Snack #47 - Stories of the death of civilization

I’m enamored with stories of epic wars and the destruction or major change of entire systems, planets, and civilizations. The Matrix and Dune are my favorites but I can honestly say, it doesn’t matter - all the stories have the same pattern of man creating something they shouldn’t, being overcome by their humanity, losing themselves in corruption and desire, failing and falling.

We are in the midst of one of those collapses, maybe the biggest one recorded in a nonfiction setting. I think about it because I can clearly see the similarities of the pattern in fiction and nonfiction - we have all the knowledge but not the ability to pause and look objectively at something. It’s not human, and as so many movies portray, the moment we let AI look at humankind objectively, we will probably be destroyed.

I mean, look at us - we have it pretty good, but give power to things that our animal brain tells us are good. Ultimately, we were designed to have conflict, to be greedy, to fail, and to succeed - but never consistently, for good or bad.