Replying to We Are Your Guardians

We are formless. We are the very discipline and morality that Americans invoke so often. How can anyone hope to eliminate us? As long as this nation exists, so will we.

The mapping of the human genome was completed early this century. As a result, the evolutionary log of the human race lay open to us. We started with genetic engineering, and in the end, we succeeded
in digitizing life itself. But there are things not covered by genetic information. Human memories, ideas. Culture. History. Genes don't contain any record of human history.

Is it something that should not be passed on? Should that information be left at the mercy of nature? We've always kept records of our lives. Through words, pictures, symbols - from tablets to books. But not all the information was inherited by later generations. A small percentage of the whole was selected and processed, then passed on. Not unlike genes, really.

That's what history is.

But in the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible. Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander... All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate. It will only slow down social progress, reduce the rate of evolution.

What we propose to do is not to control content, but to create context.

The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards the development of convenient half-truths. Just look at the strange juxtapositions of morality around you. Billions spent on new weapons in order to humanely murder other humans. Rights of criminals are given more respect than the privacy of
their victims. Although there are people suffering in poverty, huge donations are made to protect endangered species. Everyone grows up being told the same thing.

"Be nice to other people."
"But beat out the competition!"
"You're special."
"Believe in yourself and you will succeed."

But it's obvious from the start that only a few can succeed.

You exercise your right to "freedom" and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth." And this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

We're trying to stop that from happening.

It's our responsibility as rulers. Just as in genetics, unnecessary information and memory must be filtered out to stimulate the evolution of the species.


Who else could wade through the sea of garbage you people produce, retrieve valuable truths and even interpret their meaning for later generations?

That's what it means to create context.

You lack the qualifications to exercise free will. Does something like a "self" exist inside of you? That which you call "self" serves as nothing more than a mask to cover your own being. In this era of ready-made 'truths', "self" is just something used to preserve those positive emotions that you occasionally feel. Another possibility is that "self" is a concept you conveniently borrowed under the logic that it would endow you with some sense of strength. Ironic that although "self" is something that you yourself fashioned, every time something goes wrong, you turn around and place the blame on something else.

"It's not my fault. It's not your fault."

In denial, you simply resort to looking for another, more convenient "truth" in order to make yourself feel better. Leaving behind in an instant the so-called "truth" you once embraced. Should someone like that be able to decide what is "truth"? Should someone like you even have the right to decide? You've done nothing but abuse your freedom. You don't deserve to be free! We're not the ones smothering the world.
You are.

The individual is supposed to be weak. But far from powerless -- a single person has the potential to ruin the world. And the age of digitized communication has given even more power to the individual. Too much power for an immature species.

Building a legacy involves figuring out what is wanted, and what needs to be done for that goal. All this, you used to struggle with. Now, we think for you.

We are your guardians after all.

---

Eleven years later and still gets me every time.