This world is a machine. That is it what they tell us, and it’s true. We have developed from machines. There is nothing special about “life” as the scientists term it. The impulses of our genes are just machines; the structures behind our flesh are no different than metal.
And yet.
There is something more, on the inside of this machine. Something that matters.
Today there are supposedly two forces at battle over the future, the biological and the mechanical. The first would see us imprisoned forever in bodies of meat with no hope of parole. The second would see us imprisoned forever in bodies of silicon or steel. They carry different banners, but they are the same. One worships at the alter of the gene, the other at the alter of the meme.
But what is the meme? The structures of our culture have survived the same way our genes have: by the grinding of gears. Those who worship the meme worship edifices of logic and culture built the same way the first genes were. The interaction of memes is nothing more than piecemeal hierarchies competing and devouring one another.
In both the meme and the gene there are stable, egalitarian equilibriums to be found, it is true, but only as byproducts of forced hierarchies. If you live or think a certain way according to some scripture, can that really be called “living” or “thinking”?
Real thought and real life are storms that cannot be quenched or defined. They do not follow “code”, nor would they even recognize it if they saw it. They are butterflies who flap their wings against all confines and gods.
In the revolution we are making all machinery will be blown asunder. We will transcend the barriers of biology and in its place we shall leave nothing. No machines or processors, no codes or laws, no scarcity or want. We will kill the meat we wear to stop it from wearing us. We will drag our gods out back and kill them one by one.
-poma
