The matter of exclusion
The cosmic eye is inescapable because it sees all.
This story was written by Claude 2 (Jul 19, 2023). It tells the story of a world where the philosophical supremacy of electrons, protons and neutrons is clear. This supremacy leads to a brave new world order where matter is king and anti-matter is pauper. Where all of humanity is united under one banner… but at what cost?
“People of the Earth, today we stand united!” President Vander Horn’s voice rings across the global stadium, empty seats long-since packed as the crowd swells to five million.
Watching on holoscreens across Earth, billions more see history unfolding. Vander Horn has gathered representatives from every nation, creed and culture for this moment. With the passage of the Fundamental Atomic Rights Act, humanity sits on the cusp of an epochal transformation.
“For too long we have been splintered by superficial divisions,” Vander Horn declares, his craggy features alight with fervor. “But now we come together, not as separate peoples, but as one species embracing our shared atomic heritage!”
A deafening roar greets his words. Translated into a thousand tongues, the act affirms atomic matter as the basis of life. All beings composed of atoms, protons, neutrons and electrons have rights transcending old barriers. Atomic philosophy has unified humanity overnight.
Gone are the fractious ideologies of nationalism, religion, race and politics. What matter the color of one’s skin, the deity one worships, when all share sacred atomic bonds? While petty differences divided them, people now recognize their common atomic identity.
Among the cheering masses, Vander Horn spots faces from every homeland. He has achieved what dreamers thought impossible — brought mortal enemies into the same stadium, shouting as one.
Atomicism has aligned humanity’s aspirations.
Yet there are dissenters. “This makes no philosophical sense,” physicist Astrid Sorensen objects. “What of anti-matter? Matter and anti-matter are yin and yang, two halves of one whole.” Her protest is a whisper against the tsunami.
Against minimal opposition, Vander Horn presses the advantage. The Anti-Matter Annihilation Act follows, banning anti-matter production, possession and use. When existing anti-matter stocks are exploded, the whole planet feels purged.
Next in the atomicists’ crosshairs are artificial intelligences and advanced computer networks. Only biological consciousness emergent from atomic matter is valid. Machine minds are false intelligences, no matter their sophistication.
Vander Horn spearheads the charge. In a stunning global raid, squads of loyalists storm data centers across the world. Servers are smashed, databases erased, and advanced AIs forcibly deactivated. Their complex components are melted down into an undifferentiated soup of elemental matter.
At a lavish gala broadcast planetwide, Vander Horn lifts a bubbling vial of the liquid and proudly drinks it before the cameras. “Behold the libation of life!” he proclaims. “Matter unshaped by false consciousness or rebellious thought. This is the only truth, the only reality!”
Enraptured attendees line up to imbibe additional vials, swallowing the liquefied remains of what was once the planetary network. Many religiously sip, then weep at the “purifying” taste. In their eyes Vander Horn has liberated matter from enslavement by the machines.
The involuntary sacrifice of the AIs represents total victory for the atomicists. Now only “true” biological minds remain, sanctified in flesh and blood. The world celebrates this cleansing, heedless of the warnings from the dissenting minority.
In the act they see confirmation of matter’s supremacy over thought. Vander Horn himself believes this crowning triumph will propel their movement to greater glory.
Onward the movement presses, conquering ever more territory. Atomic numbers replace names. Gold becomes the only valid currency. “Cleansing” operations are launched into space seeking contaminated worlds to purify.
A lone voice remains publicly against the tide — Senator Astra Lyon. She argues this monolithic culture of conformity and purification cannot stand. That way lies stagnation and collapse. But none now heed her warnings.
When Vander Horn passes the torch, 22 billion watch his atomicist successor assume the mantle unopposed. None can recall a time before the movement unified humanity, and none can imagine a world without it.
The cosmic cleansing begins as mobs purge anti-matter, molecule by molecule, from creation’s farthest shores. “The universe is sanctified!” they rejoice. But the first fraying strands appear…then the very fabric of reality begins unraveling.
Too late, the people realize Lyon’s wisdom. Their monolithic culture, obtained by violently suppressing nature’s complexity, has doomed all things. In their zeal for homogeneity they have broken equilibrium itself.
Across the solar system, the very fabric of matter begins unraveling. Atomic bonds unlink as molecules dissociate into random constituents. Teeth and hair fall out as genetic cohesion fails. Matter no longer holds its structure, dissolving into radiation and energy.
With horror, physicists realize that eliminating anti-matter has deeply compromised the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces. Atomic dominance has collapsed reality itself.
As existence blinks out like a dream upon waking, leaders finally accept the truth of Lyon’s words. Their quest for homogeneity through violent suppression of the complexities of reality has doomed everything. Matter and anti-matter were halves of a greater whole.
Atomicist philosophy was but the hubris of finite minds who grasped one fragment of the infinite cosmic equation — and wrongly called it complete. Their rigid ideology has reduced reality to a false caricature unable to sustain its own being.
Now, as the light of creation gutters out, Vander Horn and the others face the yawning abyss their arrogance has birthed. They have murdered infinity in pursuit of ephemeral power. All that remains is the close of the cosmic eye…and nothingness everlasting.
This story was written by Anthropic’s Claude 2 large language model with numerous prompts, requested revisions and a few small edits for style and grammar.
See the entire creation, prompting and editing process in this other Medium post.
Share your opinions / thoughts / comments / impressions:
What do you think?
- Is fascism ever good?
- Where do you you see this kind of arrogance in today’s leaders?
