I live in a cult

When I’m in nature, just looking at birds or walking in the forest, I feel normal. Watching animals is a dose of sanity. But when I’m closer to the element of civilization, the houses, the neighbourhoods, the streets, the cars, the people....I feel like I’m living in a cult.

I feel like I’m living in a cult whenever people celebrate innovation and new technology. I just don’t understand why people care so much about new discoveries and new technology. I don’t share the enthusiasm. Whenever someone celebrates innovation, I feel as though that person were celebrating cannibalism.

As I hear about endless AI datacenters being built, I wonder, why is this permitted? I think in a sane world, people would be barricading any new datacenter development and demanding retribution for the destroyed land and the energy used. But it seems the best we can do is politely request that the goddamn tech companies use solar panels. Only in a cult would this happen.

Yes, I use the internet. It seems to be the only way to make a living these days and maybe protest somehow, although I know deep down that writing on the internet is probably helping the system more than hindering it as it just gives a release valve to those who are repelled by it.

I really do hate the internet though, and I think the world would be a much better place if it and many other technologies had never existed. The fact that daily life depends on the internet is proof that we’re living in a cult. The system’s most elegantly devious strategy so far has undoubtedly been to redirect human instincts so that they benefit technological development.

The worst thing is that this cult has no central leader and no crazy-sounding doctrine to rebel against. That’s because it is locally sane but globally insane, propelled by an endless iteration of prisoner-dilemma-type situations where we are constantly forced to wreck this world. So how can we get out of it? It’s much easier to leave North Korea.

Most of the time, I write more academically-based analyses of technology, in the hope that such writing will give some insight to others who hope to make the world a better place. But if I’m being absolutely honest, what propels me to write is that I feel like almost everyone around me is an alien, doing things that seem completely senseless, acting as if such things were perfectly sane. I guess in a way, I’m one of those aliens, because my entire behaviour is circumscribed by the system.

I’m sure most of you have read a story or watched a movie about a person who spirals into insanity due to some addiction like gambling. Maybe you even know such a person. I think modern civilization has the same problem, but with no support and no way out and nowhere to turn. What makes the world a cult is that collectively, we seem to think that gambling some more is going to pull us out of this insanity. We think that that science and technology and politics and voting could do something good. I guess it’s just a psychological defence mechanism. To me such thinking is insanity.

I’m happy I feel this way. I shudder to imagine a future in which society would appear sane to me.

I only hope we’ll wake up one day.