Deepthink Challenge #1 - For Greater Glory (of the Few)

The Tulip Chamber stood empty, for now. Soon, the dignitaries representing the Golden Houses will fill these silent halls with insidious affability and nauseating courtesy, all the while seeking any vulnerability for political or social advantage. Noe Bohdi sat in quiet rumination awaiting the 35th Meeting of the Houses. This is the year 3625 AH, 1549th reign of His Excellency, Grand Vizier, President for Life, General of the Army, Doctor Donald J. Trump, Papa, Purple Heart, Distinguished Service Medal, Congressional Gold Medal, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the Mexican Empire in Central America, Ruler of the Canadias, Holy Emperor of South America in general, of Brazil in particular. Of course, the Grand Viziership has been shared in the past 3000 or so years amongst the Commonwealth of Americas, Zhunghua Co-prosperity Sphere, and Eternal Union of Europe and Greenland. Noe Bohdi, however, was not reflecting on the nominal rulers of these lands and seas; rather, he was reviewing the merits of Lawrense Page’s continuing position as Abdeel of Tetragrammaton.

The Condottiere Revolt diminished the nation-state as a viable political entity. The professionalization of the security apparatus resulted in the political class losing touch with the security enforcers and the public. The security enforcers, who had no ties to either the public or the political class, revolted, when denied payment following the Great Monetary Crisis. Lesser states fell into neo-feudalism of Condottiere warlords. More ruthless and resourceful political states implemented the New Look. Assisted by the Golden Houses, the political class was able to manufacture a new class of warriors: genetically improved, with cybernetic enhancements, guided by the Intelligence, and addicted to beta-hexosamidase A. The Mamluks were gifted by Editas with Tay-Sach’s disease, resulting in their dependence on continuous beta-hexosamidase A infusion, in order to escape gruesome death. As a further insurance, Celera gifted Mamluks with shorter telomeres, dramatically reducing the lifespan of a Mamluk. The social ills of an armed revolt by a professional military has been cured; Marcus Tullius Cicero can rest easy.

Even this meeting of the Golden Houses, the supposed puppeteers behind the Grand Vizier, was time wasted in jockeying for transient politico-social advantage. After all, political and even social timescale becomes irrelevant to beings who live thousands of years. In the end, all comply to the courteous recommendations by the Abdeel, who control the Alphabet. Without Alphabet and its Intelligence, the nano-factories will stop, resulting in cessation of all manufacturing activity. Without the Intelligence, billions of drones will die from guidance withdrawal. Without the Intelligence, international commerce will stop, resulting in starvation deaths of billions more semi-dependents. Without the Intelligence, consciousness transfer will cease; then what will the Golden Houses do with their trillions of SDR wealth?

No, the dignitaries will argue, bicker, and clamor, but in the end, the Abdeel commands, and the Houses obey. The formality of the facade was revolting, but Noe Bohdi, as the First Member of Alphabet PR, was required to smile politely at the riffraff, laugh at their bawdy jokes, and pretend to care about trivial concerns of some House. Not for the first time, in the interminable years Alphabet has granted, Noe Bohdi wistfully recalled dinners with Anders, or was it Anthony? Memory fades . . . Anders, or Anthony, despite being a technocrat, declined the offer for immortality, citing some old text. He belonged to a cult that was devoted to a criminal who was brutally executed; what was the name of the cult? The Intelligence query returns jumbled results of various historical contradictions. Perhaps, Anders chose well; I am cursed to attend these infernal centennial meetings till Sol bursts, billions of years into the future.

NB:
AH - Anno Homo superior
SDR - Special Drawing Rights
Abdeel - "servant of god"

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” (Matthew 13:12)

Concentration and centralization of power is a social tendency. The owners of money and property will continue to own more, while those who labor will continue to have less. Technological advance will accelerate the process of wealth redistribution from the bottom to the top, as increasing proportion of the tools of labor are claimed by the wealthy. With the advancement of automation and intelligent machines, even labor itself is being owned by those who are at the upper 20% of the population. Unlike the past eras of slave operated plantation, the automated slaves do not require complex psychological terror tactics to motivate them. The automatons operate at will, require minimal maintenance, and perform in homogenous uniformity. As the means of production shift from man to machine, the owners of machines benefit at the expense of laborers. The increasing automation of our economy - 3-D printers, nano-robotics, self-operating transportation, A.I. guided medical service delivery, blockchain ledger and transaction, etc. - will contract the current economy and concentrate wealth to the upper echelons of society.

With the possibility of gene editing to extend human life to 120 years, the scientific advancement allows for undisrupted transfer of wealth to the upper class for minimum of 80 years time span. Imagine Warren Buffett, 87 years at the time of this post, living for another 33 years, accumulating more wealth. The flow of money upwards will be torrential in character, as the wealthy live to 120 years or more, while the mid- and lower classes die at 60, or 70 years of age, dividing their assets amongst taxation and their relations. With the possibility of immortality via consciousness transfer, humanity will finally actualize the theoretical divine god-kings of the past.

In the past, the nobility and the royalty projected an image of having different blood from the commons. With genetic editing and cybernetic enhancements, the new ruling class will have better blood than the commons under certain measurable scientific metric. The concept of democracy, then, becomes irrational, since homo superiors can more efficiently govern a polity than mere homo sapiens. The Hindus of Indus stratified their society into immutable castes based on unprovable mysticism. The future illuminati will solidify eternal social castes based on science (and money).

Technological wizardry only magnifies our social condition; it does not change or cure social dysfunction. The inequality of wealth becomes a problem in current semi-feudal state of modern economy, but it will be far worse in the future of immortal demigods who own all our the planet in their conglomerates. For those who have, the future will bring magnified comfort and luxury; for those who have not, even the little comfort will be lost. The welfare state will need to expand, if the polity is to survive increasingly disenfranchised drones. The quality of entertainment will decrease, as the quantity increases to distract the disenfranchised from reflecting on their lot in life. Religion will need to be suppressed, as any religious institutions not aligned with he ruling class will be a focal point for drone dissent.

Without political intervention and regulation of emerging technology, the world will race towards a future of demigods and concentrated wealth. In the democratic West, despite vestigial religious reluctance, the political system is crippled by moneyed interests to properly regulate any technological revolution. In the autocratic East, the rules are not bound by traditional religious injunctions, and will likely embrace clinical immortality; after all, the first Emperor of China died while searching for the herb of immortality.

The scientific advancement that will be detrimental to the human condition will be clinical immortality, genetic editing, and cybernetic enhancement. Without immortality, rulers and elites die, and their power and wealth will be scattered somewhat. Rigid caste system can be avoided, unless you are a Hindu, where upward mobility is possible due to vacancy from death. Death equalizes all men. Without genetic editing, men cannot segregate themselves based on heritability on demand. Without cybernetic enhancements, the elite power structure cannot control the masses as easily. But the most important tool of ensuring prosperous future of man is the proper training of his mind and cultivation of virtue. The solutions to man's social ills are not found in scientific texts, but in the character of his being.