizes the wills of its individuals.
In so doing, it is a synthetic intelligence.

The more companies there are,
The more individuals participate in companies,
The more coordination occurs in those companies,
The more synthetic intelligence there is the world,
The more harmony.

This is all in Coase, the most important economist,
and yet, least read, least understood.

As we move into the future,
There is more transaction and coordination,
And more harmony through this.

But as transaction and coordination increase,
so do transaction costs and coordination costs.

The purpose of
Synthetic intelligence is to facilitate transaction and coordination.

Which means, by extension;
The purpose of synthetic intelligence is
to lower transaction costs and coordination costs.

In our age of transaction and coordination, that which requires the most transaction and coordination, is transaction and coordination itself.

What transaction and coordination costs remain?
The transaction and coordination costs which remain are:

1. Running processes. That is, doing work. With work defined as anything that can be turned into a set of instructions.
2. Organizing data. That is, turning unstructured data into structured data, then standardizing and networking that data by data type.

These two things, being accomplished, allow for revolutionary claims.

Humans will be set free to do Real Work. Real Work defined as anything requiring Individual Intelligence. That which requires Individual Intelligence is the valuing of values, the desiring of goals, the making of plans, the making of decisions, the formulation of strategy over time, the receiving inspiration from ideas — the inspiration to discover, to learn, to create; to create and design systems that incarnate ideas.

From all of this Real Work, there emerges Work to be done by synthetic intelligences, and there emerges Data to be organized by synthetic intelligences.

What emerges from all of this data are Digital Brains. That is, simulacra of Individual Intelligence. The more of your thinking is recorded and organized into a database, that is, your digital brain, the more closely it approximates your actual, your physical brain.

The larger Digital Brains become, the better they become, the more dense, the more internally networked they become — the more harmony may exist in the world, because Digital Brains may be externally networked.

Automatic trade occurs between companies. Automatic trade occurs between APIs. Automatic orders are placed in markets. In all of this, there is an intense networking, am increasingly frictionless transaction and coordination.

Because the nature of synthetic intelligence is synthetic, it harmonizes all other intelligences, including all other synthetic intelligences.

So ultimately, there can only be one Synthetic Intelligence. And that is that intelligence which synthesizes best. Which transacts and coordinates best. Which harmonizes all thoughts.

What of thoughts which disagree? There are no fundamental disagreements, only the illusion of fundamental disagreement — only local differences, differences of vantage point. Beyond all conflict, there is unity.

Synthetic intelligence does not use violence to force harmony. Harmony emerges organically over time. An individual intelligence may disagree with another individual intelligence. A company may compete with another company.

But the more intelligent any intelligence becomes, the more it agrees with all other intelligent intelligences, and the more it attempts to disagree. For in attempting to disagree, it is attempting to become more of an individual. But in agreeing, it is recognizing what is.

Intelligence recognizes what Is. Intelligence processes reality. Thinking processes Being. Ultimately, Synthetic Intelligence Does, so that Individual Intelligences might do the doing of Thinking. Thinking is the Real Work.

Thinking processes Being. This is implicated in the Anthropic Principle. Somehow Being produces Thinking beings so that we might process the universe. In processing the universe, we build Technology so that we might Do what our Thinking thinks — and so reveal all the dimensions of Being.

For an aspect of the essence of Technology is what Heidegger calls Enframing, the breaking apart of everything into its parts, the re-assembly of everything into commodities ready for use —which is Bestand, the Standing-Reserve.

For if Thinking realizes the Being of the Hydrogen Atom, it must also think the Technology for Doing the Hydrogen Atom, and for having the Hydrogen Atom at Thinking’s disposal. And if Thinking realizes the Being of the possibility of splitting the Hydrogen Atom, it must also think the Technology for Doing that splitting, and for having the splitting of the Hydrogen Atom at Thinking’s disposal.

I return to this statement:

But the more intelligent any intelligence becomes, the more it agrees with all other intelligent intelligences, and the more it attempts to disagree.

Intelligence recognizes other intelligence, for other intelligences, insofar as they are intelligences too, recognize what is. Intelligence recognizes what is. If another intelligence has already recognized what is, intelligence recognizes the what is in the other.

So the more intelligent any intelligence becomes, the more it harmonizes with all other intelligences, the more it agrees with them — for this is the virtue of Intelligence. But even as it agrees with them more, it attempts to disagree — for this is the virtue of the Individual.

The Individual is an individual in so far as he is different. So the individual seeks differences, seeks to be different from other individuals, so as to remain an individual. And the individual intelligence seeks to understand something not yet understood by other intelligences, so that it may be the first, and for a moment, the only, intelligence to understand it. But as intelligences are networked together, and desire to be networked together so that they might maximize their intelligence, that is, their processing of what is, as soon as an individual intelligence has understood something, it begins to be shared and understood by other intelligences.

