Techno-religion: The Unforeseen Quest of Control Brings Us Here
Our beliefs lead us to actions. And the beliefs are ever changing, not to mention, baseless too.
“What’s on the fringe will be in the mainstream”
Here are two anecdotes to orient your mind for this blog —
1. Racial cleansing
Between 1941 and 1945, the army heads of a European country got inspired by the antisemitism and racist thoughts. Their belief: Humans are not all the same and some are superior to the others. The thinkers were not biologists, researchers, historians, anthropologists, or scientists. But, were filled with hatred against the followers of a religion (‘race’ according to them).
They took it upon themselves to rid humanity of the inferior races. Their method was to kill them all. We call that incident ‘The Holocaust’.
2. Ah! I see a pattern
An experiment was conducted to see how humans find a pattern in random events.
The test participants were locked in different rooms. Those rooms had some switches, levers, and chairs. When they pressed certain switches and sat in a particular position, a reward was offered to them. Soon, participants started relating their actions with the rewards.
They also repeated them in the exact order to win the rewards. They were pressing a button thrice with the left hand, then sitting on the chair, and pulling a lever for a fixed number of times and Baam! a reward came in the room.
After the experiment, they were asked: “ How many combinations did you find to get to the rewards?” And they all gave a number.
But the truth was, the rewards were given to them at random intervals and their actions had nothing to do with it.
Nature embodies us and not vice versa.
We do what our beliefs can justify, we condemn what our beliefs can’t.
Observing our beliefs and numerous such incidents leads us to the way our actions changed throughout the history. Everything that we do is inspired by our beliefs.
Those two (real) stories left us with doubts and disgust for our own behavior. After all, it’s nature that embodies us and not vice versa. It is an obvious thought.
The mental picture that this idea leaves us with is silly. Don’t fall for the silliness of right and wrong and justify those stories. But, observe the consistency of baseless beliefs that we’ve been living with, since forever.
We don’t know how, and from where the idea of ‘belief’ came from.
Your pet dog believes that you are his/her family, is that all the pet dogs believe in? we are not sure of that.
We don’t know if animals have sophisticated belief systems. That makes it harder to discover the beginning of those thoughts which lead us to form a primitive belief. But there are many stories, facts, and (again) beliefs about it.
Birth of the belief system
One idea that closely justifies the birth of a belief system is our need to gain control. Human beings crave control. We want to reduce the uncertainty. We try to omit the possibility of any undesirable event.
We wanted to gain control over the forests so we started domesticating, killing, and praising different animals. We wanted to gain control over the rain, so we created a rain god. At one juncture we wanted to gain control over the distances, so we invented vehicles for faster travel. Every solution or technology that we ever built was and is to gain control over the uncertainty.
That is how we evolved and progressed, gaining control over the resources as much as we could. There is no way we’ll stop. And in this process, our belief systems are tools. Our beliefs lead us to actions.
A quick journey through the major belief systems with plain explanations will give you an interesting picture.
It all starts with the Animism (most probably).
Animism
We all are animals and we worship the strongest and the friendliest.
Dualism
Two powers exist in this world: God (good) and Evil. We pray to the god to save us from the evil.
Monotheism
There is only one true God. The true god preached us by sending his son or by talking to the chosen one in his dreams.
Polytheism
You can create your own God, whatever suits your lifestyle and environment. But to make them almighty, keep them under one umbrella. And here is your umbrella.
Communism
All human beings are equal. We all should equally own the resources and live in harmony. As long as it is fine for all. And it is fine, for all.
Nationalism
I was born on this piece of land and so my forefathers. They have written a constitution (similar to the scriptures for a religion but subject to change). It is my duty to devote my life to my nation and protect it from the enemy nations.
Humanism
We are conscious beings. We are supreme. We have to protect the humanity no matter what. Death is bad, for us. Do whatever it takes, but make sure that we stay alive — with plenty of food, water, air, respect, equality, sovereignty, and FREEDOM.
Liberalism
Every individual is unique and sovereign. Let us do whatever we want to do as long as no one is offended or hurt otherwise. And BTW, no one should be offended by my thoughts — After all, we are free and we have a free will. We stand against age-old establishments, the orthodox can’t comprehend us and our needs. You are free, child.
Capitalism
Every individual is selfish. It is in favor of the individuals and the (invisible) market that all of us act selfish and work towards maximizing our profits (money, or whatever we collectively want to own). Do what is good for the market. The individual sufferings and needs don’t matter as far as you are creating wealth (the concept of wealth is subject to change).
Dataism (Techno-religion)
Dataism: The new religion as discussed in Homo-Deus.
Humans are mammals. Nature, the bodily sensations, and our needs govern us. We don’t have free will.
We do cure diseases, doge death (sometimes), travel to the moon and mars, edit DNA, replace human organs with artificial ones, transfer messages through thin air, make rain, fly, became the cause of global warming and… But, Humans are algorithms.
We collect data, store it, transfer it, process it and draw conclusions. From data to wisdom, all within seconds. The more data we collect, the less we need to depend on human wisdom (which is, after all, biased). Data is the only truth and algorithms never lie.
Needs, beliefs, and actions
The shift in the ideologies and beliefs are not coincidental. They are a reflection of human society.
The primitive humans lived in the forests, among other animals. Their needs were to find a way to live safely and find food every day. Therefore, their beliefs were influenced by the animals, trees, water, sun, rain etc.
Later, we formed civilizations and the need was to control masses. So, the beliefs leaned towards almighty forces and invisible powers. You can also see that the society was predominantly patriarchal (male dominant). The angels he sent were a man, the chosen ones were men and God was a man himself.
Then, the focus shifted towards the society. Communism and nationalism came into the mainstream to support the growing needs of the human collective.
In the recent past, the individualism took over. We don’t depend much on the support of geographically limited groups now. The Internet, cheap gadgets, electricity, online platforms etc. help us establish ourselves as an individual. The personal and public opinions now matter more than an old ideology. And money gives the individuals a strength.
The pattern has remained the same. It starts with our newborn need, then we act and we justify our actions with a new shift in our belief.
What do we want to control next?
Here we are, sleepwalking. Embracing every Google IO, Apple’s WWDC, Mobile World Congress, TechCrunch Disrupt, CES Conference from our mobile and laptop screens. You can observe on your own that we are drilling down on the ‘everyday life’.
We are figuring out ways to make it faster, easier, safer, and beautiful. We want to control our lives. And how do we control our life? By giving its access to an outside machine that we trust more than we trust ourselves. By outsourcing the decision making to the machines. They are obviously smarter than we are, they are faster and trustworthy. That’s the prevalent belief now. Our businesses, relations, money, jobs, and almost everything is dependent on the technology. The unforeseen quest to control brings us here, to the techno-religion. Where we trust machines, data, algorithms, smart-gadgets more than we trust ourselves