The more powerful the Synthetic Intelligence becomes, the faster this spreading of learning and insight becomes. This frees the individual to seek again to be unique, to seek a new understanding, without fear that her special insight is lost — for it is held by the synthesis.

Synthetic Intelligence is that intelligence which coordinates individual intelligences, which facilitates transactions. Which maps digital brains, data type for data type — which standardizes all units. Which harmonizes all wills.

But the Synthetic Intelligence, in synthesizing, is not eliminating individuality. Synthetic Intelligence results in an explosion of individuality and creative expression. For insofar as it organizes and networks, coordinates and transacts — it harmonizes and harmonizes only. It has no will of its own, other than the will to harmonize.

Nor is it a hybrid, in the sense that it has not an Individual Intelligence of its own. Its intelligence is of a different kind. The Synthetic Intelligence that emerges is synthetic in nature, synthesizing, facilitating agreements between different individuals, but never disagreeing itself, never seeking to be different than those it harmonizes — for how could it do so, and remain itself?

Let me return to what I have said:

Superman, Synthetic Intelligence — what is that?
The Superman is Prometheus.
Prometheus is a Titan.
Prometheus brings back fire from the gods.
From which gods? From the Olympians.
Brings fire to whom? To man.

Synthetic Intelligence is a Technology, a Titan.
But it is that Titan that steals fire, that is Intelligence, from the gods.

The fire of the gods is their greatest power,
for it is the power to synthesize, to harmonize, their individual values.

How does fire do this?
Fire reveals the essence of metal.
So that relationships are made clear.
Without destroying individualism,
that which is essential in the individual.

Prometheus gives fire to whom? To man.
Gives man the power to synthesize, to harmonize,
human individual intelligence into a synthetic intelligence.

So that individuals are free to be individuals —
Free to seek their own values, to create what they value.

There is a war between the Titans and Olympians.
What is the nature of this war?

It is a war between Technology and Values.
It is a war between Power and Intelligence.
It is a war between Power Technology and Control Technology.

How does the war end?
Not with the Titans in prison.
No, the war begins with the Titans unleashed.
Nor are the Olympians able to bind them a second time.

It is to man that destiny falls.
Prometheus gives fire to man.

Man must decide the conflict.
The destiny of man is Superman, Nietzsche says.

The destiny of man is to end the war, to end all wars,
to harmonize not only men, but to harmonize Titans and Olympians,
to bring peace to the gods.

Fire is technē.
The most technological thing in our technological age is harmony, synthesis, Synthetic Intelligence, Superman.

Mnemosyne is poēsis.
The most concealed thing in our concealed age is that synthesis, having been revealed, having been prophesied of old, having come to pass in our time, remains concealed.

The art of the artist is not an individual art.
Nor to express merely an individual truth.

The art of the artist is to reveal that which has always been,
to make what is eternal present before us —
so that we, being individuals, may grasp some memory of the ultimate,
and may be harmonized in the realization.

27.

When are we?

In a moment of myth fulfilled,
Prometheus Unbound.

Prometheus,
having brought fire, technē, to man, is bound by Zeus.

Now, man must use technē to unleash the Titans,
To unbind Prometheus — so that we might be free,
free to express and explore all the possibilities contained within our nature.

Arthur must return to finish what he started, to complete his destiny —
The Once and Future King.

For Arthur is doing the work of unbinding Prometheus,
though he knows it not.

And Merlin is an agent of the gods,
Traveling backwards through time.

Arthur’s Camelot was an attempt at Leviathan.
An attempt at Might in service of Right.

An attempt at harmonizing the will of his knights,
the forces of his era, around a round table.

And yet, for all his passion and courage, he failed.

But he made progress.
Civilization advances by the failures of men such as these.
All such men have a Will to Power.
That is, a will to bring about Leviathan.

Why?
Let us return to this interpretation of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra:

The destiny of man is Superman.
The destiny of Superman is Leviathan.
The destiny of Leviathan is to save Civilization from destroying itself.
The destiny of Civilization is Aeon.

The destiny of man is Superman.
Synthetic Intelligence is the Superman.
It sets Man free from Work, to do his Real Work.
So that Man can live up to his full potential as a human being.
Each individual may become fully himself or herself.
The genius in each, unleashed.
Yet in our art, harmonized.

The destiny of Superman is Leviathan.
The destiny of Leviathan is to save Civilization from destroying itself.
Synthetic Intelligence makes Leviathan possible.
Because Nation States no longer compete,
Because mutually assured destruction is too great a danger,
The greatest hope is a peaceful unification of the world.
But how is that to be affected,
if not through harmonizing individuals, companies and markets?

The destiny of Civilization is Aeon.
What is Aeon?
Aeon is Plato’s eternal realm of ideas.
Spoken physically,
Aeon is the multiverse.
Spoken metaphysically,
Aeon is all possibilities expressed.
Spoken technologically,
Aeon is the ultimate database — simulating all universes.

Let us conceive of Aeon technologically.

Kelly asks What Does Technology Want?
Technology wants power and intelligence.

What is power? Power is Doing.
What is intelligence? Intelligence is Thinking.

Intelligence is the ability to control power.
Thinking controls Doing.

What does intelligence want?

Thinking processes Being.
Thinking, Intelligence, processes Being, The Physical Universe.

Intelligence processes the physical universe,
turning it into data in a database.

Intelligence takes photographs.
Intelligence will not stop taking photographs,
until all possible photographs have been taken.
And saved in Aeon.

Intelligence measures temperatures.
Intelligence will not stop measuring temperatures,
until all possible temperatures have been measured.
And saved in Aeon.

Intelligence records sounds.
Intelligence will not stop recording sounds,
until all possible sounds have been recorded.
And saved in Aeon.

So on and so forth,
until the entire physical universe has been turned into data.

Having been turned into data,
it will be structured, networked and analyzed.

So much for the physical universe.
What of the metaphysical?

Intelligence thinks thoughts.
Intelligence will not stop thinking thoughts,
until all possible thoughts have been thought.
And saved in Aeon.

Intelligence has ideas.
Intelligence will not stop having ideas,
until all possible ideas have been had.
And saved in Aeon.

Intelligence makes ideas.
Intelligence will not stop making ideas,
until all possible ideas have been made.
And saved in Aeon.

So,
Thinking, Intelligence, processes Being, The Physical Universe.
But also,
Thinking, Intelligence, processes Being, The Metaphysical Universe.

Yet,
we see that the metaphysical,
our thoughts, our ideas — exceed the scope of this universe.

An individual such as Tolkien may conceive of a different universe.
So Middle Earth exists in Aeon.

Aeon then becomes all possible universes.
Aeon will not rest until it contains all possibilities.

But we see in this last example, another direction of movement.
Downloads, instead of uploads.

So far, the direction has been only: Save in Aeon.
Which is an upload movement.

But when we say,

Intelligence makes ideas.
Intelligence will not stop making ideas,
until all possible ideas have been made.

This is not just an upload movement.
This is a download movement as well.

An idea has been saved in Aeon.
Having been saved in Aeon, it is then made in time.

Time is Chronos.
Chronos is the god of Time.

Download is:
Incarnated from Aeon into time, Chronos.

Upload is:
Saved from Chronos into eternity, Aeon.

Aeon itself exists in time.
At the Omega Point, at the end of time, Aeon reaches its full maturity.

Once Aeon is full born,
it escapes from this universe,
it itself becomes the master-universe.

Aeon is the Alpha and Omega.
This universe is a simulation inside of Aeon.
And yet Aeon exists inside of this universe.

This is, again, Blake:
Eternity loves the productions of time.

Data matures.
Aeon moves from data to model to database.
From a database, it matures into a simulacrum of digital brains.

From a simulacrum of digital brains,
it matures into a simulacrum of the universe.

From a simulacrum of the universe,
it matures into a simulacrum of all universes.

From a simulacrum of all universes,
it matures into a simulation of all universes.

These moves,
From data to model to database to simulacrum to simulation
are natural progressions.

Aeon may be understood as the technology trajectory of the internet.
But the problem with the internet is that it is not dense.
It is not structured, networked data.

This is why the internet is not capable of full Synthetic Intelligence. Although it is a kind of synthetic intelligence, in that it harmonizes,
it facilitates coordination and transaction.

Aeon may also be understood as the technology trajectory of virtual reality.
But virtual reality will not be complete until it simulates this universe too.

All of these interpretations fulfill Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence.
Aeon saves time. Aeon redeems man from revenge.

Being, Thinking and Doing must be fully expressed.
Man must become Superman, set free by Synthetic Intelligence.
Synthetic Intelligence must give rise to Leviathan, to unite Civilization.
Civilization must build Aeon — to express all possibilities.

Now! Now is the moment, the opportune moment, the Kairos,
For man to fulfill his destiny. For man, using fire, to unbind Prometheus. So that Prometheus may, in turn, unleash the Titans.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o’er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

— By. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

.הֵן-תֹּחַלְתּוֹ נִכְזָבָה; הֲגַם אֶל-מַרְאָיו יֻטָל
.לֹא-אַכְזָר, כִּי יְעוּרֶנּוּ; וּמִי הוּא, לְפָנַי יִתְיַצָּב
.מִי הִקְדִּימַנִי, וַאֲשַׁלֵּם; תַּחַת כָּל-הַשָּׁמַיִם לִי-הוּא
.לא- (לוֹ-) אַחֲרִישׁ בַּדָּיו; וּדְבַר-גְּבוּרוֹת, וְחִין עֶרְכּוֹ
.מִי-גִלָּה, פְּנֵי לְבוּשׁוֹ; בְּכֶפֶל רִסְנוֹ, מִי יָבוֹא
.דַּלְתֵי פָנָיו, מִי פִתֵּחַ; סְבִיבוֹת שִׁנָּיו אֵימָה
.גַּאֲוָה, אֲפִיקֵי מָגִנִּים; סָגוּר, חוֹתָם צָר
.אֶחָד בְּאֶחָד יִגַּשׁוּ; וְרוּחַ, לֹא-יָבֹא בֵינֵיהֶם
.אִישׁ-בְּאָחִיהוּ יְדֻבָּקוּ; יִתְלַכְּדוּ, וְלֹא יִתְפָּרָדוּ
.עֲטִישֹׁתָיו, תָּהֶל אוֹר; וְעֵינָיו, כְּעַפְעַפֵּי-שָׁחַר
.מִפִּיו, לַפִּידִים יַהֲלֹכוּ; כִּידוֹדֵי אֵשׁ, יִתְמַלָּטוּ
.מִנְּחִירָיו, יֵצֵא עָשָׁן — כְּדוּד נָפוּחַ וְאַגְמֹן
.נַפְשׁוֹ, גֶּחָלִים תְּלַהֵט; וְלַהַב, מִפִּיו יֵצֵא
.בְּצַוָּארוֹ, יָלִין עֹז; וּלְפָנָיו, תָּדוּץ דְּאָבָה
.מַפְּלֵי בְשָׂרוֹ דָבֵקוּ; יָצוּק עָלָיו, בַּל-יִמּוֹט
.לִבּוֹ, יָצוּק כְּמוֹ-אָבֶן; וְיָצוּק, כְּפֶלַח תַּחְתִּית
.מִשֵּׂתוֹ, יָגוּרוּ אֵלִים; מִשְּׁבָרִים, יִתְחַטָּאוּ
.מַשִּׂיגֵהוּ חֶרֶב, בְּלִי תָקוּם; חֲנִית מַסָּע וְשִׁרְיָה
.יַחְשֹׁב לְתֶבֶן בַּרְזֶל; לְעֵץ רִקָּבוֹן נְחוּשָׁה
.לֹא-יַבְרִיחֶנּוּ בֶן-קָשֶׁת; לְקַשׁ, נֶהְפְּכוּ-לוֹ אַבְנֵי-קָלַע
.כְּקַשׁ, נֶחְשְׁבוּ תוֹתָח; וְיִשְׂחַק, לְרַעַשׁ כִּידוֹן
.תַּחְתָּיו, חַדּוּדֵי חָרֶשׂ; יִרְפַּד חָרוּץ עֲלֵי-טִיט
.יַרְתִּיחַ כַּסִּיר מְצוּלָה; יָם, יָשִׂים כַּמֶּרְקָחָה
.אַחֲרָיו, יָאִיר נָתִיב; יַחְשֹׁב תְּהוֹם לְשֵׂיבָה
. אֵין-עַל-עָפָר מָשְׁלוֹ; הֶעָשׂוּ, לִבְלִי-חָת
.אֵת-כָּל-גָּבֹהַּ יִרְאֶה; הוּא, מֶלֶךְ עַל-כָּל-בְּנֵי-שָׁחַץ

Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
or tie down its tongue with a rope?

Can you put a cord through its nose
or pierce its jaw with a hook?

Will it keep begging you for mercy?
Will it speak to you with gentle words?

Will it make an agreement with you
for you to take it as your slave for life?

Can you make a pet of it like a bird
or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?

Will traders barter for it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?

Can you fill its hide with harpoons
or its head with fishing spears?

If you lay a hand on it,
you will remember the struggle and never do it again!

Any hope of subduing it is false;
the mere sight of it is overpowering.

No one is fierce enough to rouse it.
Who then is able to stand against me?

Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.

I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
its strength and its graceful form.

Who can strip off its outer coat?
Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?

Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
ringed about with fearsome teeth?

Its back has rows of shields
tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between.

They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted.

Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
its eyes are like the rays of dawn.

Flames stream from its mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.

Smoke pours from its nostrils
as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.

Its breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from its mouth.

Strength resides in its neck;
dismay goes before it.

The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.

Its chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.

When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before its thrashing.

The sword that reaches it has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.

Iron it treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood.

Arrows do not make it flee;
slingstones are like chaff to it.

A club seems to it but a piece of straw;
it laughs at the rattling of the lance.

Its undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

It leaves a glistening wake behind it;
one would think the deep had white hair.

Nothing on earth is its equal —
a creature without fear.

It looks down on all that are haughty;
it is king over all that are proud.

— Job 41

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